“These men desperately want to work, but they face multiple barriers—low education levels, substance abuse, exposure to violence and trauma,” Davis said.
The percentage of men out of the workforce has grown steadily since at least the late 1960s, when the inactivity rate was just 4 percent, Smith said.
Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski said her Indiana district has a labor shortage that employers say results from job applicants failing drug-screening tests “due to the onslaught of opioid addiction.”
The hearing’s star witness, Tyrone Ferrens, described how a job training program in Baltimore helped him shed a life of crime and drugs to become an electrician able to support himself and his mother and become engaged in the lives of his adult children.
Ferrens, who has dyslexia and ADHD, said he struggled in a school that placed “such emphasis on going to college” and ended up becoming a drug dealer who was arrested 14 times. “Even now, 10 years later, it’s a huge obstacle,” Ferrens said, noting how his criminal record disqualifies him from many jobs.
In response to questions from Rep. Mike Bishop, a Michigan Republican, Ferrens said he looked into getting his record expunged but encountered “a lot of bureaucracy. It just got extremely frustrating.”
Anthony Lowery, policy director at Chicago’s Safer Foundation, which helps convicts get jobs, noted that a law enacted last month in Illinois enables nonviolent and nonsexual ex-offenders to have their records sealed from view by prospective employers. A companion law signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, automatically expunges juvenile arrest records for nonviolent and nonsexual offenses after a period of time.
“That will go a long way to resolving issues,” Lowery said.