IPS Blog

DC youth between the ages of 16 to 19 are in crisis. They are experiencing unemployment levels 2.3 times the national average, reports the Justice Policy Institute in their latest research brief Working for a Better Future.

The brief takes a look at the collateral effects on youth who do not have access to jobs, such as higher rates of juvenile justice involvement, negative self-image and disconnection from their community. It also provides compelling evidence for the District to invest substantially more into dynamic long-term job training and placement assistance programs that incorporate job skills development, mentoring, job placement, and innovative program completion incentives like a GED and adjudication expungement. There is a generation of young people who are growing up without the skills and experiences to prepare them to contribute in meaningful ways to their lives, families and communities once they reach adulthood.

Often, I find myself in conversations with people about local DC youth and the popular perception is that these kids don't want to try and take advantage of what's here.  It's true that, on the surface, the District has a wealth of programs set up to "engage, train, and employ young people. Too often, however, this work is fragmented, uncoordinated, and focuses on the quantity of youth served over the quality of intervention." And once through these programs, young people have little to show for it and run the risk of having more encounters with the justice system, becoming a victim of crime, and limited and low-paid work opportunities. The District has a responsibility to make sure its youth in the juvenile are equipped to succeed by offering quality programming that promotes public safety and opportunities for self-development.  

The following are examples of successful programs operating in DC offering comprehensive programming that results in positive changes in the lives of DC youth:

• Youth Build U.S.A - serves low-income young people ages 16-24.
• YearUp - focuses on IT skills training and has a mission focused on helping young people overcome barriers to success due to criminal convictions.
• STRIVE - seeks to "transform the lives of at-risk populations by providing support and training that lead to livable wage employment and societal reintegration."
• JobCorps - a residential education and training program for youth ages 16-24

The report offers the following policy recommendations:

1. Invest more in quality employment programs for youth that includes efforts to link youth with work that interests them, has potential for advancement and development, and connects them to their community.
2. Dedicate more resources in the wards with the most need to access the job market.
3. Use evidence-based models that have been shown to positively impact youth.
4. Ensure that employer partners accept youth who have successfully completed job preparedness programs regardless of justice system contact.
5. Consider innovative incentives for increasing youth participation in programs.

In this week's OtherWords editorial package, Sam Pizzigati puts Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin's discarded U.S. citizenship into context and Booth Gunter discusses the grim conditions young inmates endured at a for-profit prison in Mississippi. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven't signed up yet, please do.

1. No Country for Rich Men / Sam Pizzigati
   From Manhattan to Monaco, the world's wealthiest people are disconnecting into a class of stateless transients.
2. Operation Lip Service / Chris Toensing
   A year after President Obama promised that Washington would stop buttressing autocratic regimes, Bahrain's popular revolt is still being crushed.
3. Bank of America's Healthier Roots / Scott Klinger and Chuck Collins
   Founder Amadeo P. Giannini built a booming business while helping others improve their lot and their communities.
4. Meting out Injustice in Mississippi / Booth Gunter
   Prisoners, some as young as 13, are being brutalized in facilities owned by private companies that exist solely to turn a profit.
5. Our Ruinous Game / Donald Kaul
   Football fans have a high tolerance for pain -- in others -- and show little sympathy for the plight of the players who now are seeking redress for their injuries.
6. Coddling the 10 Percent / Jim Hightower
   To reel in these mid-level richies, bankers are offering to pamper them lavishly.
7. Abortion Politics / William A. Collins
   Although its opposition to abortion and family planning probably won't foment a landslide away from the Catholic Church, the steady erosion of membership is increasing.
8. USS Excess / Khalil Bendib

The number of people renouncing their U.S. citizenship is higher than ever.

Now that new provisions in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act have gone into effect, the feds are reining in tax dodgers living abroad. But many of these super-wealthy people who would be forced to pony up more in tax payments are choosing to sever ties with their country of birth instead.

Many of these individuals lead nomadic, season-driven lives. Their choice of where to live at any one time is based on that location’s climate, their children’s education, tax constraints, or which of their friends they want to lunch with on any particular day. When one has such a global outlook, paying taxes to something as archaic as a nation-state can be easily ignored. Bloomberg was among the first to report on this story:

About 1,780 expatriates gave up their nationality at U.S. embassies last year, up from 235 in 2008, according to Andy Sundberg, secretary of Geneva’s Overseas American Academy, citing figures from the government’s Federal Register. The embassy in Bern, the Swiss capital, redeployed staff to clear a backlog as Americans queued to relinquish their passports.

Renouncing their citizenship does not cost much to these global elites, who can achieve statelessness rather quickly:

During a 10-minute renunciation ceremony in a booth with bullet-proof glass windows, embassy staff ask exiting Americans whether they are acting voluntarily and understand the implications of giving up their passports. They pay a fee of $450 to renounce and may incur an “exit tax” on unrealized capital gains if their assets exceed $2 million or their average annual U.S. tax bill is more than $151,000 during the past five years.

The Obama administration deserves some credit for putting a scare into the expatriate tax-dodging class. But it can certainly still do more for the taxpayers facing deportation.

The number of immigrants being deported from the United States is also at an all-time high. After last year's much-celebrated announcement of a new discretion policy by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), advocates have seen dissappointing results. ICE has reviewed 219,554 pending cases, but only 16,544 (or 7.5 percent) were identified as amenable for prosecutorial discretion as of April 16, 2012. They have only closed 2,722 cases, according to figures released by ICE (pdf).

The status quo of post-recession America shows a government that's slighted by some of the richest members of its citizenry, while wistfully ignoring the plight of millions yearning for the full opportunity to become Americans.

In this week's OtherWords editorial package, Sarah Anderson underscores the dangers posed by Wall Street's lightning-speed computerized trading and Donald Kaul makes the case for eating more vegetables. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven't signed up yet, please do.

1. Wall Street's Speed Freaks / Sarah Anderson
   The high-frequency trading that dominates the stock market could trigger another global financial crisis.
2. Grassroots Victory / Carl Gibson
   A coalition of big corporations has lost a battle to nab a huge tax break.
3. A Watered-Down Education / Wenonah Hauter
   Project WET's supposed mission is a slap in the face to any community that has had its water muscled away by Nestle.
4. A More Meaningful Mother's Day Gift / Leslie Kantor
   How about giving moms a little help with the birds and the bees?
5. Vegan Confessions / Donald Kaul
   The vegetable is a quick cure for much if not most of our health problems.
6. Food Stamp Foolishness / Jim Hightower
   Rep. Paul Ryan's trying to justify his abuse of the poor with religious lip service.
7. The Pipeline from the Black Lagoon / William A. Collins
   TransCanada's Keystone XL project is rotten.
8. Vegan on Board / Khalil Bendib

Newt assured us:

I Will be the Nominee
I Will beat Mitt Rominee
I Will create a Moon Colony
I am not full of Baloney

Fortunately only the last is true
But losing you still makes us blue
We’ll miss having you to tease
We’ll miss our jokes about Tiffany’s

We'll carry on with Barack and Mitt
But we lament that you called it quits