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In poor urban neighborhoods, teens who want work struggle to find it. The summer jobs they used to get — scarce in the best of times — now often go to adults.
Americans increasingly keep working even as they near traditional retirement age — sometimes taking entry-level jobs to provide income as they transition to full-time retirement.
Teens who do want to work can find that older workers are standing in the way. The summer jobs teens used to take — flipping burgers, unpacking produce at the grocery store, cashiering at the mall — are increasingly filled by older workers.
Many school districts have lengthened their academic years to try to boost student achievement, in the process shrinking summer vacation and the chance for teens to find work even if they want to. “With a shorter summer off from school, students may be less inclined to get a summer job, and employers may be less inclined to hire them.”
I actually work with teenagers on a daily basis as their Case Manager, it's summer time and most of my kids do NOT have jobs. If I had to break them up into three groups I'd say this: Group 1: The ones with excellent grades who are absolutely going to college are doing the following things instead of working: volunteering at local non-profits so they can get scholarships and put the volunteer work on their college application, taking online classes to get ahead, and/or taking dual-enrollment classes with the local community college (which is paid for by the public school system, so free to the youth/parent) so they can get ahead. Group 2: Mediocre grades, but still passing. Parents don't really want them to work because they are wanting them to focus on academics and oftentimes have them taking online classes to replace a bad grade (the school district allows grade forgiveness if you repeat the class and get a better grade, it's also FREE). Occasionally this group will have a part-time job. Group 3: This group is getting failing grades, and are behind in their grade level (i.e. they're 16 and in 8th or 9th grade). This group has been forced by their school to do summer school or credit recovery classes (online and free). I can honestly say less than 25% of the teens I work with are employed and those who do get hired get less than 20 hours per week (even in the summer). When I was in high school I was a full-time lifeguard at Disney in the summer, and worked only weekends during the school year. I loved every second of it. I was on the high school swim team so being a lifeguard never felt like "work" to me.
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