ï»żEpisode 39: A Case for Greater Investments in Rural Postsecondary Education, Training, and Career Counseling with Jeff Strohl, Ph.D. and
Kayla Elliott, Ph.D.
Michelle Rathman: Hello and welcome back to a new episode and the kickoff to a brand-new series here on the Rural Impact, a podcast that works to connect those dots between policy and rural everything. I'm Michelle Rathman and I mean it when I say I am sincerely grateful that you've carved out some time in your very busy schedule to join us.
So again, thank you for that. And also, a great big thanks to Ascendium Education Group for their partnership and for making this episode in this series possible. Now, in this particular episode, we are going to tackle a topic that has rural relevance every day, but especially now, I think, because after all, the economy and jobs are always making headlines and in the news cycle, but we are taking a different approach because we sought out to understand why exactly it's imperative to make the case for greater investments in rural postsecondary education, training and career counseling.
And with that, we want to better understand the role that policy has and ensuring that those who live in rural have access to opportunities that frankly, set them up for success as defined by having a fulfilling career and a good job and with that, ensuring that the efforts to achieve these things are inclusive, meaning that all racial and ethnic groups are included.
Again, something that we hear so often in mainstream headlines, but we're going to come at it a bit differently today. And I say this because despite rural America, having a proportionate amount of good jobs, we learned that racial and gender disparities are stark. For example, today, you're going to hear about and learn about research that makes it clear that white workers hold a disproportionate share of the good jobs.
And then in rural America, white workers are the only racial ethnic group in which the majority of workers have good jobs. We're going to find out why that is and what can be done, what is being done, and to help expand the lens on this subject. My first guest is Dr. Jeff Strohl, the Director and Co-founder of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
And then Jeff goes deep into their research findings in the Small Towns Big Opportunities report. Which we're going to link in our show notes. And of course, if you're a subscriber, we hope that you are, you'll receive our post episode blogs with all his great information.
Now in the second part of this episode, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Kayla C. Elliott, Director of Workforce Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. And our conversation turns to exploring the future of work in the Black Rural South, opportunities for young black workers. And we also explore the impacts associated with Black students being disproportionately represented at community colleges, and how this produces less than equitable outcomes.
You know, I say it often, these are not light subjects. That is our intention. Because at the end of this episode, we do hope, after all, that it does enlighten you to something that you may not have known before. You know, they say what you don't know, you don't know. And in this episode, I hope that there is some information that you do take away and you find valuable in your rural focused work.
So, with that, I do invite you to sit back, get yourself into that podcast frame of mind and listen to my conversation with Dr. Jeff Strohl and Dr. Kayla C. Elliott. Are you ready? I sure am, so let's go.
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Michelle Rathman: Hey, Jeff Strohl, Research Professor and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Welcome to The Rural Impact. Honestly, I have to say we're very appreciative to have you join us today.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Well, thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I think it's an exciting conversation.
Michelle Rathman: I know it will be because Jeff, I let our listeners know that in the introduction that our focus for this series, and it's a new series, is to make the case for greater investments in rural postsecondary education, training, and career counseling. And specifically, we want to explore data and research that informs policy, which is what we're all about here, and systemic barriers to higher education, and with that, make the connection to good jobs for rural Americans.
And I honestly cannot think of anybody better to kick off this conversation than you. Because in February of 2024, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, with the support of Ascendium, which also supports our work here published an extensive report titled, and here's the long title, "Small Towns, Big Opportunities: Many Workers in Rural Areas Have Good Jobs, But These Areas Need Greater Investment in Education, Training, and Career Counseling." So, let's start off by having you give our listeners a big picture overview of the report, what was the driver behind this work, and some of the key findings that we need to know about today.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Yeah. Well, thank you. I have to figure out where to start here. The driver really for the report is that rural America normally is used as the, what you don't want to be when we talk about the analysis. It's always juxtaposed against other successful regions to say then that rural America has been left behind.
We decided to turn that tail on its head a little bit and really try to look at what kind of advantages and what kind of economic conditions of rural America are rather than compare them to something else to try to see what kind of opportunities there. And so, you get, you know, some uplift or hopeful nature.
There's a good number of good jobs in rural America compared to their share of the population, right? So, if you look at the size of the rural population, their share of good jobs is similar to what you have in urban areas. A very important takeaway. On the other hand, we have to be careful that rural America is still a more male economy, and so that there are many types of advantages for men that women don't enjoy, and you don't have those same type of differences when you're in the, the urban areas.
And from this, you know, we really think of moving forward. So, and kind of the big high-level recommendations and thinking about the human capital development, rural America needs education to be able to move with the changes that are coming with globalization you know, demise of a single industry.
So they, they need to keep investing in education so they can be more mobile and I can give you some examples of where it hasn't worked.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I'll tell you, I, the, what you said earlier about the disparities between good jobs for men and women in rural, that one really kind of struck me something that, you know, because I, people know I work in healthcare and we know that so many women work in healthcare in rural communities, but that was really an eye opener for me.
And you know, working in rural America, some successes despite challenges. So, I think it's also important if you could provide us with kind of the definition of what, what is a good job. And you have some really extensive detail in the report about that.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Yes. We started our good jobs work with JP Morgan Chase. And in that work, we decided to have a, a bottom threshold sort of entry into economic independence, which is around $43,000 earned by in a 25 to 44. And then it kicks up a bit as you hit later period of life. And the purpose of that, uh, again, it was to declare like when you moved into gaining economic security.
The median is well in the $60,000's. I forget exactly what it is currently. And so, we have to be careful. People don't misunderstand that the $43,000 is a good job. It's the beginning of good jobs. And so it's just important distinction there.
Michelle Rathman: And then what about how you parse this out by state? I thought that was quite interesting as well. And that tells us a lot about policy, I think.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Yeah, we parse the data out by saying it's a little easier to speak about it from a regional perspective. And I think you'll see lots of issues in sort of southern economy is going to have a lot less opportunity for good jobs. For myself I think some of this reflects right to work versus unionized states.
And so we've seen the movement away from unions. You've seen lower wages. So, I was telling you earlier, I grew up in coal mining country. And when they moved from deep coal to a surface coal, it went from union jobs to non-union jobs, and the wage structure went in half as we've had de unionization, which has struck in these areas a lot, you've gone to two, two tiered wage contracts so that the new workers coming in get less benefits on the health care, get less benefits on pension, and have lower wages.
And so that has had a bigger impact in the South, which is either been nonunion or has moved towards, you know, right to work states. I think that has a big impact. We see a bit in the West. Also on just in the comparison.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. So, another area I want to talk about is in the report the headline is "Persistent Inequality in Rural America Hits Members of Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups Hardest." So let's, I, I think, you know, it just seems so obvious to me that that would be a finding, but let's talk a little bit more about that.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Yeah, it has two facets to it. One is in employment. And so traditionally minoritized groups or have less education and want to face employment barriers, call it discrimination, whatever, whatever. But they've ended up in earning less in the same jobs. And then they're less likely to be in the labor market.
They've been have much lower rates of labor force participation. By that we mean they're neither, they're not looking for work and they're not employed. So they become either discouraged workers or encounter disabilities or have household duties. That household duties fall more on women. And so, with all of those factors, we see that they impact the minoritized group and women more much more harder than white men.
And some of that is with education. And so this gets back to, I think, your purpose of encouraging more educational investments is education gives us the ability to be flexible. So, when we see changes in these economies that often are linked to single employers or single industries, when there's a change, you don't have a lot of choices about what you do next, unless you get some kind of new education or retraining. And so minoritized groups and low income. Also, I think this is very important to point the struggles the same, don't end up with good access to additional education or don't have the time.
It's a big constraint. If you're running, supporting a family and trying to go to school and trying to change careers. Well, it's, it's, it's tough, especially as you're older. And we know that rural America is also getting older, which, is important.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, absolutely. Now, let's real quick shift over to the non-working rural America and low labor force participation, which you just talked about higher rates of disability leading to poverty and despair. In a section of the report is noted that the highest rate of non-participation in the labor force is among those with less than high school diploma at the same time among rural adults with an associate's degree or less.
38 percent of American Indian, Alaska Native, and 33 percent of Black African American adults have the highest non-participation rates. You touched on just a few of those. Can you go a little bit deeper into the data that you found about, you know, the, the numbers are important, but I wonder how we can start to understand how we got here?
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: That's a great question is, I mean, these are long historic trends. And so, if we look at the post war economy of which you're able to make it without a much more than a high school degree and also with even without a high school degree. That economy has gone away.
And so, there's very little left. And what is left is going to be in the extractive industries, which are going to tend to beat the heck out of you. I did construction work and I had to leave it after 15 years. It's, you know, it's tough work and as you age, it gets harder and so people with less education tend to have to, or want to, or have to take jobs in the more manual blue-collar sector.
And so you age out much more quickly, which then is, you know, commonly known, led us to our opioid crisis. I'm never sure which happened first, the opioid crisis and then disability, or disability and opioid crisis. It's probably somewhere in the middle. And so, the lower educated groups in the country have had less options set.
So, as we've seen big structural changes in employment since the post war period, the you, you lose an industry in a rural area that has a monolithic industry. Well, you have to do something. And if you, if you can't it, you get up with unemployment and unemployment leads to discourage workers, which exits from the labor market.
So, North Carolina is a great case of this where we had tobacco. Everybody was happy, got rid of tobacco, in came textiles, and then textiles failed with the globalization, and he just had unemployment and then exit from the labor market. So, it's very difficult. And then again, for different racial groups education inside the group has an impact on access to economic opportunity, but it's still going to have a gap between, and more privileged groups in this case, mostly white men.
And so, uh, you know, Native American with an associate's degree is just not going to make as much money as a white male with the associate's degree. And some of that is what in occupations they get into, but some of it is just what we'll call labor market discrimination. But I say that in a economist statistical framework and not necessarily indicative of the actual employers.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, great. That is such great information and great insight. All right, let's move to some, some positive things here and maybe talk a little bit about an overview of promising occupations for workers on each of those educational pathways, because I found that to be again, folks, we're going to make sure that we put this report on our website, because the information is invaluable.
I think, especially I think about how community leaders, as they look to develop their talent pools and understand how that they can, you know, really think about addressing their workforce challenges closer to home. So maybe we can connect some of those dots, those promising occupations and the work, the educational pathways that lead them there.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Yeah, this is interesting to weave in on the, the rural economy. So, we know that, you know, good jobs the chance of getting a good job varies a lot by occupation. So if we look at rural America, the current distribution, a lot of good jobs in blue collar, mostly for men. Good jobs in white collar, which give some access for women.
And so, when we meet by promising occupations is that you have it better than a 50 percent chance of getting a good job there. And so, in the work, this is a separate report that we did at projections of good jobs. And this really has a starting to think about where we're going rather than where we've been.
Been so the good jobs work that the rural, rural report is based on where we were. The promising occupations is about where we're going,
Michelle Rathman: To 2031, no less.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Right. Exactly. And so, what you're trying to do here is to try to align people's expectations about where they have economic opportunity and hopefully helpful when they make changes. Hopefully helpful when they go into school.
We also have a companion product called the great misalignment, which looks at how local institutions are providing credentials to match up with labor demand, and how that eventually links in with these promising jobs. And so, I think this is really important. I'm not going to go through actual detailed occupations here. People can look to the report. But as we think about what rural America needs to focus on and human capital development as they move forward is, âwhere are we going?â Right? And so, you know, if extractive industries, let's just say, coal goes down and solar comes up.You need to have a whole change in your structural set.
And that's where this whole promising occupations comes in. Like, how well would you do in the green energy sector moving from coal, et cetera? And then most importantly is how many jobs would there be in the local area? And so, our good jobs report is National and it does not break these numbers out by the states are.
Our Great Misalignment Report does, in fact, take a look at how they break out by state and then even some local regions. And so, I think the rural areas have a real challenge in front of them, especially those with single employers, and those with single educational institutions. Either of them can get out of whack, right?
The local employer can go bankrupt and all of a sudden the whole industry structure changes, or the local community called college isn't providing the right mix of classes or some combination of the two. And so we've tried to identify where this demand is heading to help the local institutions in provisions of jobs programs that lead to these jobs, because we always have to keep in mind that a good training program can still lead to unemployment if it isn't aligned with where the jobs are headed in the future, and this is going to be very important for rural America as structural changes hit.
Michelle Rathman: Screams for collaboration. It screams at us to say, let's stop being kind of in our own little vertical world here and understand the connectivity between the things that we're talking about. Okay. Before we close out, there were three major recommendations in the report that we're speaking about and one was to build rural human capital, utilize existing rural human capital, and stimulate rural economic growth.
Would you mind just touching on each of those and giving us a little bit of a sneak preview of those are great aspirations. How do we get it done?
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: That's always good to come up with the question and not have to be pressed to have the answer. Right? Um, you know, building rural human capital is going to be it's an investment. We need to invest in people and align it with where the world is heading. We don't want to just again, we don't want to just put people into a college program if there aren't jobs.
So, we have to be very careful about what the development of that human capital is. On the utilization of existing human capital we need to look closely at and acknowledge the skill set that exists in these communities and try to think as the world moves, where do we help them move to?
We don't want to lose all that talent and experience that is gained, my boss used to call it âSitting by Jenny,â the old model where people learned about the task by doing the task. And so that carries across industries, but we also need help to do it. And so, we don't want to lose all those people who are not in the labor, labor force.
Some of them are out of the labor market uh, is what we call discouraged workers there. Theyâve got a lot of experience in human capital that can actually be brought back into the labor market. And this gets into the stimulating rural economic growth.
Rural economies are a very unique creature from a bunch of reasons. I just talked in Wyoming, to a group in Wyoming, and I was surprised at how diverse the local economy was. But what you end up having is three employees in one micro industry and three employees in another. And it's very difficult for our community college to make a program to meet the needs of three workers, right?
And so, we need to think about how we can align, like you said, coordinating and working together so that you can have a program that provides the baseline training, knowledge, skills, and abilities for groups of workers, and then connect it with training with the actual employer to get that actual firm specific skills.
And then the other aspect that probably mischaracterizes the majority of rural economies, but it's true in some cases, which is they have a single industry. And so, when we talk about rural economic growth, often it is through tax incentives. So we think about Foxconn in Wisconsin. It failed. Multiple gazillions of dollars and it bombed, right?
And so picking winners is very, very difficult. And so, by investing in education, one thing that we do is we're actually investing in flexibility of the workers ability to move between industries and keep abreast of global changes. So, these three pieces kind of need to come together. So, the Governor's office needs to be working with the local area to say, âwell, what do what's our existing human capital base? What can we work for in development? What's upcoming?â And try to work with what you have is the old line? You know,
âremember who you came withâ, you know, uh, and then try to help make use of that and grow in micro steps.
You know, it's too often economic development will have these grandiose back, back to Foxconn. Let's drop everything in this one gamble and even if it will succeed, you're investing in a mono industry and then you're sensitive to that mono industry. Back to my North Carolina example, tobacco was great, textiles was great, and then you had unemployment.
And so, we have to figure out how to have a balanced economic development strategy with the constraint of the size of local economies. So, if you're in a small city or town of 1000, 2000, 5000 people, you're most likely going to have very few employers. And so how do you either grow that? Or how do you make sure that you've got alternatives?
And I think it's a very big puzzle, but human capital is there because every time we move and have structural changes, we're upping the ante on how much knowledge skills and abilities you need, even in simple things like just in time inventory. These require additional training, et cetera. So, we just be conscious of it.
And I think you hit it, which is coordination. We have to have the actors working together. We need the employer invested in it. We need the individuals investing, and we need the state government and federal government invested in it because you know, the state government is going to control the tax development policy, and that's going to ripple down to the very localized rural economy.
And so they need to go hand, they have to work together.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, priorities have to align. I, I mean, I, you've just paint, you have just painted such a very clear picture for us, certainly have connected some dots, Jeff, great information. You are welcome to come back anytime we're going to be following. I want to know every report you guys put out. I want to know about it to be sure we've let your people know to make sure we're on your mailing list.
And I, as I tell our listeners, we're going to put all this great, these links on our website theruralimpact.com so that you can just quickly access them and go to the, the Center site and learn all about that. And again, Jeff, thank you so much for your time. I know you are a very, very busy individual.
Jeff Strohl, Ph.D.: Thank you very much.
Michelle Rathman: All right, everyone. I'm asking you to stay with us because we are going to continue this conversation because joining me next, you're going to hear from Dr. Kayla C. Elliott. Director of Workforce Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which is America's Black Think Tank. But first, let's hear more about our partner, Ascendium Education Group.
We'll be right back.
Michelle Rathman: Dr. Kayla Elliott, Director of Workforce Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Thank you so much for joining us on the Rural Impact. We are elated to have you here with us today.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.
Michelle Rathman: Well, you know, as our listeners know, we are working on a series and this is our kickoff series that we are really focused on postsecondary education and the connection to opportunities and pathways. And this is our second in our series that we're doing in cooperation and collaboration with Ascendium Education Group.
Kayla, one of the reasons why we were so excited to have you here is because you are very unique in your position to be able to help connect those dots between policy and postsecondary education and even broader than that to explore how these investments in training and career development impacts young black workers.
And I think this is a wonderful timely conversation. But before we dive in could you give our listeners just a snapshot of your work at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies? It's not something that we see on the front page headlines every day. So let us know who you are and the work that you're doing.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Sure, sure. So, I am Dr. Kayla C. Elliott. I work at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which is America's Black Think Tank. We were started in 1970 to really just lend a hand to black leaders and elected officials as they traveled. The really uncharted role from civil rights activism to the political establishment.
But we provide compelling and actionable policy solutions that are evidence-based, research analysis, convenings and strategic communications to support black communities, and eliminate all persistent and evolving barriers to the full freedom of black people in America. So, our work, some of our longest standing work is our work analyzing Hill diversity, so the diversity of all legislative staff on both in both the Senate and the House.
We have a tech policy team, a team that works on economic policy and tax policy, and then my team, which is the workforce policy team.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And the, the, and we'll make sure that we put up links so people can really have access to the great work that you've done. One of the things I think is important for us to start off with because again, the, these are not topics that we hear about every day, but we're hearing more and more about it.
So, let's use this opportunity as long as people are talking about it. Let's use this opportunity to amplify it. But in 2020, in February, 2020, and which seems like a million years ago, but really not that long ago, you guys did the 'Future of Work in Black Rural South,' and this report focused on an introduction to the future of work in the Black Rural South, and it included 156 counties designated by the USDA as rural, and they have populations that are at least 35 percent African American.
So, let's walk through the why behind the report, and then some of the key findings, which I have in front of me are quite fascinating.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah, for sure. So as, and we said this before, I am a contested Southerner because I am from Florida, but I deeply identify as a, born and raised Southern girl for sure, but this work meant a lot for me even as I joined the Joint Center after it had been done. I think one, the, a large population of black folks either are currently living in the South or have roots in the South for sure, for all the obvious reasons.
So, the Black Rural South was really an economic like an economic engine and an engine for economic growth for the first six decades of the 1800s. Cotton produced mostly by enslaved labor of in the Black Rural South represented over half of American exports and facilitated the development of several industries and other regions, textiles, banks, insurance companies, shipping lines, et cetera.
And so by the 1860s, the South was producing 75 percent of the world's cotton in the lower Mississippi Valley specifically was home to more millionaires than anywhere else in the United States. And I think that reality, that grounding is so different from how we think about the South now.
Michelle Rathman: Isn't that the truth?
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: So different, right? How where we know how we think about the South, right? But where we know that wealth is now located, right? And that's the framing that really went into this report to say like, what? We know that the circumstances that made that in the free labor that made that that wealth possible and that economic growth possible was absolutely horrendous, but where are we now, and what this Black labor and the Black Rural South look like now?
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, because the next point that I see in kind of the executive summary is that automation and low-cost black labor shape the Black Rural South. Let's talk about that for a moment, expand on that. Because, you know, like I said, this is a timely conversation we're having, and I think it's really important for us to understand why equity is such an essential part of any conversation we have when we're talking about workforce today.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah, it is very difficult in this country to have a conversation about economics, right? Or poverty, without also having a conversation about race. Because of how this country was founded, because of how racial difference determined your economic outlook or even your humanity, right? Not just your right to vote, but whether or not you were considered a person in this country, based on the color of your skin, based on your race.
So, because those things are inextricably linked, we absolutely have to place them in conversation and in context with one another. And I think that's such an important point to, to make in talking about Black workforce issues for sure. And I remember as a child learning that like Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, and a number of people like that, that really that point really sticking with folks.
And it's so interesting because it really was a transformational moment that really triggered explosive growth and exponential growth in the demand for raw cotton and the rapid spread of slavery. So, after the Civil War and Jim Crow, which is really a caste system, evolved that maintained a large pool of low cost Black labor until cotton farming was automated in the 1950s and 60s.
But an abundant supply of low cost, unorganized Black labor and low taxes has attracted manufacturing, as well as other fields to the Black Rural South. And employment in those industries has declined by 40 percent in recent years due to automation and outsourcing. So, outside of manufacturing, we also see that with livestock, right?
A poultry farms, et cetera, and or poultry processing plants in the Black Rural South, where we know that folks are underemployed and undercompensated for sure.
Michelle Rathman: And then you fast forward, because as I'm reading here, almost a quarter of the jobs in the Black Rural South could be displaced by automation by 2030. So, we already have kind of squeezing out of upward mobility, economic opportunity, postsecondary education. And now you take a look at those numbers.
Talk to us about the drivers behind that.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah, so 53 percent of jobs in the Black Rural South are in six industries with high potential for automation and 24. 2 percent of jobs in the Black Rural South could be displaced by automation in the next six years. So, by 2030 and there's a number of factors going that go into that, right? But one of those is absolutely deep racial inequality and also the lack of organized labor, right?
So, the Black Rural South has higher unemployment, and childhood poverty, and lower earnings than rural areas outside of the South and the nation as a whole. And that stems from what we know are the racial undertones and overtones in the South for sure. So, for example, in the Black Rural South, 19 percent of white children live in poverty compared to 52 percent of black children.
Michelle Rathman: Say, those numbers again. I want our listeners to really hear that.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: In the, in the rural South,
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: 19 percent of white children live in poverty compared to 52 percent of black children.
Michelle Rathman: That's an alarming. And just really disgraceful disparity.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah,
Michelle Rathman: I've just, that's my commentary there. I had to put that in.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Even more so when you think about white people in the Black Rural South enjoy greater prosperity than white people in the white rural South. So Southern rural counties that are over 90 percent white. So, living in more segregated communities is actually not as advantageous to living in more integrated communities for white Southerners specifically.
Michelle Rathman: To spend a day in your life of the research that you're doing. Okay. So we, we, I think what you've done is you've really laid out a really good although that we could really go through every single part of this and laid out. But let's talk a little bit about before we move on to apprenticeships, let's talk a little bit about policymakers and private sector leaders.
Addressing these, because we know that policy is the thread that runs through all of this conversation we're having. What is their role? What can be done? What are the recommendations? What do you see working?
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah. I think first and foremost, workers have to come first. Workers have to come first, organizing labor, union power, recognizing worker protections, ensuring that states, and again, I will always pick on Florida because I'm from there, and it is a special place in my heart, but ensuring that states like Florida aren't doing things that are counterproductive to workersâ health and protection.
So, Florida recently had some legislation increasing the number of hours that children can work, right? Increasing how late children can work, school age children can work, but also decreasing sun protection. And in a state like Florida heat exhaustion is real.
Michelle Rathman: Water breaks.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: absolutely. Water breaks, heat exhaustion, all of those different things. That legislation is needed. Humanity is so, the way that humanity and work are tied together, right? Like work can be dehumanizing or work can be humanizing. And when policymakers really think about workers as people, and workers not just as a tax base, workers not just as a voter base, but workers as people who have families who need protection, and who are the labor force, they absolutely should come first.
That will always be, you know, my first answer for sure. But I also think it depends on coalition building. So, thinking about the Black Belt Commission, and other, like, grassroots organizations, we have some work with the Southern Rural Black Women's Commission. We're doing a lot there, but are also targeted investments, right?
Like, we could talk about the, like, budgets of states where the Black Rural South are located and where that money is going, because what needs to happen. If you want that 53 percent of black children who are living in poverty to go down, you need investments, right? You need investments into education, into training, into skills, into remote learning, and remote work.
We saw how much opportunity that allowed in 2020 for folks to have access to jobs and to opportunities, that they would not have had otherwise. But also investments into broadband as infrastructure, right? Broadband and investments into the places where we know Black folks are more likely to be, which are historically Black colleges and colleges and universities, as well as community colleges for sure.
Michelle Rathman: Well, it's interesting because if you contrast that, I think about what you said earlier, which is, you know, why, why do these industries, you know, move their operations to places? Well, when you can get low-cost labor, what is the incentive for investing? And really the answer is none. And that's why policy is so important to it.
You know, if we're looking at the difference of why people are motivated. So that's a good transition because we know that it is so important for their investments to be made in postsecondary education opportunities for communities that have been long under resourced, I like to say. And then at the same time, we know that apprenticeships are super important and job training.
And so in a previous episode, our listeners may recall that I had an opportunity to talk with Manny Lamar, with the Department of Labor and we did discuss rural apprenticeship programs in general. But if you wouldn't mind, let's go a little bit deeper in that because in March of â23, not too long ago, the Joint Center released a report called Five Charts, which I found fascinating.
Five Charts to Understand Black Registered Apprenticeships in the United States. And it spells out Vvery clearly in terms that we can all understand that to achieve racially equitable outcomes in apprenticeship programs, that policymakers must understand the structural barriers Black apprentices shape face, and must understand part of that is accepting it and having the courage to do so.
And the conviction to say it out loud and really want to get your hands in there and work on solutions. So, talk about the findings and some of these structural barriers that we can really define.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah. So, you know, keeping focused on the Black Rural South here. Black apprentices are concentrated in the South in states like Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana, which all have again as we both said, really weak labor standards and lower pay for sure. So, apprentices in the South only own to earn about 64 cents for every dollar that apprentices in the Western half of the country make, upon completion of their apprenticeship preparation program. Right?
So, Black apprentices in line with that, are the lowest earners amongst their peers in other racial and ethnic groups,in the south and other places. So, on average exiting their programs they're at a wage of about $25 an hour.
Whereas Latino and apprentices exit at $26 an hour, white apprentices exit at $28 an hour, and Asian American and Pacific Islander apprentices exit at $30 an hour. So, you're looking at a full $5 range from Black apprentices as the lowest earners and Asian American apprentices as the highest earners for sure.
And I think there's just a number of other barriers that we found around their representation and outcomes and programs as well. So, they're less likely to complete programs, and they are already underrepresented in programs. So, they only make up about 9 percent of all registered apprentices, despite being 12 percent of our workforce.
And then they come in at around 41 percent completion rate compared to 47 percent for Latino apprentices, 48 percent for White and Native apprentices, and 49 percent for Asian and Pacific Islander apprentices.
Michelle Rathman: The numbers donât lie as we say. So, Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act. So, let's talk about that. And some of the data challenges that are barriers to understanding. The Black WIOA participants in the South, so we know that conversations about jobs and employment almost always focus on the latest stats and rates.
I mean. Like the stock market that goes up and down and we sit, wait with bated breath for the jobs report to come out. And a lot of attention is paid to large employers and large industries, but there is more to this. So for our conversation, let's focus on that Work Innovation and Opportunity Act, which for our listeners who don't know was landmark legislation from way back and dig back into the history books, 2014. And it was designed to strengthen and improve our nation's public workforce system and help get Americans, including youth and those with significant barriers to employment into high quality jobs and careers [and help employers hire and retain skilled workers.
So what are the challenges that are that are barriers to understanding the Black WIOA participants in the South? Because clearly there is a significant difference.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: I think the challenge and the barrier to understanding Black, we are participants in the South first starts with data. So right now, data is not. There are a number of challenges with data. Data is not particularly well funded. Data infrastructure systems are not particularly well funded, and capacity is not there, especially for very small training providers and programs, right?
So, that's part of the issue. Another part is that a lot of times data doesn't talk to each other. So, you might have a person who transitioned from the K-12 system and did some CTE programming, then transitioned to a certificate program at a community college, then did a, some more training by their employer.
Those three systems largely will not share data. And when they do, the data doesn't always talk to each other, especially if that person moved between systems across state lines. You can get absolutely lost, right? So it's hard. It's very hard to track sometimes what's happening with anyone particular.
Further, and really important for our work, the data is not disaggregated by race at the program level. So, we might know how many Black participants, Black learners one particular training provider has, but we don't know, how they're faring, right? We don't know about their retention, their completion, their move through their, like, course completion, right?
Or their full credential completion, because we can't see that at the program level. So, it might be that they have some strong programs, or it might be that they have some weak programs, but we're not sure because that data is not actually available. So that's part of the barrier to even understanding what's going on with Black WIOA participants in the South.
Part of what we do know is that unlike apprenticeships where they are underrepresented, Black workers are disproportionately overrepresented among those who used WIOA services. So again, Black workers are less than 13 percent of the country's labor force, but more than one in three, about 35 percent of workers who complete WIOA funded services, over the course of the year 2019-2020, we're Black and so we see over representation in here, which would be wonderful, if we knew that they were being tracked into high earning high demand careers.
Unfortunately, we also see that there's a persistent racial earnings gap between black and white workers in the US who come through federal training programs for sure.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I found that to be really interesting. It was, it was a dynamic that I didn't expect to see in there. So, while we're on the subject of young black workers, so in 2022, the Joint Center brought together 11 young black people with four] year college degrees, working 40 hours a week in entry and mid-level professional roles to form the Joint Center Black Youth Worker task force.
So tell us why what the task force was charged with doing. And tell us a little bit about all the participants and you can go through all their names. I just wanted to touch on that because I, I love that concept in general, and I'm eager to hear what, you know, how, how that works. What they anticipated and what they left with
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah, so this is one of my favorite projects. I had a lot of internships until I got to my full-time roles, and even after after I went back to school. So, any opportunity I can have to like, really work with young people and help them understand the policy process, their role in it, and how to be advocates for themselves, their communities.
Always one of my favorite things to do. So, this work started in 2022, brought together 11 black folks on a task force, in conjunction with a number of other projects, right? So we did a media scan, we did some listening sessions focus groups, community strategy sessions and they really dug in on, on all of those things, right? And we're able to really help us inform our policy agenda, inform our, narrative development principles really do the framing for the research that we were doing in the media scan, and in the focus groups with other young Black workers. So, it's always nice to allow people to speak for themselves.
Michelle Rathman: Wow that I think that would be, you get them while they're young ,and you know we have a saying in health care with nurses like you eat your young. But in this case, this is like you nourish, you feed your young.
I think that's a much better way to go. My gosh, but the time that we have left I just would like to know, because I ask everyone this question, I mean, you've got a lot of experience under your belt.
You've got a lot of insight into areas that so many of us don't, and I wish that we did. What words of wisdom do you have for higher education institutions and policymakers when it comes to ensuring America's Black students and job seekers have the resources, they need to pursue post-secondary education and gain those opportunities that they so are deserving to have before them, and you know how that plays itself out in generations to come.
What advice do you have for us to be far more focused in a positive way? What can we do?
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Yeah. I would, I'll say three things. I, I will go back to my earlier point that race is inextricable from any conversation around economic policy, because of how this country was founded, because of the way that Black folks entered as labor, as property, and how we've fared since then. Race, we have had race specific laws in this country.
We still need race specific laws in this country to undo what those laws did. I'm very adamant about that for sure. So, we can't shy away from it. We shouldn't be embarrassed of it. We should be clear on where this country was, how far we've come, and continue to push those, those efforts forward in racially specific ways because we know racially specific things are happening for sure.That's one.
The second, I'll go back to something else I said, and that's putting workers first, right? Putting workers for first, building worker power. I am happy to also know that some of the conversation with our young Black workers was around union membership around organizing and labor worker voice really.
So, again, projects like that, that allow people to speak for themselves and super excited about some projects that we have coming up. So, whether that is listening to your student leaders on a college campus. Working with your union leaders as an employee, specifically seeking out union labor, but also putting workers first in policy, doing things that make sure families are safe and able to thrive. Doing things that, you know, are right. Doing things that, you know, are good, not just for the employee today, but for the employees future in the future of the economy and particularly in the state for sure.
And last, I would say we really have to think about job quality, right? So, specific to workforce development systems. They have to be worker centered as well, and they should be leading to good jobs, not just high demand or high need jobs.
Because a lot of times we find that we're looking to meet employers demands instead of looking to do what's best for the student, for the learner, for the worker. And so, we have a really active labor market policies, high quality training, career counseling, support services, prioritizing job quality, making sure that we are preparing students, preparing training participants for good jobs, making sure that the jobs we're offering are good.
Michelle Rathman: And then what we need from there is that for what you are saying to land on people and to recognize that there is a better way. That this is this is the future we're talking about here. And why wouldn't we want to invest? I mean, if we want people to invest themselves in doing great jobs, great work and giving their best selves, we have to give them our best selves as well.
And this is not just rural specific, not just South Pacific, but specific, but across all rural communities. But I want to say Dr. Kayla C. Elliott, your work is very important. It has been really a privilege to learn about what you're doing atThe Joint Center and anything you think that we need to know that is making a rural impact, you know where to find us. We'd love to have you back anytime you've got some new research to share. It's been a real joy. Thank you so much.
Kayla Elliott Ph.D.: Thank you so much for having me and letting me speak to our work.
Michelle Rathman: It is my pleasure.
Michelle Rathman: My thanks again to Dr. Kayla C. Elliott and Dr. Jeff Strohl for their time and expertise. And of course, I want to reiterate again and again, our gratitude to Ascendium Education Group for their partnership. And a reminder to you that we invite you to subscribe to this podcast, rate us, leave us your comments.
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