Job Corps helps students invest in their futures

In celebration of the Job Corps program’s 50th anniversary, U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez is traveling to every campus in the nation.

As part of that celebration and an effort by the Obama Administration to drum up support to increase the federal minimum wage, Secretary Perez and U.S. Senator Mark Begich toured the Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer Sunday.

A Senate bill that would have increased the lowest hourly wage companies may legally pay workers recently fell short of the needed 60 votes for passage, Begich said, noting that he supports Alaska’s effort to increase its minimum wage.

As the two toured the federal training program, Perez spoke with several students, asking what they are studying and why they picked Job Corps.

One student said she applied to Job Corps because she was tired of moving from minimum wage job to minimum wage job, forever struggling to afford housing, food and other necessities of life.

“I want a future,” she told Perez.

“That’s a very succinct summary of the value of Job Corps,” he said, recounting the anecdote later.

Job Corps’ training programs focus on in-demand jobs. Students graduate with the certificates or licenses they need to go right to work at jobs that pay better than minimum wage, Perez said.

That’s key since one person working at minimum wage doesn’t earn enough to cover the cost of even a one-bedroom apartment in the Valley.

What does housing cost in the Mat-Su?

MY House tells homeless youth working to get off the streets and into housing that they will need a job that pays at least $17.85 to afford rent for a one-bedroom apartment, and $22 an hour to afford a two-bedroom place.

Job Corps student body president Clinton Lochrie knows a thing or two about homelessness. He lived on the streets as a homeless youth for a time in a Lower 48 community before moving to Alaska and enrolling in Job Corps as a pathway to a better life for himself.

Job Corps students — like Lochrie — tend to be young people without plans for other post-secondary education, people who without future training, likely will spend their lifetimes moving from low-wage job to low-wage job.

Now Lochrie is studying accounting at Job Corps and working toward a day when he will be eligible to take the certified public accountant licensing exam. He’s investing in himself, Perez said.

Job Corps gives young adults — many who were dealt poor hands as children — a second chance to make a start in life. A second chance to “punch their ticket to the middle class,” Perez said.

During the tour Sunday he asked students ‘When I see the president next, what should I tell him we should do differently?”

“Re-open the family dorms,” came students’ answer. The family housing portion of the program was closed during federal funding cuts resulting from the 2013 sequestration.

As part of a group of student ambassadors leading the campus tour, Lochrie had better access to Perez than most Alaskans during the secretary’s three-day visit to the 49th state.

During that time, Lochrie said he asked the secretary for two things, could the president send a signed photo of himself to hang alongside the one Perez inked Sunday, and would the secretary work to increase funding to the Job Corps program nationwide so more trades can be offered and more students helped.

“More funding means more trades and more opportunity for students — more of everything,” Lochrie said. “More happiness.”

We agree with Lochrie.

We’d like to see more federal funding invested in Job Corps to develop more trade programs to provide more opportunity for students nationwide. And, yes, please, more happiness!