Fifteen thousand young people filtered through the doors of more than 500 government agencies, nonprofit organizations and private companies across the District on Monday to start a six-week summer job program that has become a defining source of tension between Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the D.C. Council.
Bowser fought to expand the Summer Youth Employment Program this year to allow older city residents — 22-to-24-year-olds — to join a program previously capped at age 21.
But to make the expansion permanent, the mayor has to prove to the D.C. Council that the program, long criticized for poor management and a lack of oversight, actually succeeds at helping its participants secure full-time employment.
On Monday, that tension and challenge were on stark display when the mayor made a surprise visit to nine of this summer’s participants, inviting them to a “roundtable” discussion of the program on their first day of work.
“I think everybody knows about the Summer Youth Employment Program, right?” Bowser asked the group of bewildered-looking youths ringed by television cameras as they sat at a conference table in the offices of their summer employer, Enlightened Inc., a cybersecurity company.
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Bowser (D) has made it her stated mission while in office to “close the gap” between the District’s haves and have-nots, and she has seized on the expansion of the Summer Youth Employment Program, founded decades ago by then-Mayor Marion Barry (D), as a crucial component of that strategy.
The mayor and other supporters of the program argue that it provides valuable experience to the city's most underserved youth, many of them from east of the Anacostia River and in need of the opportunity to learn "life skills" and build a résumé to survive the modern economy.
“A lot of folks won’t give you a shot if you don’t have previous work experience,” said Gerren Price, deputy director of workforce development at the District’s Department of Employment Services, citing a nationwide survey of employers.
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But although closing the achievement gap is a popular cause on the District’s overwhelmingly liberal council, the expansion of Barry’s jobs program — which has been found in previous years to have an alarming dropout rate and to provide only minimal training — has been greeted with skepticism.
Bowser's mentor, former mayor Adrian M. Fenty, infamously had his own problems with trying to expand the Summer Youth Employment program: The Washington Post found in 2008 that the city took on far more participants than it could comfortably accommodate and was late to pay thousands.
In hearings this year, employers and youths who have participated in the program criticized poor organization and inadequate skills training.
Ultimately, the council approved Bowser’s temporary expansion for this summer, but freshman lawmaker Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) added the provision that the program be comprehensively evaluated at the summer’s end.
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Council members also informally agreed that, if the program is to include 22-to-24-year-olds next summer and beyond, at least 350 from that age group in this summer’s pilot group will have to have full-time employment by next summer.
On Monday, Bowser related some of that pressure to the young people assembled before her.
“I’ve actually been challenged to make sure that this program is worthwhile,” she told the group. And she asked them to tell their council members about their experiences at the summer’s conclusion.
“We have a lot of new people who are working in the government, and they may not understand what the benefits of this program are,” she said. “So can I get you to commit to tell somebody about your experience?”
Of the nine roundtable participants, only three said they would be looking for full-time employment at the end of the summer. Others will be seniors in high school or will head off to college.
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Sharonda Adams, a member of the expanded age bracket who said she has participated in the program since she was 14, said it helped her build a résumé and had provided valuable support through high school and college.
Now a graduate student at Trinity Washington University, Adams said she is “contemplating law school.”
Other participants said they hoped to hone public speaking skills or improve their grasp of computers. One said he wanted to run his own IT company someday.
At the end, Bowser gathered everyone for a picture. Cameras flashed. A reporter in the scrum yelled, “Smile like you just got paid.” Everyone laughed, but awkwardly.
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