AS MAYOR OF A city where unemployment surpasses the national average, Vincent C. Gray (D) knows better than most about the need for jobs. “There isn’t a day that I don’t go into Ward 8,” he relates, and “people say, ‘Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray. I need a job. I need a job. I need a job.’ ” So it is heartening that Mr. Gray, fulfilling a campaign promise to give this critical issue the attention it deserves, is placing the plight of the District’s jobless on the front burner.
This month, Mr. Gray kicked off an initiative that partners city resources with private companies in a bid to put people to work. Patterned after a successful program in Atlanta, “One City, One Hire” seeks to encourage employers in the region to commit to hire at least one unemployed D.C. resident. Atlanta officials say that they added 14,000 jobs in one year, and their program lacks the incentives — tax credits, wage subsidies and assistance for on-the-job training — that Mr. Gray is committing to the city’s effort, which aims to get 10,000 of the District’s 35,000 unemployed hired the first year. So far, 35 businesses have signed on, with both the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade giving initial, good reviews.
There is, as city officials acknowledge, no magic to creating jobs. No company will hire workers out of the goodness of its heart. Unless business demands it, even if there are tax credits, jobs won’t be in the offing. But companies thinking about hiring might be inclined to look to the District because of the additional resources it is committing. Key to the program’s success will be the ability of the Department of Employment Services, long seen as ineffectual, to make good on its promise of matching qualified candidates with the right jobs.
The hiring initiative is significant as a first step, but there are other needs. More vigorous efforts are needed to remove barriers — logistical (such as transportation) or psychological — that prevent D.C. residents from taking jobs outside the city. It’s worrisome that no definitive picture of the city’s jobless population exists, as is made evident by the seemingly endless debate over whether social ills such as illiteracy and drug addiction have made some residents unemployable. There must be new thinking on how to make D.C. residents more competitive for employment, particularly for jobs in the federal government. Likewise, a city government that is all too quick to embrace policies that increase the cost of doing business in the District needs to examine if there are ways it can be more hospitable to jobs growth.
In the very long run, the best thing any mayor can do for the city’s poor is support school reform, so that the next generation is literate, numerate and ready to go to college. Mr. Gray, like his predecessor, has supported such reform. But he’s also right that the city can’t accept long-term unemployment for its adults in the meantime and must focus attention and resources on this problem.
Loading...
Comments