Promise Broken? Low-Income Workers Find Road to Green Jobs Tough Going

by Claudia Rowe, Marguerite Casey Foundation

By now, the drumbeat is impossible to ignore: Job, jobs, jobs. With one in 10 adults unemployed, President Obama had little choice but to highlight jobs during his Jan. 27 State of the Union address. He mentioned the term nearly 30 times during the hour-long speech.

But among people in low-income and minority communities – millions who had felt a surge of excitement at the president’s vow to use his $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for lifting families out of poverty – the president’s words are beginning to ring hollow. For them, the mantra has shifted and it sounds like this: Track, track, track.

Despite $500 million set aside to create “green jobs” for disadvantaged workers – including a program titled “Pathways Out of Poverty” – there is no method in place to monitor exactly where Recovery Act dollars have landed on the ground, and few requirements to ensure that low-income communities benefit. Furthermore, there never were.

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