What "Young Invincibles" dare not tell you (youth joblessness, Campaign for Young America, Rory O’Sullivan, Alistair Johnston)

It's an indisputable fact that hundreds of thousands or millions of illegal aliens are doing jobs that unemployed young people could be doing.

So, it's a bit curious that a new report on youth joblessness by the "Young Invincibles" (part of the left-leaning Campaign for Young Americans, "CYA") doesn't mention that. We're talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of potential jobs, yet there's only one brief mention of immigration in their report.

And, their report paints a dire picture ("No End in Sight? The Long-Term Youth Jobs Gap And What It Means to America", [1]):

While the national unemployment rate is 8.2 percent, the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds more than doubles to 16.5 percent. For Latino youth, that figure jumps to 20.5 percent, and for African Americans, it skyrockets to 30.2 percent - almost four times the national average.

That's quite bad. Yet, they don't discuss how reducing illegal immigration (such as through attrition) could help reduce those numbers. Can you trust a study that avoids mentioning one way to reduce youth joblessness, but does mention other ways that fit in better with their agenda? In the hopefully small chance you said "yes", then ask yourself: what else is the study not telling you? They're either living in a fantasy world or trying to make Lysenko proud; don't fall for it.

Instead of mentioning illegal immigration's role [2], the study has these recommendations:

America’s leaders must aggressively pursue policies that facilitate the creation of youth jobs, which would restore opportunity for this generation and safeguard the country’s economic future. Expanded investments in AmeriCorps, summer and year-round jobs, Youth Opportunity Grants, YouthBuild, TANF, and Conservation Corps could close the youth jobs gap by 2016. For example, increased investment in AmeriCorps alone could add 500,000 jobs a year at an annual cost of $6.5 billion (less than the monthly cost of maintaining troops in Afghanistan) bringing us closer to a full recovery for the youth work force.

I'm not ideologically opposed to make-work programs in certain cases (we should have done that after Katrina for instance). But, make-work programs can't become a way of life and they aren't a long-term solution. The better solution is to encourage private sector hiring combined with doing what the Young Invincibles won't tell you: reducing the number of illegal aliens in the U.S.

At this point, some might wonder why they won't mention that. It's not difficult to find.

The CYA partners page [3] lists one of their "Foundation Partners" as the Atlantic Philanthropies; they've contributed millions of dollars to pro-mass and pro-illegal immigration groups. The CYA "National Partners" include such mass/illegal immigration supporters as: AFL CIO, Campus Progress (part of the Center for American Progress), Center for Community Change, Demos, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (Leadership Conference on Civil Rights), Service Employees International Union, and Voto Latino. In Illinois, one of their state partners is the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium. They have several other partners that are merely leftwing.

In a 2010 letter to their New York members, the Young Invincibles promoted a "March Across the Brooklyn Bridge for Health Care & the Change Agenda". One of the partners in that was the New York Immigration Coalition [4] (together with the "Barack Obama Democratic Club", MoveOn, and several other leftwing/Democratic Party affiliates).

Last but not least, in a 2010 letter [5] they wrote:

The DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for young adults who come to the US as minors and complete some college or military service, did not get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. This was a huge disappointment, but young people will fight on.

They go as far not mentioning that those covered by the DREAM Act are illegal aliens. What they also don't mention about that bill (or similar actions) is that it would deprive some American citizens of college and it would negatively impact lower-skilled American workers, most of them Democrats and many of them young.

Please take a moment and contact @YI_Care and @RoryOSully with your thoughts.

7/11/12 UPDATE: Now, Americorps is hyping the study that hyped them (link):

A new study from Young Invincibles predicts a bleak future for young people & unemployment, but this article includes AmeriCorps as a solution!

Did AmeriCorps open up career opportunities for you?

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[1] younginvincibles.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/No-End-In-Sight-7.9.12.pdf, authored by Rory O’Sullivan and Alistair Johnston.

[2] The only mention of immigration in the report is this:

The size of the labor force also depends on the size of the population. This can change as immigration patterns change. A healthy economy will typically attract more immigrants than one coming out of a recession. The absence of these immigrants after a recession – who would be expected to join the US work force under healthier conditions, and thus be included in calculations of anticipated jobs – means more missing jobs.

[3] campaignforyoungamerica.org

[4] speak.younginvincibles.org/o/6096/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1115626

[5] speak.younginvincibles.org/t/10987/blog/comments.jsp?blog_entry_KEY=1324&t=