Obama announces 250,000 teen, summer jobs

This is great and exciting news for our kids for the summer. This just shows once again that the President is trying to stick to his promises. He is doing everything he can to ensure that our future is headed in the right direction. For the thousands of youth that will benefit from this program, I say thank you Mr. President. When I was a teenager, I benefited from a summer work program that was funded by the government. So this is really exciting to me.

The Obama administration announced Thursday its plan to create 250,000 teen "employment opportunities" this summer. The program, called "Summer Jobs+", was kicked off with a commitment so far of 180,000 jobs, according to White House spokesperson Caroline Hughes. The opportunities, targeted at young people, will be in the private-sector as well as federal agencies and non-profit organizations.

"America's youth can't wait for Congress to act," said Obama in a statement today. "This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. That's why today, we're launching Summer Jobs+, a joint initiative that challenges business leaders and communities to join my administration in providing hundreds of thousands of summer jobs for America's youth."

This past summer marked record highs for teen unemployment, particularly in black Americans. The Labor Department released numbers in September showing that 16- to 19-year-olds ended the summer with unemployment at 25.4 percent. For blacks, it was almost double at 46.5 percent.

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