CHIUSANO & McHOSE: WHERE ARE THE STIMULUS FUNDS TO HELP NATION’S TROUBLE-FREE YOUTH GET SUMMER JOBS?

24TH DISTRICT LEGISLATORS WANT FEDERAL SUMMER JOBS PROGRAM EXPANDED TO INCLUDE THE NATION’S TROUBLE-FREE YOUNG PEOPLE

    Now that summer has officially started and New Jersey college students are struggling to find summer employment in a shattered economy, Assembly members Gary Chiusano, and Alison Littell McHose, both R-Sussex, Morris and Hunterdon, said hard-working college students should have access to federal-stimulus funded summer jobs.

    “Many college students who rely on summer jobs to fund their education are trying to do so this year in a devastated economy,” said Chiusano, a member of the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee. “They are not looking for a hand-out, but an opportunity to work so that they can stay in school to create a better future for themselves. If we don’t keep our young people in school we are essentially condemning them to the same bleak economic climate that darkens our country today.”

    A federally-funded jobs program is open to economically disadvantaged young people who must be out-of-school and “can meet one of several factors to qualify, including teen parenting or pregnancy, a disability that would hinder them from finding work elsewhere, a skill set below the eighth-grade level, or any record with the law,” according to a recent report in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

    “This summer job program does reach certain segments that deserve a helping hand, but it precludes hard-working young people who struggle with the current economic reality that is no fault of their own,” said McHose, a member of the Assembly Budget Committee. “At some point society has to remember that those working hard to take care of themselves also deserve some help.”