The Philadelphia Platform :: Workforce Development and Education

Solomon and Hohenstein Talk About Harrisburg’s Philadelphia Delegation’s Plan for the City

Star Philly New: 4.30.2019 by Tom Beck

“The idea is to build accountability to what we are doing in Harrisburg each and every day and to make Harrisburg relevant,” Solomon said.

Pennsylvania State Representatives Joe Hohenstein, who serves the 177th district, and Jared Solomon, who serves the 202nd district, took to the Samuel Recreation Center in Port Richmond Thursday night to address community concerns and highlight the Philadelphia Platform, which is an outline of four policy areas that are the primary priorities of the Philadelphia Delegation during the 2019–20 Legislative Session.

“The idea is to build accountability to what we are doing in Harrisburg each and every day and to make Harrisburg relevant,” Solomon said.

Workforce Development and Education

According to the platform, which was handed out to each person in attendance, the vision and goal of this policy area is to support “young people, returning citizens, adult learners, and immigrants in fully participating in the labor force” by “pursuing family-sustaining careers, and creating a 21st century workforce in Philadelphia.”

Hohenstein said that officials have seen “a reduction in the number of available jobs” and have “also seen our schools suffer.” There’s a number of stats in the platform to back this up. Here’s a few:

Philadelphia ranks 96th out of the top 100 cities in labor force participation, and in some parts of the city it’s as low as 65%.

550,000 adults in Philadelphia, or nearly 50% of the adult population, lack the tools like literacy, computer skills, and credentials to succeed in the workforce.

An estimated 245,000 Philadelphians lack “basic” prose literacy skills, but there are only 569 classroom seats for these adults to learn.

By 2030, 600,000 Philadelphians (or 39% of the population) will not have the skills to secure the types of jobs available in Philadelphia.

Only 66 percent of the class of 2016 in District-run high schools graduated, which is well-below the national average of 82%.

27.4% of adults over 25 have bachelor degrees, and the geographic variation of educational attainment is extreme — Center City it is 75% and over, large parts of North, Southwest, West and Northeast Philadelphia is below 25%.

English language learning is increasingly a need, as nearly 200,000 people in Philadelphia (or 12.2 % of the population) are foreign-born, up from 100,000 or 6% in 1990.

To fix that problem, the plan highlights four main goals:

➤ equipping all young Philadelphians with 21st century skills for today’s workforce

➤ removing barriers for the formerly incarcerated to successfully re-enter society, get a job or start a business

➤ drastically improve adult literacy and numeracy deficits to enable adult learners to access new jobs

➤ support immigrants’ English proficiency and fluency to help them translate their skills and degrees from other countries to fully participate in the Philadelphia economy.

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