Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces $30 Million to Expand Urban Youth Jobs Program and Launches Statewide Pre-Apprenticeship Job Program For Construction Trades

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an additional $30 million in funding for the successful Urban Youth Jobs Program, an innovative tax credit program which connects minority and at-risk youth with employment opportunities in communities across the state. The record investment brings total funding for the program to $50 million this year and builds on the Governor's sweeping, multi-faceted efforts to remove barriers to unemployment in the Bronx and across New York. To accompany this initiative, the Governor announced the launch of a new website designed to connect young people with job opportunities and provide them with the skills they need to succeed as they pursue their future education and career goals.

Governor Cuomo also announced the official launch of the nation's first state-sponsored Pre-Apprenticeship Program, which he outlined in the 2016 State of the State Address. The state will today issue a Request for Proposals to training providers who will prepare participants for a career in the building and construction trades. The program will match qualified trainees with permanent employment opportunities on major state infrastructure projects, including the new LaGuardia Airport and the complete overhaul of Penn Station.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:

Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here, beautiful morning. It's great to be at Hostos Community College, which is such a great facility and has helped so many, and is only getting stronger, and we're going to make sure it gets stronger. Let's give our host at Hostos a round of applause. It's a pleasure to be back in the Bronx, a lot of memories for me and a lot of connections with the Bronx. I built a lot of housing in the Bronx at one time. I ran a non-for-profit called HELP, and we built low-income, homeless housing all over the Bronx. I went to Fordham College, and my first campaign experience was I was the Bronx campaign manager for Mario Cuomo running against Ed Koch in 1977, believe it or not. I grew up in Queens -- I was a Queens boy. You had that Queens, Bronx competition. There was always a little Queens, Bronx competition. Sports, we had a little Queens, Bronx competition -- baseball, basketball, who had the better teams. It was a feeling at the time that some of the young ladies in the Bronx preferred dating Queens boys, and I know that created a little tension. It goes way back and it's a long tradition.

The competition continues, I want you to know. Sports competition, a little older, but it still continues. We now have an annual rafting competition actually, where we go to the top of the Hudson River and we have a big rafting competition where we have six people in a raft and we have a dead out sprint race. It tests strength, it tests stamina, and the people who are really confident in their ability step up and they take the challenge. Now, just a fact. For six years, I've been saying to Borough President Diaz, "Why don't you come to the challenge?" You know, young, "Hi, Borough President Ruben Diaz. I worked out this morning." Bigger guns than a battleship. I said, "I know. Why don't you bring those guns up to the Challenge?" "Well, I'm busy, you know, I have an event." Six years. Speaker Carl Heastie, "I'm working out. I got big guns, too, like the battleship in the Bronx." Six years. Come to the Challenge, come to the Challenge. We will give you a head start. Whatever it takes. Have confidence. Six years they haven't come. I don't want to say anything, but it might be a coincidence, busy for six years. People are busy, but this coming Sunday is going to be the seventh year. They are either going to be there or they are not going to be there, that is all I am saying.

Let's give a big round of applause to Borough President Ruben Diaz. I will tell you the truth, the Borough President is such a rising star. He has been doing such a beautiful job and has been for a long time. He is a personal friend, he has been for a long time, and it is just a pleasure to see him rise and see him bring the Bronx with him. Another round of applause for the Borough President. To Senator Serrano, who you will hear from in a moment, he is, again, a longtime friend, family friend. There are a lot of parallels between what the Senator is trying to do and the legacy he is fulfilling and what I am trying to do and the legacy I am fulfilling. Senator Serrano, it is a pleasure to be with you. To your Speaker Carl Heastie, who was really put in a very, very difficult situation, being the Speaker of the Assembly is a tough, tough job. Being the Speaker of the Assembly in this environment is extraordinarily tough because this is an anti-government, angry time. If you are in government today, you may as well as have a bullseye on your back. People are just angry. To become the Speaker on twenty minutes notice and step into that position was almost impossible. He has done a phenomenal, phenomenal job.

We are in government, not that it pays a lot of money, not that you get a lot of credit on a daily basis, but government does one thing for you. It gives you the opportunity to make a difference in people's lives. That is everything for those of us who are in public service. It doesn't mean you will make a difference in people's lives, you can fail, but it says it is going to give you the opportunity to try to make a difference in people's lives. To me, government is all about action, it's all about getting things done. My grandfather, God rest his soul, when a politician came on TV and he started to talk, my grandfather went like this [hand gesture], meaning all they do is talk. That is all politicians do, they talk. They don't get anything done. The cynicism that is out there now among people, toward politics, you see it through the presidential elections, you see it everywhere. The cynicism, the anger is, "I need help, I'm in trouble and government isn't doing enough to help me. I'm now angry at government too, because government was supposed to be the solution. Government became part of the problem." Gridlock in Washington, they can't even get a budget passed. Albany, we want to be the exact opposite. Albany, we want to be about action. We will put the politics aside and we will put the finger pointing aside for action, to actually make a difference in someone's life, concretely. We will do this concretely, not in the abstract, concretely your life is better because of what the New York State government did. That is what it's about.

The unemployment issue, to me, is everything. It is like when you go to the doctor, and you have high blood pressure. That sets up a flare. The doctor says, "Hold on, you have high blood pressure, something is wrong. Something is not sustainable." You cannot sustain high blood pressure. It could be a combination of things, but it is a problem. High unemployment rate, high youth unemployment rate. That is a problem. The social body has a problem that is unsustainable. People need work. People need hope. People need opportunity. People have to make a living. People have to feel like they can make a living. People have to feel that there is a tomorrow and that there is progress. There have to be role models of people who get an education and get a job and are progressing. When you see that unemployment number up, that is high blood pressure. That is a problem. The Bronx had the highest number in the state of New York. Period. Highest unemployment rate in the state of New York. Period. Upstate New York, Buffalo had the worst problem.

We went to work in Buffalo and we went to work in the Bronx, why? Because you need government most in the places that need the most help. In downstate New York that was the Bronx. We did something never done before. We put everyone together and we said, we are going to put together a Strikeforce, and we are going to attack this on all fronts, because unemployment is all of the above: failure in education. We do have a failure in education, we still have failing schools year after year after year after year. Failure in job training, failure to attract the jobs to the places where the people are, failure to attract and connect people to the jobs wherever they are. Discrimination -- it's not a coincidence that the unemployment is higher among black and brown. Discrimination in finding jobs. We put together a Strikeforce to attack all of the above. First time ever done. We put everyone together: state, county, private sector, Morgan Stanley, to help us find jobs. OTDA, Department of Labor, Education--everything together. There were no excuses and everyone was together on one taskforce--and it worked. It worked extraordinarily well. When the borough person gets up here and says unemployment went from fourteen percent to six percent, do you know how dramatic that is? Do you know what a change that is? How many lives he's affected? That changes the whole dynamic of the borough. People are working. Changes the neighborhoods, changes the chemistry, changes the role models. It is an amazing, transformative accomplishment. It does work with the other tangible accomplishments that we have managed to achieve this legislative session.

When they write the history books, and you take a look at what we did in Albany this Legislative session, I believe it is one of the most productive sessions in modern history. $15 minimum wage--that means a family goes from making $18,000 a year to $30,000 a year. That is a big difference. Paid family leave, best program in the United States of America, more funding for education than ever in the history of the State of New York, almost $10 billion in education money to New York City. Almost half of the NYC budget now comes from the State. The state's funding has increased at a higher rate than the city's funding for education. 18 community schools in the Bronx that finally realized it's not just about the teacher in the classroom--it's about getting all those services into the school so you can actually make a difference.

Attacking the problem of heroin and opioid abuse--you see again in the newspapers today how terrible that is. Best breast cancer screening program in the United States now free. Breast cancer screenings for women, zero payment. $27 billion for the MTA, four train stations in the Bronx that are going to physically transform the Bronx because the commute will be better than ever and you're going to see people coming in.

A lot of good work, and the unemployment rate--the blood pressure is down. The youth unemployment rate is down. That to me is what is the most troubling. It's close to 40 percent unemployment among black and brown youth. That is just a sign of trouble. If you have young people who are not working they have a lot of time on their hands, they need money. No good things can come of that, no good things. The Strikeforce primarily focused not just on unemployment but on youth unemployment. We are very proud of the fourteen to six. But we are not done and we won't be done until that six is zero. By the way, it will never be zero, so we will keep trying because our goal is literally everybody who wants a job has a job.

We are going to have three more initiatives that we are going to add to the Strikeforce that we are announcing today that will make an even greater difference. First, for the summer jobs as you heard from the Borough President. Having youth employed during the summer months when they are off from school is very important--they can learn skills, they can stay off the street. We are going to provide $16 million to employ 11,000 young people this summer in a summer youth job program. We are starting a pre-apprentice training program. We are creating construction jobs. The state is doing more construction than it has done in 50 years. These are good jobs. These are high-paying jobs. But you need to know how to be an electrician. You need to know how to be a carpenter. The salaries are good, but you need to get into the apprentice program, so our funding of a pre-apprentice program is going to provide those skills for the labor unions and provide young people with good jobs.

We are starting that today, also, and what we call our Urban Youth Job Credit Program, which has worked extraordinarily well. We say to a private employer, "We will provide you $5,000 as a stipend to hire a young person and give them training. You pay them. You give them a job. They are working for you full-time. They are employed at least six months." The employer gets a $5,000 stipend and the young person gets a job, gets skills, gets a career. We are going to fund that to the tune of double what we funded before, $50 million and that is going to make a difference.

With everything we have done before with these three new programs, we are very excited about what the future holds, and it is going to build on the success and the amazing success that we have had thus far. I mentioned the Bronx, Queens competition growing up. I want to be 100 percent honest and straightforward. In the drop in unemployment rate over the past few years, Brooklyn has come down 5 points. Queens has come down 4.6 points. But the Bronx wins, by dropping unemployment 5.3 perceA rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is below:

Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here, beautiful morning. It's great to be at Hostos Community College, which is such a great facility and has helped so many, and is only getting stronger, and we're going to make sure it gets stronger. Let's give our host at Hostos a round of applause. It's a pleasure to be back in the Bronx, a lot of memories for me and a lot of connections with the Bronx. I built a lot of housing in the Bronx at one time. I ran a non-for-profit called HELP, and we built low-income, homeless housing all over the Bronx. I went to Fordham College, and my first campaign experience was I was the Bronx campaign manager for Mario Cuomo running against Ed Koch in 1977, believe it or not. I grew up in Queens -- I was a Queens boy. You had that Queens, Bronx competition. There was always a little Queens, Bronx competition. Sports, we had a little Queens, Bronx competition -- baseball, basketball, who had the better teams. It was a feeling at the time that some of the young ladies in the Bronx preferred dating Queens boys, and I know that created a little tension. It goes way back and it's a long tradition.

The competition continues, I want you to know. Sports competition, a little older, but it still continues. We now have an annual rafting competition actually, where we go to the top of the Hudson River and we have a big rafting competition where we have six people in a raft and we have a dead out sprint race. It tests strength, it tests stamina, and the people who are really confident in their ability step up and they take the challenge. Now, just a fact. For six years, I've been saying to Borough President Diaz, "Why don't you come to the challenge?" You know, young, "Hi, Borough President Ruben Diaz. I worked out this morning." Bigger guns than a battleship. I said, "I know. Why don't you bring those guns up to the Challenge?" "Well, I'm busy, you know, I have an event." Six years. Speaker Carl Heastie, "I'm working out. I got big guns, too, like the battleship in the Bronx." Six years. Come to the Challenge, come to the Challenge. We will give you a head start. Whatever it takes. Have confidence. Six years they haven't come. I don't want to say anything, but it might be a coincidence, busy for six years. People are busy, but this coming Sunday is going to be the seventh year. They are either going to be there or they are not going to be there, that is all I am saying.

Let's give a big round of applause to Borough President Ruben Diaz. I will tell you the truth, the Borough President is such a rising star. He has been doing such a beautiful job and has been for a long time. He is a personal friend, he has been for a long time, and it is just a pleasure to see him rise and see him bring the Bronx with him. Another round of applause for the Borough President. To Senator Serrano, who you will hear from in a moment, he is, again, a longtime friend, family friend. There are a lot of parallels between what the Senator is trying to do and the legacy he is fulfilling and what I am trying to do and the legacy I am fulfilling. Senator Serrano, it is a pleasure to be with you. To your Speaker Carl Heastie, who was really put in a very, very difficult situation, being the Speaker of the Assembly is a tough, tough job. Being the Speaker of the Assembly in this environment is extraordinarily tough because this is an anti-government, angry time. If you are in government today, you may as well as have a bullseye on your back. People are just angry. To become the Speaker on twenty minutes notice and step into that position was almost impossible. He has done a phenomenal, phenomenal job.

We are in government, not that it pays a lot of money, not that you get a lot of credit on a daily basis, but government does one thing for you. It gives you the opportunity to make a difference in people's lives. That is everything for those of us who are in public service. It doesn't mean you will make a difference in people's lives, you can fail, but it says it is going to give you the opportunity to try to make a difference in people's lives. To me, government is all about action, it's all about getting things done. My grandfather, God rest his soul, when a politician came on TV and he started to talk, my grandfather went like this [hand gesture], meaning all they do is talk. That is all politicians do, they talk. They don't get anything done. The cynicism that is out there now among people, toward politics, you see it through the presidential elections, you see it everywhere. The cynicism, the anger is, "I need help, I'm in trouble and government isn't doing enough to help me. I'm now angry at government too, because government was supposed to be the solution. Government became part of the problem." Gridlock in Washington, they can't even get a budget passed. Albany, we want to be the exact opposite. Albany, we want to be about action. We will put the politics aside and we will put the finger pointing aside for action, to actually make a difference in someone's life, concretely. We will do this concretely, not in the abstract, concretely your life is better because of what the New York State government did. That is what it's about.

The unemployment issue, to me, is everything. It is like when you go to the doctor, and you have high blood pressure. That sets up a flare. The doctor says, "Hold on, you have high blood pressure, something is wrong. Something is not sustainable." You cannot sustain high blood pressure. It could be a combination of things, but it is a problem. High unemployment rate, high youth unemployment rate. That is a problem. The social body has a problem that is unsustainable. People need work. People need hope. People need opportunity. People have to make a living. People have to feel like they can make a living. People have to feel that there is a tomorrow and that there is progress. There have to be role models of people who get an education and get a job and are progressing. When you see that unemployment number up, that is high blood pressure. That is a problem. The Bronx had the highest number in the state of New York. Period. Highest unemployment rate in the state of New York. Period. Upstate New York, Buffalo had the worst problem.

We went to work in Buffalo and we went to work in the Bronx, why? Because you need government most in the places that need the most help. In downstate New York that was the Bronx. We did something never done before. We put everyone together and we said, we are going to put together a Strikeforce, and we are going to attack this on all fronts, because unemployment is all of the above: failure in education. We do have a failure in education, we still have failing schools year after year after year after year. Failure in job training, failure to attract the jobs to the places where the people are, failure to attract and connect people to the jobs wherever they are. Discrimination -- it's not a coincidence that the unemployment is higher among black and brown. Discrimination in finding jobs. We put together a Strikeforce to attack all of the above. First time ever done. We put everyone together: state, county, private sector, Morgan Stanley, to help us find jobs. OTDA, Department of Labor, Education--everything together. There were no excuses and everyone was together on one taskforce--and it worked. It worked extraordinarily well. When the borough person gets up here and says unemployment went from fourteen percent to six percent, do you know how dramatic that is? Do you know what a change that is? How many lives he's affected? That changes the whole dynamic of the borough. People are working. Changes the neighborhoods, changes the chemistry, changes the role models. It is an amazing, transformative accomplishment. It does work with the other tangible accomplishments that we have managed to achieve this legislative session.

When they write the history books, and you take a look at what we did in Albany this Legislative session, I believe it is one of the most productive sessions in modern history. $15 minimum wage--that means a family goes from making $18,000 a year to $30,000 a year. That is a big difference. Paid family leave, best program in the United States of America, more funding for education than ever in the history of the State of New York, almost $10 billion in education money to New York City. Almost half of the NYC budget now comes from the State. The state's funding has increased at a higher rate than the city's funding for education. 18 community schools in the Bronx that finally realized it's not just about the teacher in the classroom--it's about getting all those services into the school so you can actually make a difference.

Attacking the problem of heroin and opioid abuse--you see again in the newspapers today how terrible that is. Best breast cancer screening program in the United States now free. Breast cancer screenings for women, zero payment. $27 billion for the MTA, four train stations in the Bronx that are going to physically transform the Bronx because the commute will be better than ever and you're going to see people coming in.

A lot of good work, and the unemployment rate--the blood pressure is down. The youth unemployment rate is down. That to me is what is the most troubling. It's close to 40 percent unemployment among black and brown youth. That is just a sign of trouble. If you have young people who are not working they have a lot of time on their hands, they need money. No good things can come of that, no good things. The Strikeforce primarily focused not just on unemployment but on youth unemployment. We are very proud of the fourteen to six. But we are not done and we won't be done until that six is zero. By the way, it will never be zero, so we will keep trying because our goal is literally everybody who wants a job has a job.

We are going to have three more initiatives that we are going to add to the Strikeforce that we are announcing today that will make an even greater difference. First, for the summer jobs as you heard from the Borough President. Having youth employed during the summer months when they are off from school is very important--they can learn skills, they can stay off the street. We are going to provide $16 million to employ 11,000 young people this summer in a summer youth job program. We are starting a pre-apprentice training program. We are creating construction jobs. The state is doing more construction than it has done in 50 years. These are good jobs. These are high-paying jobs. But you need to know how to be an electrician. You need to know how to be a carpenter. The salaries are good, but you need to get into the apprentice program, so our funding of a pre-apprentice program is going to provide those skills for the labor unions and provide young people with good jobs.

We are starting that today, also, and what we call our Urban Youth Job Credit Program, which has worked extraordinarily well. We say to a private employer, "We will provide you $5,000 as a stipend to hire a young person and give them training. You pay them. You give them a job. They are working for you full-time. They are employed at least six months." The employer gets a $5,000 stipend and the young person gets a job, gets skills, gets a career. We are going to fund that to the tune of double what we funded before, $50 million and that is going to make a difference.

With everything we have done before with these three new programs, we are very excited about what the future holds, and it is going to build on the success and the amazing success that we have had thus far. I mentioned the Bronx, Queens competition growing up. I want to be 100 percent honest and straightforward. In the drop in unemployment rate over the past few years, Brooklyn has come down 5 points. Queens has come down 4.6 points. But the Bronx wins, by dropping unemployment 5.3 percent. What is right is right. We have, in this state today, more private sector jobs than have ever existed in history -- 7.9 million jobs. Overall, the state's economy is stronger than it has ever been, but the strongest economy is the economy that brings opportunity to every corner of the state. The greatest feast is the feast enjoyed by the most, and until this state brings opportunity to every impoverished community, every minority, every corner of this state that has been long overlooked our job is not done. That is why we are here today and that is why we are making the progress we are making today. Thank you, and God bless you.nt. What is right is right. We have, in this state today, more private sector jobs than have ever existed in history -- 7.9 million jobs. Overall, the state's economy is stronger than it has ever been, but the strongest economy is the economy that brings opportunity to every corner of the state. The greatest feast is the feast enjoyed by the most, and until this state brings opportunity to every impoverished community, every minority, every corner of this state that has been long overlooked our job is not done. That is why we are here today and that is why we are making the progress we are making today. Thank you, and God bless you.

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