Atlanta, GA
March 5, 2024
Oh my goodness, hello, good afternoon everybody. Congratulations also, then, to awardees!
[Applause]
Essence, you said stuff about me, but I really think your story is amazing. I am in awe of you and I appreciate you being here, I appreciate those kind words, but you are the reason why we do all the things that we do, so thank you very, very much for your strength and resilience, for all the things you're doing now to create more opportunities for young people.
[Applause]
I also want to thank the great team at NYEC for the strong partnership with the Department of Labor. So much of what you'll hear from me today—and from my team throughout this summit—are the same things that you all have been working for and advocating for throughout your history.
And the Department of Labor is here in force, so I just wanted to ask my team at the Department of Labor to please stand.
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They include the ETA, our Wage and Hour Staff, and the Office of Disability Employment Policy Youth team.
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I ask them to stand not only so they can be recognized, but also because they're the ones that do the work on the front lines, the ones who keep the conversation going and I'm proud to be here with all of them.
So everywhere I go as the Acting Secretary of Labor, I talk to young people—whether it's registered apprentices in Portland, Pittsburgh, or Milwaukee, whether it is YouthBuild participants, who are building new homes in Baltimore, whether it's community college students in New Orleans and Norwich and from Valparaiso to Las Vegas to Job Corps participants—all across this great country, I talk to young people who are excited about their future, and excited about the path they see to a good job in their communities.
Recently one of them said to me, "Everyone always talks about how young people are the future, but we're here right now." You ought to know that. So young people are not just our future, they are our right now, and we've got to get it right for them.
President Biden understands the urgency. He shares it. And that's why he has put young people at the center of his agenda.
So let me count a few of the ways.
President Biden has cancelled $1.2 billion in student debt… and that's giving financial relief to 3.9 million people. We've had a lot of fight back about that as you all know, but we've done it.
Under President Biden, nearly 2 million young adults have gained health insurance. We all know that matters.
And let's speak for a moment about mental health. The Biden-Harris Administration invested $2 billion to create safe, inclusive learning environments for students… and to hire and train more mental health professionals for schools.
Let's talk about climate change. This Administration is tackling the climate crisis like none have before. President Biden has put us on a path to cut emissions to half of what they were in 2005.
And let's talk about infrastructure. In President Biden's America, infrastructure is not just a word, it's not the promise of a week that never materializes, it's thousands of miles of roads and bridges. It's public transportation systems. It's EV charging stations from coast to coast. It's replacing lead pipes. It's about ensuring high-speed, reliable internet in every single community.
Under President Biden's economic plan, $5 billion in federal funding for 177 infrastructure projects are coming to Georgia alone. And all of these things I just mentioned, all of them, are not only opportunities to create things, safe roads and bridges for everyone to drive on, mental health services, ensuring that everyone breathes clean air or drinks clean water, but they're also opportunities to create good jobs in every single community.
So let's talk about the jobs that are being created.
Sometimes people ask me, "How are we going to have workers for all the jobs that are being created?" And the answer is, if we focus on making sure they're good jobs, and if we focus on young people.
That means good jobs for young people of color, young people with disabilities, young people from communities that have been excluded, justice-involved youth. And it means good jobs for the nearly 5 million young people who are out of school and out of work. The young people that all in this room are fighting for.
[Applause]
And we have to get this right.
For all the eagerness and optimism I hear from young people wherever I go, I also hear anxiety about the future. I know you hear it. They know it's not going to be easy. They're going to have to work for it. They're going to have to show up, they're going to have to learn new skills, they're going to have to push themselves.
But that's not the part that they're afraid of. From what I can tell, they're afraid that they'll do all these things—show up, learn, push themselves—and it still won't pay off.
Throughout my career, I've seen the deep connection between a young person's wellbeing and the quality and availability of good jobs that they see ahead of them.
When I was in Mississippi a couple weeks ago, I heard from workers who were putting in long hours at their jobs for wages that didn't cover enough for a trip to the grocery store and who told me that when workers got injured on the job, they were fired. So they feel stuck. They don't feel like anything is changing for them. And it's made them lose faith in the promise of this country.
A lack of good jobs cheats people out of opportunity and security. And it robs our country of their talent and potential. And you all know talent and potential because of the young people that you work with.
So as this administration creates millions of good, new jobs, we have to make sure that they are good jobs. And we're listening to young people about what that means to them. Some people say it's about flexibility. For others it's about a predictable schedule. Many say, I just want to feel secure. And I always hear, I want to feel like I'm contributing to something bigger than me.
Under President Biden, we're creating good jobs in industries that are going to define America's economy in the coming years.
So as I mentioned, President Biden has made a focus on historic investments to combat climate change. And to get it done, he's created the American Climate Corps. This is a new initiative to train 20,000 young people in the high-demand skills that are going to be needed for good jobs in conserving our lands and waters, advancing environmental justice, developing and implementing energy efficient technologies.
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At the same time, it's not enough to create good jobs if some young people just don't see themselves filling them.
People can't prepare for jobs that they don't even know exist. They can't get jobs that have been exclusive for too long, or jobs that require you to have a father, grandfather, uncle, or cousin who's had them before.
And inequity in our country starts so young.
A couple weeks ago, I was with young people in a pre-apprenticeship program in Oregon. They said that they had heard of 3D printers, but they didn't really believe they existed until they started to use them in that program. Now, that's great. But in some communities, kids have been using 3D printers by fourth and fifth grade.
So we have to make it so that an opportunity doesn't depend on the zip code you grew up in.
Another thing I hear all the time is that young people are told you have to get a four-year college degree, or you have failed.
And that's not true.
In fact, many of the good jobs that President Biden's America is creating don't require a four-year degree. So we want to make sure you're hearing loudly and clearly, and the young people are hearing loudly and clearly, that there are many paths to a good job.
And we're investing in training, including pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs, that create a direct path to a good job. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. A good training does not result in a job search. It results in a good job. And as practitioners, I hope that you'll all check out our updated Training and Employment Notice that we announced today on quality pre-apprenticeships, like YouthBuild.
[Applause]
Last month, we also made $85 million in funding available through the Growth Opportunities initiative so that justice-involved young people can get credentials and the opportunities they need to get high-quality jobs. That's right, there's no reason we're leaving out the talent of justice-involved young people.
And very soon, we're going to be awarding cooperative agreements to four states to help young people with disabilities, particularly those from diverse and underserved groups, successfully transition to the workforce.
At a time when our economy is growing, and as we create millions of new jobs in communities across the country, we cannot leave the diverse talents of diverse young people untapped. Building an inclusive economy is not just the right thing to do. It's the smart thing to do.
Now, a good job also isn't enough if you aren't well enough to pursue it.
In the past, we've thought of issues like mental health as separate from jobs issues. Not anymore. I applaud NYEC's focus on this and for making mental health a pillar of your new Youth Champion Communities framework.
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It's one of many ways that your work aligns with DOL's youth strategy. And we look forward to continuing to work with you on this.
At DOL.gov, we have resources—accessible right from our main page—to help communities create workplaces that prioritize mental health.
And today, I'm happy to announce that we are working on a section devoted to young people's mental health needs, specifically.
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You know, I spoke earlier about how devastating it can be when young people don't have access to good jobs. But I've also seen the flip side. A good job, early in life, can set a young person up for a lifetime of success. It makes them expect to be treated with dignity. It makes them expect to live with security. At the DOL, we want every young person to have this feeling.
So as we rebuild this country's infrastructure, I talked about infrastructure, we see Job Corps campuses, designed for opportunity youth 16-24, we see them as infrastructure academies providing opportunity youth with opportunity and the skills that they need to build and repair their own communities.
In January, I was at the Pittsburgh Job Corps site, where I met a young man named Daquan Moss. So Daquan said that he always liked working with his hands. But since the time he was young, he didn't really see how he could translate that into his future. He couldn't tell what that would mean for him. But he knew that's what he wanted, and when he found Job Corps, it all clicked.
He said, "This is the one thing that I've always wanted to do my entire life. And now I'm doing it."
Daquan was hired from the Job Corps program by the Painters' Union where he's going to be making more than $21 an hour, starting.
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And he'll get a pay raise to nearly $37 an hour after three years.
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So Daquan's going to do what he loves. He's going to make our communities better and he has a clear career path to grow in.
And his story represents the heart of President Biden's agenda.
It's a vision of America, in which young people have real opportunity. A vision where young people can apply their passion to work that is meaningful, in good jobs that they can build their lives around. It's a vision of America where young people are part of building this country, not in some distant future but right now.
So let's do this work together. I talked about building roads and bridges. Let's build those bridges for young people to the opportunities that are going to change their lives, where they're going to expect a lifetime of dignity and security. And let's continue to build on that shared vision, together.
Thank you all so much.
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