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Show iiffiliRepOrt by WorC Hatch An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That's common knowledge among those who know practical prac-tical medicine, but it's woefully woe-fully lacking from the the educational opportunities available to most youths In . Utah, or who don't take advantage ad-vantage of those opportunities, oppor-tunities, have few skills to take into the marketplace. Second, labor law indi- medicine chest of those who treat society's ills. - Take welfare,for instance. The problem is obvious; There are people In this country who cannot support themselves and their families, fam-ilies, and who need some sort of assistance to survice. So, billions of dollars are poured into rent subsidies, food stamps, and other federal fed-eral programs aimed at helping the poor. These programs, pro-grams, though very well-meaning, well-meaning, often smother the symptons of the welfare problem pro-blem without preventing the disease. There are other approaches. ap-proaches. While some of America's disadvantaged simply need federal money to survive, others or willing' to support themselves and need the opportunities to do so. Helping to provide those opportunities, In many cases instead of providing federal funds can more permanently solve, the welfare problem. Such a solution is manifest In proposals like the Youth Opportunity Wage Act, which I introduced in the Sentate to tackle the problem of youth unemployment. Youth unemployment, nationally, has reached 19 percent. That Includes a national youth unemployment rate of 36 percent among minorities and roughly 14 percent In Utah. Almost one in five of our young people are not able to get the experience ex-perience and training they need to earn a good living. Two factors compound the problem. First, the underprivileged, underprivi-leged, who either don't have I c'ates that an employer pay the constantly rising minimum min-imum wage no matter what skills an employee has, and as a result, employers often phase out jobs rather than pay unwarranted wages. So, youth jobs are dwindling, and underpriviledged youths, without marketable educations, edu-cations, without job experience, ex-perience, without on-the-job training, are left too often to fall onto the welfare rolls. One solution is clear: Create more youth jobs That's the intent of my proposal, pro-posal, which will allow an . employer to pay 16 to 19 year old workers 75percentofthe minimum wage for the first six months of employment, which will give young workers time to learn their jobs. Teenagers already receiving re-ceiving minimum wage or better would not be affected, and provisions of the bill would prevent the exploitation exploita-tion of young workers byun-thlcal byun-thlcal employers. " 350,000 new jobs would re -suit from such action, according to estimates. I myself have been contacted by businesses and employers who told me: "There' are things I need done that aren't worth the minimum wage, but if you get the bill through I can give a kid a job. Granted, teenage workers for six months, wouldn't make as much money. That becomes less important, however, when you think about how much theymake--and what awaits them in the future-- if they stay unemployed. |