Entering the Labor Market: What is our dream?

Democratic Club of Carlsbad & Oceanside. August 27, 2011 - Honor Labor Event

Here is the text from a speech I gave this morning at the Honor Labor DEMCOO meeting. :) enjoy.


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Good morning everyone! What a great day to be here. Thank you to everyone that dedicated their time, effort, and hard work to make this event possible. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you a few of my life experiences with our education system and my recent entrance into the work force.

I may be a new face to some of you, so let me take a second to introduce myself. I'm Jennifer, I am 24 years old and I have lived in Oceanside for 16 years. I was born and raised in California, and I am a product of the Oceanside Unified School District. I graduated from El Camino High School in 2005 and, with the help of my parents, was able to enroll at the University of Redlands.

I graduated from the University of Redlands on the 3 and a half year plan with a Bachelors degree in Physics and a minor in Mathematics that I fully blame on my high school physics teacher and I've made sure he knows it.


I completed my college courses at the end of the fall semester in December of 2008 and had to wait until the end of spring before I could participate in the commencement activities with the rest of my class. Between December 2008 and the moment I got to walk across the stage to formally accept my diploma, I had been engaged in a completely fruitless search for employment. I submitted countless resumes and applications in a maniacal daily effort to find the job that I had been assured would be mine with a degree. I did the hard work and would be rewarded. Not so easy.

After graduating from Redlands, I moved home and began math and physics tutoring to help earn extra cash. The entire spring semester came and went, and I celebrated my graduation with friends and family. The sobering truth about what it takes to pay for and earn a degree hit me hard right after my graduation party: my first student loan payment was due, and I still had no job, no positive prospects for employment and no income. My only option was to use the money I received for graduation gifts and apply it towards my first student loan payment.

It took both of my parents and me 6 months of intensive full time search to find my job. I consider this timeframe the "perfect Sallie Mae timing" because that's exactly when the payments needed to begin to be paid back. From that point forward, I have been able to pay them on time, every month. To piggyback a little bit on the previously discussed "Making Ends Meet"... every month, 30% of my monthly income goes straight to Sallie Mae & the Department of Education. For reference, I pay more for my student loans, than I do for rent and utilities combined. And I will continue to do so until I am about 40 years old.

I am sharing this information with you today because I fell in the very middle of the pack when it came to requesting and receiving financial aid. I grew up here in Oceanside, in the Rancho del Oro community, and my parents made enough money to make us completely ineligible for public funding assistance. But the cost of college was still prohibitively expensive for my family. So we decided that my education would be paid with the assistance of student loans, and we would work out the living expenses between each other.

Please keep in mind that I graduated high school in 2005 as I read you these next 2 facts...

Here in California, attending a UC school this fall will cost a freshman TWO TIMES what it cost in 2004.

For a student enrolling at a CSU campus, it will cost TWO TIMES what it cost in just 2007! That should scare you. Considering that it's taking students more than 4 years to complete their degree in the public school system, for a student enrolling as a freshman in 2007, they paid TWICE as much to enroll in their 5th year of school than their 1st.

We are entering a very scary time for education. Historically speaking, the concept of education has been treated as a public good. It is becoming more and more clear that a college education will no longer be something that is available to most students from any walk of life. Public education is consistently being treated and transformed into an exclusively expensive privatized industry and unless we're honest with ourselves about the role it plays in building our society, our population, and our nation's ability to compete on a global scale... we will have a grossly undereducated population that can not compete on the international stage, much less protect themselves from any predatory force or policy at home.

In order to put Americans back to work, we need to begin with an educated -- involved -- informed -- and useful -- population. Such a population is also required to ensure that our government runs the way it was designed to. We have to be honest about the state of our education system and where it NEEDS to fit in our culture. But I'll come back to that.

I want to talk a little bit about what "having a job" actually means for someone my age...

It means more than just a paycheck. It means health insurance. It means a regular daily schedule. It means accountability. It means responsibility. It means (most of the time) financial independence. It provides opportunity. It offers experience. It increases one's marketability. It builds confidence.

When you take a capable, successful, confident person, enable them and congratulate them all the way through their 16 years of school, most likely with some sort of debt upon graduation, only to drop them in an economy where there are little to no opportunities... or hiring managers that don't want any currently unemployed persons to apply.... You've stunted their growth as a perfectly employable person. You've given a perfectly healthy ambitious mind no outlet. Eventually it becomes a deeper personal issue because it doesn't make sense.

These types of issues have dire consequences when propagated out at the national level to millions of people. If we do not make job creation a serious priority, we are literally fostering an entire generation of citizens ready and willing to work with no companies willing and ready to hire. It's as if we've mastered the art of building cars, and paving roads... but there's no one putting gas in the tank.

There are few things we need to do to get back on track... today I would like to discuss what I believe are the top 3.

NUMBER 1.

1. Our most recent graduates, high school, college, vocational, technical school... it doesn't matter... our most recent graduates are our absolute best problem solvers and we need to create a culture where today's students are inspired, excited and given the opportunity to solve both today's and tomorrow's problems. I call this "The NASA Effect" and here's why:

At the time that Apollo 11 safely parachuted into the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969 the average age of the people in the control room was 28 years old. The average age at NASA now is 47. According to NASA's public affairs site, the average hire in 2009 was 41 years old. Why?

I believe the way to face off "The NASA Effect" is not to expect our institutions to change their ways, but empower our young people. A couple years ago I toured NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory research center with a group of 9-12 year old girls as part of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics summer camp called Minds for Design. If you asked these girls what the acronym JPL meant at the beginning of this camp, they would have had no clue what you were talking about. By the end of their session, not only did they know, they knew what went on inside JPL's walls, and it was on their radar as a future career option. It became part of their world.

The reason why this is so important is simple: the children of today do not know what they're capable of, what their options are, or what they may be passionate about unless they're given the chance to expand their horizons. If we can empower our students from a young age, equip them with the tools to succeed, and provide opportunities to channel their creativity into innovation... they will undoubtedly rise to the occasion as the world's best and brightest. We must give them the chance to do so and the companies to hire them... which leads me to my next priority.

NUMBER 2

2. American corporations must stop outsourcing our jobs. The rate that American corporations are laying off their own citizens only to hire abroad, or hire through a 3rd party to avoid paying a living wage is un-American. The cost and standard of living that we have all become accustomed to in this country is not an excuse for a company to hire outside our borders. It's completely irresponsible. I call this problem the "Cold Shoulder."

We have some of the greatest corporations in the world in this country but in a culture saturated with iPads, smartphones, tablets, and computer screens... our world is virtually flat. Outsourcing a job to save money and protect profit margins is inherently the same as turning a cold shoulder to the American worker. Finding a place where workers can be paid less, and labor protections are not as established seems like it could be almost more of a moral issue than a business decision. You would think that American companies would take responsibility for American citizens, right? What good would it be to have a corporation in the United States if American citizens are not taken care of to maintain it?

This leads me to my next point...

NUMBER 3

3. In order to keep any employee a happy, healthy, contributing member of society our corporations need to take responsibility for the well being of every single person that relies on them for a living. When employees are treated like real people with real families, certain "benefits" like health, dental, and vision insurance are no brainers.

If you expect to hire a college-educated person, perhaps you should consider offering tuition reimbursement as part of their compensation package. If one expects to hire and retain a healthy individual -- health insurance is a perfectly reasonable benefit. Ahem -- Wal Mart.

Here is a fun fact about Wal Mart: Wal Mart currently employs 1% of the working population in the United States. Out of every single person in this country with a job, 1% works for Wal Mart. For a single person household, Wal Mart provides an annual salary that is basically at the poverty line with virtually no benefits. Is that where the standard for American workers is set? Wal Mart is the biggest private employer in the world with over 2 million employees. We must demand that they step up to the responsibility of being such an international economic force.

It's time for our businesses to treat their staff like people, and not like tools to maintain their profit margins. But again, this is an instance where we can not expect humongous institutions to change their ways, we must empower each other. Only by working together and collectively agreeing that there is a standard at which we as workers deserve to be treated, can we change these types of practices.

It's going to take passion, and organization, and information, and participation to make these ideas a reality... and it's possible. The solutions to these issues do not require a huge amount of money. They require commitment. I firmly believe that education, corporate responsibility and workers rights are a place where we can find common ground with any voter, citizen, both adults and children and begin a conversation about getting involved.

Focusing on the education of our children and employment of our citizens today will insure our success in the future locally, nationally and world wide.

Thanks for your time and your personal commitment to be a contributor in the changes that will shape tomorrow's world.