not like the farmwork, you know." And, that is the honest-to-God truth. They do not relate to doing farmwork and that is all there is to it. I would like to say something else.

Mr. VEYSEY. Let me explore that point with you a little further. Now, you are painting a pretty bleak picture here. No opportunities, no jobs available, and so on, but maybe we are closing our mind to perhaps the biggest source of seasonal, unskilled jobs that there is anywhere around. I do not know, maybe that is right or wrong, but I would like to at least look into it.

Mr. TAFOYA. There is enough to do in the Griffith Park alone that could stand about a thousand youths during the summer and I think it would be a good bargain. I would like to say something else. You mentioned something about being poor and so on. You know it has been found that undernourishment is alined to mental incapacity. Just recently, and I think this is one of the other reasons that we have the high degree of dropouts, and members of our community cannot think properly when you're not fed properly and, I would like to say something else, that the average grade level of attainment of the youth that comes to our program was a high school dropout. Even if he graduates from East Los Angeles, in our program, that is fifth grade.

Mr. VEYSEY. One further area that I would like to explore with you is, do you find that there are serious problems because of restrictive State or Federal laws making it difficult for young people to be placed on various types of jobs? That is, maybe minimum wage laws-restrictive laws, with respect to operating different types of equipment— various types of employment. Is this a big barrier?

Mr. JUAREZ. It definitely is, because many companies will not touch a young man under 18 years of age. Others would not touch anyone under 16 because of their restrictive laws, that insurance companies. will not allow them to hire these people and will not furnish the insurance if they do hire someone.

Mr. VEYSEY. That presents a very bad barrier-a very bad block. I think we should be able to overcome it some way or another, legislatively. It would take both State and Federal action.

Mr. JUAREZ. Another thing I would like to inject, something else, Mr. Veysey, with respect to the farm labor that we were talking about. Also, we have to understand that there is not any farm labor within a hundred miles from Los Angeles.

Mr. VEYSEY. Now wait, that is not factual.

That is simply not fact. Orange County, Riverside County, Los Angeles County, are all well within that distance. Now, I do not mean to quibble with you, but your statement is just not factual.

Mr. JUAREZ. Yes.

Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Juarez, you were not indicating in your reply to Mr. Veysey that you are advocating the dismantling or the weakening of protective legislation for youth.

Mr. JUAREZ. No, I am not advocating anything. I just want to tell him some of the reasons for difficulty in placing people in industry. I feel that there is a definite need for some of these laws, but nevertheless, we still need to find some meaningful point for youth.

Mr. TAFOYA. There are overlying areas. For example, when we first started this business, box boys had to be 18 years of age, for one thing.

We had problems with retail checks that were finally ironed out and there are certain situations where the Congress is going to have to be very concerned about restrictive legislation on the employment of teenagers.

You take for example, now that the voting age has been lowered to 18, there are some unions that won't even hire a person unless he is 21 years of age and I can cite many of the manufacturers, auto manufacturing companies here that almost make it a practice to not hire anyone unless he is 25. You see, and yet we are going to give the vote to the 18-year-old and take him to war and we will not hire him in many of our industries and I think this is something we are going to have to stop and think about. Irrespective of whether we are protecting the youth or not, there are some overlapping areas.

Mr. HAWKINS. For the sake of the record, I just wanted to get your view on this, whether or not you are suggesting that the protective laws for protected children-that should be relaxed or somehow changed from major views. Are you suggesting that?

Mr. TAFOYA. No, I think it should be highly scrutinized by the Department of Labor or the Congress to make sure that we start thinking in terms of the maturity of our people being at a lower age, because I think people become more mature a lot sooner now, than they used to, say, 10, 15 years ago.

Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Anderson?

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tafoya, I am somewhat concerned with the overall picture that we are talking about in providing money and jobs nationally, and that is why I am sitting in on these hearings. I am not a member of this committee, but I do represent a district that has high unemployment. I do not want to say my area is the highest. I know there are other areas where unemployment is far more critical than in mine, but unemployment neverthe less is increasing in my district. I am told that the need for summer jobs is much greater than it was last year and the year before. And yet, nationally, we are talking about cutting down the money and I want to explore this a little bit with you to see if something can be worked out. We are told that last year we provided 413,000 job slots and we spent $197 million, but this year we are going to try to increase our number of slots to 414,200, but we are going to do it by cutting the funding by $32 million. We are going to provide $165.7 million this year, which is $32 million less than we spent last year. Now, last year, when we provided 413,000 job slots, we only had 4.5 percent unemployment. Today, we have 6 percent unemployment.

It would seem to me that instead of cutting down, we should be thinking in terms of increasing the amount of money and increasing the number of slots much more than what we are talking about now. Now, one of the solutions that they present here in cutting down the amount of money is to cut the number of workweeks from 10 to 8, which again does cut a good percentage of the amount of money to be spent. Do you think that cutting down the number of workweeks from 10 to 8 is a reasonable way of providing more jobs for less money?

Mr. TAFOYA. I think if they cut back 10 weeks to 8 weeks, it is something that could be withstood. However, I feel that the cutback is unreasonable and you're asking me the question, and yet I think you

have answered it yourself, that you could have very easily posed this to the administration in Washington, because they are the ones that are manipulating the money in vetoing the manpower program, in vetoing other appropriations that the Congress sets up. So, I would feel that somebody is hoodwinking somebody in making these cutbacks, but really, the 10 to 8 weeks may be drastic because, I would venture to say

Mr. ANDERSON. But, you could live with that?

Mr. TAFOYA. If the money were kept the same, because money is the name of the game, you know. If you put money into a community overall, you're not decreasing the money, or playing games with people by cutting it from 10 to 8 weeks. You see? You're not solving the financial problem throughout the country by, say, reducing funds at a time of need, you know? Priming the pump, so to speak, in the time of need. I do not understand what is going on in Washington, you know. I really don't. As far as cutting back funds at a time of need, we are faced with it, whether we want to talk about it or not. I think we are just playing with statistics to indicate that we are 5.8 percent or 6 percent. In the Mexican community, people are not even listening because they cannot speak English. It is part of the total.

Mr. ANDERSON. That was my next question. What do you consider a more realistic unemployment level for that particular area?

Mr. TAFOYA. A realistic unemployment level with the area that I am familiar with is 16 to 21 years old, the last time we made a check, was 372 percent, and I would venture to say it is closer to 45 percent at this time, unemployed 16- and 21-year-olds, available people for employment.

Mr. ANDERSON. Now what would the unemployment level be, in the same area, for the people 18 years old and above.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. It is probably anywhere from between 20 and 30. Mr. ANDERSON. In other words, in the Mexican-American community, there is 20 to 30 percent unemployment across the board with, maybe a 40 percent unemployment level for the 16- to 18-year-olds who are employable and will be looking for work at the start of summer. Mr. TAFOYA. 16 to 21.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Fernandez, in reviewing the prepared remarks that you and Mr. Juarez presented, I receive the impression that we are talking about curing a problem by asking for too few jobs. Now, on your first page, you cite 34,000 young people between the ages of 16 through 22 who are going to be seeking summer employment. Then you say that 61 percent of these will be below the Federal poverty level, so there are at least 20,000 to 25,000 who really need jobs because they are below the poverty level. Now, on the next page, you show that last year you had 4,100 applications, and that this year it is going to double, so you will have 8,000 applications. Then, you go on to say that last year you referrd jobs to private agencies. You had 292 of those that were referred, and that this year, you are going to have a 60-percent decrease, which brings that number way down to about 120.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. What we are talking about is what we at the service center handle, and we do not handle everybody.

Mr. ANDERSON. But, I assume that your service center is kind of a sample of the general area, and that you are going to have twice as

many applicants for jobs as you did last year and that you are going to have half as many places to put them. This would give me the impression, that you have 25,000 real needy cases out of a total of 35,000. To be talking in terms of 1,000 or 2,000 jobs just does not make sense to me.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. You are very correct, Mr. Anderson. The 2,000 I am talking about would be the East Los Angeles community, could easily handle 2,000.

Mr. ANDERSON. But you still would have 23,000 below the poverty level to whom you cannot even give anything.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. Well, you are right. We should reserve

Mr. ANDERSON. This is the picture as I see it. We have to have this information now. Mr. Tafoya said, "why don't you talk with the administration"? We cannot talk to the administration unless we know some of these real hard facts. I think you have to give us the total picture. You are talking about 2,000 placements for your area, but you are really meeting the need of only 2,000 out of 25,000. You need to do a lot more than that. The idea of cutting down the budget from 179 million, nationally, to 165 million for this year is just not a realistic picture especially in light of the increase in unemployment from 4.5 percent to 6 percent. However, you say even this is an unrealistic picture, because unemployment is really 20 percent, or maybe 30 percent, or 40 percent among the 16-to-21-year-olds. I think we have got to let the people-the Congress, the press, know that the situation is bleak. You are the ones that are going to have to tell the story. I just came in today. Congressman Hawkins asked me to sit in with the committee. I want to commend these Congressmen. They do not have to be here, but Mr. Ashbrook from Ohio and Mr. Veysey and Mr. Hawkins are here to learn more about this problem. But, there are 400 more of us who probably are not getting as much information as I think you people should be giving us.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. Part of the reason for those figures, too, is the need, I thought I would handle in the center with the staff I have, which has been cut back by 21 positions, so if I had all of those myself, I would not be able to handle them.

Mr. ANDERSON. You say your staff was cut this year from last year? Mr. FERNANDEZ. Yes, that is right.

Mr. ANDERSON. By how much?

Mr. FERNANDEZ. Well, we had-well, we got 21-we have 129.

Mr. ANDERSON. So, you were cut from 150 to 129.

Mr. FERNANDEZ. That is right.

Mr. ANDERSON. To handle twice as many. Well, now, you see, these are the things that we must know and be able to verify with statements from those of you who are right here on the ground.

Mr. TAFOYA. Another thing, we have been conditioned to know about these cuts that are effected, at the Federal level. We are told that we may have to submit proposals for less staff, less summer jobs, and all the way, and this is told from the top to the bottom.

If you come in here with a figure requesting 25,000 summer jobs, it would seem a little ludicrous, you know. Based on triviality of the problem, and so this is probably one of the reasons we are not coming in here with the total need and telling the total picture of which we are going on.

Mr. HAWKINS. Thank you, Mr. Tafoya, Mr. Juarez, and Mr. Fernandex for an excellent presentation. We have benefited greatly by the testimony that you have given.

At this time, the Chair will call the next panel, which will consist of Bill Elkins, director of the Los Angeles Teen Post, Mrs. Jane Dawson, director of youth programs, the Economic Youth Opportunities Agency and Mr. Phillip Wing, executive director of the Pasadena Commission on Human Needs and Opportunity.

Mr. Ashbrook.

Mr. ASHBROOK. I think you have an extraordinary interest here, which speaks well for the people of our area. Is there any way of ascertaining are most people here present as individuals or are they part of a group? I think it is wonderful to see this kind of turnout, having been at many hearings. I am sure there is a certain amount of boredom in all hearings, as much as we try to keep away from it. To have that many people interested certainly impresses me and I wonder if there is any indication here of which people came as part of a group and who came as individuals.

Mr. HAWKINS. Those of you who represent agencies, will you raise your hands. Those of you who come merely as individuals, are not identified with any agencies or any agencies present here today

Mr. ASHBROOK. I consider this a very excellent turnout in expression of interest. I certainly commend you and your people for this expression of interest.

Mr. HAWKINS. Well, we are certainly pleased to have them at this hearing. This committee, I think, has a very excellent turnout. How many of you reacted to notices in the newspaper, reached by the public press, radio or television in any way? Those who just read about it and dropped in, would you raise your hands? Yes?

VOICE. Mr. Hawkins, my name is Joseph Rocco, executive director, and the way I heard about it was through a rumor in Pomona and that is the way that a lot of us heard about it.

Mr. HAWKINS. Well, rumors do get around. All right, we will go ahead, then, with the panel. Mr. Elkins, will you lead, or Mrs. Dawson, which one of you?

Mr. ELKINS. Perhaps I should, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HAWKINS. All right. Mr. Elkins, then Mrs. Dawson and Wing, in that order.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM ELKINS, DIRECTOR, TEEN POST

Mr. ELKINS. Mr. Hawkins and members of the committee, I have submitted a statement. I would like to just paraphrase that statement and would welcome the opportunity, of course, to respond to any questions after we have made our presentation.

In 1965 the U.S. Goverment committed itself, perhaps for the first time in the history of this Nation, to mount a massive attack on the crippling and devastating effect of poverty within the continental boundaries of the United States.

Over a course of the last 5 years in this Nation we have witnessed the horror and devastation in large metropolitan areas wrought by the hostilities, the frustrations and the hopefulness of deprived people who have chosen to act out their hostilities and frustrations by resorting to overt violence.