Illinois teen employment at new low, By Julie Wernau, January 26, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “Eighteen-year-old Gabrielle Banks braids her friends’ hair on the West Side for car fare money. The Community Christian Alternative Academy student has been looking for a job since last summer, when she worked at her high school as an ‘ambassador’ for health and fitness, back when the program was funded. ‘I don’t just think I want a job. I think I need a job,’ she said, ‘My mom, she’s the only income we get, and there’s four of us. I could help out with things like groceries, cleaning supplies, toothpaste, stuff like that.’ Banks is part of an unprecedented number of unemployed teens in the state, a fact state and local leaders say puts them at risk of falling further behind economically for years to come. A report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, commissioned by the Alternative Schools Network and set to be announced Tuesday in Chicago at a Youth Hearing on Education, Jobs and Justice, says the employment rate for Illinois teens in 2009 was more than 20 percentage points below 2000, marking a new low for the state…”
Day: January 26, 2010
Teenage Pregnancy and Sex Education
- Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it, By Rob Stein, January 26, 2010, Washington Post: “The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday. The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 — the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation’s leading reproductive-health think tank. Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control…”
- Teen pregnancy, abortion rates rise, By Sharon Jayson, January 26, 2010, USA Today: “The teen pregnancy rate in the USA rose 3% in 2006, the first increase in more than a decade, according to data out today. The data also show higher rates of births and abortions among girls 15-19. The numbers, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health, show a clear reversal from the downward trend that began in the 1990s. About 7% of teen girls got pregnant in 2006, a rate of 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teens. That’s up slightly from 69.5 in 2005, Guttmacher says. In 1990, when rates peaked, about 12% got pregnant. Just as the long-term declines in teen pregnancy were for all racial and ethnic groups, the rise in 2006 was for all demographics, the report shows…”
Unemployment and Poverty – Ohio
- 1.5 million Ohioans are living in poverty, By Catherine Candisky, January 23, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “The economic tsunami has left its mark on Ohio. The annual State of Poverty in Ohio report — unveiled four days before Gov. Ted Strickland’s State of the State speech on Tuesday — is packed with sobering statistics. But this may be the most alarming: Since 2002, the state’s population has increased by 1.2 percent while the number of people living in poverty has grown by 41.7 percent. Ohio is now home to 1.5 million people — 13.7 percent of its population — living below the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that’s a household income of $22,050 or less a year. Nearly a third of Ohioans, 3.4 million people, had incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, a level widely accepted as needed to cover housing, food and other necessities. The report by Columbus-based Community Research Partners documents what many now know firsthand…”
- Numbers show depth of Ohio’s economic despair, By Jessica Alaimo, January 23, 2010, Lancaster Eagle Gazette: “President Barack Obama and state leaders could be forgiven if they thought a presidential visit to Ohio occurred on Friday the 13th, not the 22nd. More bad news about the state’s economy preceded Obama’s visit to Lorain, where he promised, ‘I won’t stop fighting to bring back jobs here.’
• Ohio’s unemployment rate rose to 10.9 percent in December, the latest figures from the Department of Job and Family Services. The jobless rate was 10.6 percent in November, and the department blamed losses in service industries for the decline.
• A new report from the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies said 14 percent of Ohioans were living in poverty in 2008. Considering the number of Ohioans out of work has risen by 196,000 in the past year, the current poverty rate is almost certainly worse.
• Ohio’s unemployment compensation fund is $1.8 billion in the red, a watchdog reporting group revealed, and employers could see big hikes in insurance premiums if the state doesn’t start repaying its loans in two years. Recipients also could see their benefits cut…”