Unemployment among black men on Long Island and nationally has reached such proportions that new solutions must be sought before the crisis becomes overwhelming, Sen. Charles Schumer said yesterday.
Schumer (D-N.Y.), who promised to present legislation soon to help remedy the problem, spoke to a Long Island group of mostly black elected officials, community leaders and clergy at SUNY Old Westbury.
"It is a nationwide issue that is particularly prevalent on Long Island, where approximately one in every three black men is out of work," Schumer said. "And let me be clear, the problem affects us all."
Schumer's presentation was sponsored by the Urban League of Long Island and the college. He said the problem must be addressed now because of an upcoming shortage of unskilled and semiskilled workers as baby boomers retire.
Schumer noted that nearly 30 years ago the federal government spent $30 billion a year on programs such as the Job Training Partnership Act, but now spends only a tenth of that on job training.
While Schumer said several nonprofit job training programs have been successful, he picked out STRIVE (Support Training Results In Valuable Employment) in East Harlem as the one he knows best. He said it and 16 similar programs in cities around the nation showed 70 percent of graduates two years later were still in the same job they had been placed in and 50 percent had gained significant pay raises. "And that was without employer incentives, which I will be proposing," he added.
Schumer's ideas seemed to be well received by his audience. But Doug Mayers, the head of the Freeport-Roosevelt NAACP, pointed out that employers getting incentives need monitoring and more job training is needed in high school for those not going on to college. He also said the BOCES programs and union apprentice programs need to do more.
Schumer agreed.
Assemb. Earlene Hooper (D-Hempstead) said afterward that she supports Schumer's proposal, but that too little attention is given to craftsmen, who can sometimes earn more than professionals. "You're going to need a plumber, mechanic or roofer a lot more often than an architect," she added.
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