Jobless American Teens
By Joe Guzzardi, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow

During my 25-year career teaching English as a second language in the California public school system, I had dozens of bilingual high school teaching aides. Since the high enrollment of non-English speakers made the paperwork required by county, federal and school officials imposing, the aides helped me with the administrative details of my classes.

For those lucky teenagers, the aide job was a bonanza.

Not only did it provide outside income but it put them in a professional work environment, enhanced their self-esteem and gave them a plum position to add to their college applications.

Today, the California $27 billion budget deficit and the related school spending cuts have all but wiped out those wonderful jobs. School budgets have been devastated by California’s federally imposed mandate to educate the 1.5 million K-12 non-English speakers at an estimated cost of more than $10 billion.

Furthermore, California’s relentless recession has eliminated other less attractive part-time jobs in the food and leisure industries that nevertheless provided a steady if unspectacular income stream to teenagers and young adults.

These recession-related lows in teen employment could have long-term effects on the potential earning power of an entire generation. Yale University researchers found that low-wage workers who began their careers during economic downturns maintained comparatively lower incomes throughout their working life, even during times of economic prosperity. Ominously for California’s future, young people who start off unemployed or underemployed may stay stuck in low-paying work throughout their adult lives.


Unlike my former aides, most of whom graduated from college and now hold good, entry-level positions, overall youth unemployment rates have risen at a staggering pace. According to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationally 26 percent of teens age 16 to 19 are unemployed. In California, the teen employment picture is among the grimmest in the country with 34.5 percent unemployed, twice the 2000 rate. Broken down by ethnicity, blacks have a 36 percent unemployment rate; Hispanics 37 percent and whites, 32 percent.

Not surprisingly, immigration, both legal and illegal, plays a major role in California teen unemployment. With many jobs once held by teens going to workers 55 and older, many of them illegal immigrants, teens are increasingly shut out.

Again, excessive immigration is a crucial reason California teens can’t find jobs. According to the 2000 Census, California’s Hispanic population was 11 million; by 2009, the Census reported that 13.7 million Hispanics were living in California, many of them illegally. Those 2.7 million new residents include job seekers from all age groups, including teens and older adults.

Legal immigration into California also adds to the challenges teens face.

California has 33 public, four-year universities and more than 100 private colleges. Many immigrants matriculate at these institutions on F-1 student visas. Although terms of their visas only allow for “limited employment,â€