WASHINGTON — Every few months, at a community center in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, about 100 people gather for a celebration. They hold hands in a circle, hear a blessing, and then listen as the good news pours forth.
“My name is Mark Jones, and I’ve been at Harris Teeter for 385 days, and I’ve just been promoted to be a meat cutter,” one tall, bespectacled man announced at one such event recently, to cheers around the room. Another lady shares that she’s been hired by Macy’s at Tyson’s Corner. A Mr. Amstrong proclaims that starting that week, he’ll be making $56 an hour doing electrical work.
Next, over a communal dinner of spaghetti and salad, Kenneth Thomas relates the story of coming out of federal prison, getting hired at Ace Hardware, and being promoted after a year. “You got to want it,” Thomas tells the crowd. “That’s where I’m at in life. I just want to show up to do the best job I can.”
Many of those in attendance had spent years toiling in minimum wage jobs. The Move Up program, run by the career pathway organization Jubilee Jobs, is about pushing them one step further.
The mission, while not new, is ever more timely now. Much of the renewed debate around raising the minimum wage centers on the question of mobility: Those who favor a lower wage floor argue that such jobs are just a stepping stone to better employment, so we should preserve as many entry-level positions as possible, and nobody should have one for very long before moving on.
The problem is, for certain segments of the population, moving on has been the hard part. Numerous studies over the years have found that while some people do hold minimum wage jobs for a short time while they’re in school, many spend years as cashiers and fast food cooks, making barely enough to survive.
“It’s hard even for college graduates to get middle-level jobs,” says Terry Flood, Jubilee Jobs’ president. “So our applicants are going to need education and skills and a pretty big network and commitment to move from a minimum wage job to a $12 an hour job. We find it requires an awful lot of support.”
Different approach
The guy in charge of running the Move Up program has some first-hand experience with how the labor market has changed.
Forty-six years ago, Lawrence Taylor responded to a newspaper ad for Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company that read: “Craftsmen wanted. We will train.” He interviewed the next day, took a test, and was invited to start work doing wiring at the central office the following Monday. He had been planning to go to college, but opportunity after opportunity presented itself at the phone company, and it turned into a 31-year career.
“The contrast is shocking to me,” says Taylor, at Jubilee Jobs’ cramped rowhouse office. “I qualified to buy a home in my neighborhood of Petworth off of that salary. Now, with an entry level job, without any subsidies, you’re going to be homeless. And that’s what we’re up against. That represents the battle, and the concessions.”
Here’s how the Move Up program works: People who’ve attended enough of the monthly meetings can qualify to join, and are paired with a coach. They have to go through several soft skills training sessions, on subjects such as job interviewing and conflict resolution. Then, working with community-minded employers such as Ace Hardware, Jubilee looks to place the prospectives in positions that make more than $13 an hour — and in exchange, they guarantee that the applicant is motivated and job-ready.
That’s actually a different approach from typical job training programs. Most focus on simply helping people get that first job, which helps improve the headline numbers that we use to measure the health of the economy.
Mark Jones, though, knew he didn’t want to spend many years mopping floors in the deli section. For Jones, the Move Up program was more of a support group than anything else.
“I think that it helped because of staying connected with a group of people, hearing their entry level stories,” Jones says. “It just kind of gives you more hope while you’re waiting.”
