Michael Neibauer, The Examiner
2008-04-14 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

The District should establish a community college system, require training components in economic development projects and raise wages in “women-dominated sectors” to address educational and skill barriers that have an impact on D.C.’s working poor, a new report finds.

A third of all working families, about 60,000 people, earned less than 200 percent of poverty in 2005, or $31,000 a year for a family of three, according to the report produced by D.C. Appleseed and the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.

“Hometown Prosperity: Increasing Opportunity for D.C.’s Low-Income Working Families,” set for release today, found that parents in 25 percent of working poor families lack a high school diploma, 40 percent have no college education, and one-fifth include parents with limited English skills.

D.C. is a “job factory” but the work isn’t going to D.C. residents, said Walter Smith, Appleseed’s executive director.

“These are people who want to enjoy prosperity but don’t have the skills to compete,” he said.

The payoff of addressing educational and workforce development obstacles, according to Smith: A growing tax base, reduced social services and child-poverty costs, and a significant improvement in the ability of children and D.C. Public Schools to succeed.

Among the report’s recommendations are creating a D.C. community college system accessed by the poorest District residents, directing more resources to adult literacy programs, evaluating economic development proposals based on a willingness to hire D.C. residents, instituting an annual cost-of-living adjustment to the D.C. minimum wage and increasing the child care reimbursement rate.

The report calls for a “public post-secondary, two-year institution committed to the mission of serving first-generation college students, as well as low-income, older and employed students.” The University of the District of Columbia has “bits and pieces” of such a network, “but it’s not very comprehensive and it’s not accessible,” said Ed Lazere, executive director of the fiscal policy institute.

Perhaps just as important is the matter of linking economic and workforce development, Lazere said. The District has not used its economic successes, nor the “huge amount of money” it puts into “building up on one part of town,” to help its residents get jobs or the skills to compete, he said.

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com