A Fight for the Future
By
Mattea Kramer
Posted:
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Education,
Social Insurance, Earned Benefits, & Safety Net
Today we released the findings of a major investigation. We collaborated with our friends at Young Invincibles to explore the federal budget through the eyes of this nation's young people. Here's a snippet:
During the twentieth century, the United States raised living standards by creating the best-educated workforce in the world. The nation’s success rested on local, state and federal investment in high quality, universal primary and secondary schooling, coupled with affordable higher education. But public investment is now on the decline. Over the last decade, funding for education fell as a share of total public spending. Meanwhile, rising tuition pushes college out of reach for millions of young people. Education is fundamentally connected to jobs, which is currently the top priority for most Americans. Yet, the federal government has also cut major training programs for disadvantaged youth at the same time that the Great Recession wiped out an estimated 2.7 million jobs held by young adults. Together these factors have created a perfect storm of reduced opportunity for America’s young people.
