Photo by Glyn Lowe

Photo by Glyn Lowe

One of the signature achievements of Marion Barry’s first mayoral tenure is the summer jobs program, which made summer employment available to every school-age District resident.

Since Barry launched the program, it’s provided tens of thousands of young D.C. residents ages 14-21 with summer jobs. But now Mayor Muriel Bowser is expanding the scope of the program to provide opportunities for residents as old as 24.

Bowser announced today that her administration will expand the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program with an additional $5 million, which will not only include employment opportunities for older youths, but also “support an increase in wages and associated transportation costs for program participants.”

Currently, the Department of Employment Services has a job training facility that acts as the home base for training participants in the Summer Youth Employment Program. The facility hosts the Pathways for Young Adults Program, which “is designed to assist out of school and out of work” D.C. residents between the ages of 18 and 24 with occupational skills training and development.

“My administration is committed to investing in our young people to ensure they have the skills they need to transition from summer jobs to long-term sustainable employment,” Bowser said in a statement. “This investment builds on the success of the Mayor Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program and reaches a core group of young people who need help finding pathways to good-paying jobs.”

Though the D.C.’s current minimum wage is $9.50, as the Post’s Mike DeBonis notes, no one employed in the Summer Youth Employment Program—which last’s six weeks—under 21 years or younger will make that.

Though the new wages call for 16-21 year-olds to make $8.25 an hour, older participants could get more, DeBonis reports:

Filed Under: marion barry, mayor muriel bowser, Summer Jobs Program,