Herbert is no doubt correct that the lack of summer jobs for inner-city youth is a major issue, but it pales in comparison to the lousy education most of them are getting the rest of the year...

From January through May, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, “the national teen employment rate averaged only 33.1 percent, tying for the lowest employment rate in the past 60 years.”

For youngsters like Emmanuel Wayne and others in this distressed city just a stone’s throw from Philadelphia, the problem is much worse. Last summer, the employment rate for black teens from low-income families was an abysmal 18 percent.

This is the flip side of the American dream. Kids who grow up poor and never work at a regular job tend not to think in terms of postgraduate degrees, marriages and honeymoons, careers and the cost of educating the next generation.

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June 16, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Flip Side of the Dream

By BOB HERBERT

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/opinion/16herbert.html

Camden, N.J.

Emmanuel Wayne pressed his back against the shabby, one-story building, trying unsuccessfully to escape the downpour. The blue-and-white sign overhead said Bill’s Liquors.