The budget axe wielded by DOGE and the Trump administration fell on Job Corps last week, when the administration announced it was closing 99 of the program’s 123 centers across the country. Job Corps, which began as part of the War on Poverty in 1964, provides free education, job training and a place to live for low-income youth ages 16 to 24. The closings shutter three rural Kentucky locations that serve over 500 students: the Carl D. Perkins Job Corps Center in Prestonsburg, the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Academy in Morganfield and the Muhlenberg Job Corps Center in Greenville.
But why is Job Corps being terminated? Doing so harms the same “forgotten men and women of our country” that the administration says are its priority. Job Corps helps young people who are receiving public assistance or are homeless, in foster care, or qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In 2017, 29% of the youth enrolling had a disability and 65% had left high school before earning a diploma.
So is Job Corps being shuttered to “promote work?” Far from it. The now-closed Kentucky centers were putting students on paths to becoming welders, computer technicians, certified nursing assistants, pharmacy techs, culinary arts employees, automotive mechanics and more.
And just as importantly, Job Corps reaches those who face the biggest problems entering career-track employment. A recent report notes that Job Corps often draws from youth who have tried multiple times to earn a secondary or postsecondary credential but dropped out under the demands of low-wage jobs and financial, family or mental health challenges.
The program’s approach takes these students’ monumental barriers into account. It is typically a residential program, eliminating the worries of food, housing and transportation. It also offers small living stipends and health care, counseling services, life skills training, and post-program help in transitioning to employment or additional education.
Then maybe Job Corps is something our country just cannot afford? No one can say that with a straight face when Job Corps costs 0.02% of the federal budget while the administration is pushing tax cuts skewed to the wealthy that cost 400 times as much.
Neither can anyone credibly claim that the program does not work. The most rigorous study of Job Corps to date found that it helped improve employment, earnings, and education outcomes. Not every hardship-facing young person comes out a roaring success, particularly in an economy that produces far too few living wage jobs. But it is easy to find testimonials of Job Corps graduates in Facebook posts:
- “This place picked me up when I was broken. It gave me a reason to wake up in the morning. It gave me back the pieces of myself I thought I’d lost forever. I started to believe I could become someone,” said Jessica Williams, a current Job Corps student in Prestonsburg.
- “My 21 year old son is on the autism spectrum. He is currently on Medicaid and is learning Information Technology (IT) at the Morganfield, KY Earle C. Clements Job Corps training center. He is approximately half-way through his education there… Just last week, we had discussed his plan to finish his IT program, enter into the AI/Robotics program and then obtain his advanced education… He has long wanted to work in Cyber Security, but he is now devastated,” said Dale K. Hart.
- “Tearing down Job Corps, a place where you learn stability and free trades. . . is absolutely mind boggling. I was at Muhlenberg Job Corps Center from 2015-2016, I met amazing people from all walks of life, seen people who were on their very last strand of hope make something of themselves years later,” said Keeley Staples.
The young people in Job Corps, who have survived so many bumps in life, now face a new one. Many may lose hope and direction. Some will become homeless. And it is right to fear that cutting support for left-behind young people will further crowd our jails and juvenile detention centers and push up already obscene addiction rates.
It is important to ask why the administration is announcing these and other harmful cuts. But a more pressing question is for all of us: will we let them happen?
This column appeared in the Courier Journal, the State-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader on June 5, the Kentucky Lantern on June 6 The News-Enterprise on June 7
