By Catherine Singley, Senior Policy Analyst, Economic and Employment Policy Project, NCLR
Plenty of economists have warned about the negative effects that the so-called "fiscal cliff" would have on jobs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that if Congress fails to act before the New Year, then employment losses will total 1.6 million jobs by the end of 2013 thanks to the expiration of the payroll tax cut, emergency unemployment insurance, and other measures. Automatic cuts to federal programs, from education to health care to housing, would result in another 1.3 million jobs lost. With our recovery still in its infancy, the last thing our country can afford is to willfully increase the ranks of the unemployed. Latinos, who still face an unemployment rate of 10 percent, are rightfully anxious about how Congress is approaching these weighty decisions on taxes and the federal budget.
The fate of Latino workers is not just a Latino concern -- it is an American concern. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 30 percent of the U.S. workforce will be Latino by 2050. It is in our national interest to ensure that Latinos are able to fully participate in and contribute to our economic prosperity.
Yet the "fiscal cliff" also poses significant threats to Hispanics who are striving to reach their full potential as workers, taxpayers, and consumers. Beyond the specter of fewer jobs, the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration would also devastate our country's public workforce development system. Under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), federal grants give states the resources to educate and train adults, young people who are no longer in school, and workers transitioning out of dying industries. The need for intensive adult education and vocational training is especially urgent in Latino communities. By 2018 -- when Latinos will represent 18 percent of the American workforce -- only 10 percent of U.S. jobs will be open to workers with less than a high school degree. Yet today this is the maximum educational attainment of one-third of the Hispanic workforce. WIA state grants currently serve 153,917 Latino adults and 38,351 Latino youth (about one-third of all youth served). Cutting WIA funding would widen the education and skills gap that Latinos already face and threaten America's future competitiveness in the global economy.
For more information about the stakes for Latinos in the federal budget debate, visit www.nclr.org/federalbudget.
This was first posted to the NCLR Blog.