Lima working poor struggle to reap benefits of improving economy
Unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades. Business confidence is up. People are earning, spending and investing money.
"They're not hesitating to reinvest,"
"Even consumers that are the lower end of (the buying) frequency, ... they're still willing to pull the trigger. Across the board, they not only know the credit is there, at least for now, it looks like it could stay there."
The signs of a weak economy are here.
Wages are stagnant for the majority of
Not everyone can hear the booming economy. While most residents in
There's a reason why dollar stores (10 in
Unemployment has hit record lows, more people are leaving poverty levels and the welfare rolls are shrinking.
At the same time, for 73 percent of
Both data sets are true, and they explain why perceptions about
Income Opportunity
In
"If you're in a family that has not had success in prior educational efforts, that becomes the kind of culture of the family," Mayor
The study suggests that generational poverty is often affected by a number of variables -- income and race segregation, education, violent crime rates and social support.
Young men, compared to young women, typically see a wider opportunity gap. Such is the case in
"They want to fight. They want to overcome something in their world," Rettig said. "There's something wrong with a young man who comes into my gym and wants to box."
Rettig, 48, was in the same position as a young man. He grew up the son of an alcoholic father and working mother. Sports filled a niche of support in his life, so when it came to a point when he could provide the same to others, he opened his own gym. Now he teaches what he had to learn himself to young men going through some of the same challenges.
They "dwell in insecurity," he said. And when opportunity is presented, they pull back instead of going forward.
"Your ability to mature is already against you," Rettig said. "You're going to lag because of self confidence. ... What I find in the gym (is) they start boxing. They're enthusiastic. They're doing well. And then they get to a certain point when opportunity, success, is there. Then they take a backseat."
Then there are what the
The
"There are good jobs. There are also jobs that are low-paying jobs, not just in retail, but also in manufacturing," Berger said. "Folks who have little skill or folks who have little training or education are limited. They can find themselves stuck in low-wage jobs and often have to put together a couple of jobs to make ends meet."
"When you're in survival mode, you're not thinking about what you can get to with a two-year degree. You're worried about paying rent or putting food on the table, because you just don't have the cash to do it," Berger said.
Within the last three or four years, the focus of regional economic development shifted from job creation to workforce development.
For newly-graduated, programs like MakerFest communicate what jobs might be available close by in order to retain the region's younger skilled workers. Sprague said encouraging investments in housing, specifically for market-value apartments and lofts, can help combat some of the region's brain drain, or the mass migration of young professionals to larger cities.
On the other side of the workforce formula are the working poor, and the
"That agency has really put 'jobs' back into that title," Sprague said. "They have a resource base of people who are in the system, and they have funding to partner with educational systems to provide access to that training."
"ACJFS was never intended to be a safety pit. Once someone got in there, they could never get out. We've worked diligently to make sure it becomes a safety net, not a safety pit," Sprague said.
Sprague pointed to reductions in the number of welfare recipients, a steady downward trend at least since 2012, as proof of the strategy's success.
But while the agency has found some success, not everyone in the community seeks out the department for help. Many ALICEs don't qualify for certain programs, and if they do, getting help can be a lengthy process. If someone is working 40+ hours per week while juggling the demands of children, educational training may just not be possible.
"There's no question that for somebody mid-course in their adult working life, the need to both earn an income and up-skill really causes a strain. Going to school at the same time you're trying to maintain a household budget can really be a challenge," Berger said.
"There's often a reluctance to go back to the classroom or there's an intimidation factor or they might not have had good experiences recently," Berger said. "So they're overcoming that kind of hurdle."
While having too many jobs is a fantastic problem to have, the lack of demand for them because of consistent generational poverty and cultural norms have spoiled wage increases for a majority of the population and stemmed the upward trends in economic data that normally rise alongside boosts in GDP. Numbers aren't up across the board, but they should be.
"It's not okay in this community, because there's a division. There needs to be unity when it comes to it. When you know that there's some bull-- going on, there needs to be some unity. It needs to be conveyed civilly," Rettig said.
"We do have, I think, institutions that are providing ... from welding classes to truck driving classes, to Apollo and machining classes. I think some of what OhioMeansJobs is doing is about not just trying to place people in jobs but also getting individuals to think about planning and education and training so they can up-skill or move into position with higher wages and benefits," Berger said. "Ultimately, that needs to happen, and it happens because individuals are engaged with others who are persuasive and caring in a way they describe those opportunities."
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