WASHINGTON -- I'm not a big fan of "working." That's why I
regret not signing up for D.C.'s Summer Youth Employment
Program.

"We don't do nothing," said Samantha Baskin, a 14-year-old
participant.

That's my kind of job.

Too bad I missed out. Late last month was the final day of the
ten-week program, which ostensibly provides "meaningful work
experiences" to D.C. youth between the ages of 14 and 21. This
summer, a record 21,018 kids signed up -- nearly quadruple the
number from five years ago.

Mayor Adrian Fenty vowed to give a summer job to every kid who
wanted one. But it turned out there were more jobs than there was
work to do, forcing many kids into made-up vocations that consisted
of nothing more than receiving government paychecks.

By mid-July, the program had already run out of money. With
several weeks remaining, Fenty asked for $20.1 million in emergency
funding, which the program subsequently received, bringing its
total cost to $52.4 million -- almost four times its original
budget ($14.5 million).

Yeah, but so what? I mean, we're talking about children here,
aren't we?

Not necessarily. According to a released after an internal investigation
of the program, 104 registrants were either too young or too old
even to apply -- some "youths" were over 50 years old -- yet they
were paid. Another 207 "participants" aren't even District
residents -- and they were paid. In addition, 1,881 dropouts --
those with "perfect absenteeism," as the report phrases it -- were
still receiving salaries even weeks after they quit. This taught
them a lesson: Showing up to work is no prerequisite to having a
job.

Other kids weren't so lucky. Those employed by the Washington
East of the River Academy, which was four weeks late in getting
started because of administrative miscues, had an unusual
assignment. "We just go to a classroom and sit all day," said one 17-year-old. "We can't even talk to
each other." Some 700 kids were forced to sit, just sit, in a hot
auditorium for roughly a month. Instead of acquiring "job skills,"
they got to experience what detention feels like. That alone should
prepare many of them for this fall semester.

OF THOSE WHO BOTHERED to show up, countless kids didn't work, often
through no fault of their own. Either they arrived only to be told
there was nothing for them to do, or the city assigned them to
nonexistent worksites. As the report puts it, "youth did not know
where to go to work, and DOES [Department of Employment Services]
did not know where to send them."

Meanwhile, the city -- out of confusion, negligence, and
outright fraud in some cases -- was paying kids who skipped work
and underpaying others who did what they were told. Time and
attendance records were so shoddy that officials had no way of
knowing who worked and who didn't.

Not wanting to shortchange anyone, the administration erred on
the side of overspending -- a natural consequence of overpromising
-- by awarding a salary to everyone who registered for the program,
regardless of whether they actually worked or not. This meant, in
effect, that requesting a job was enough to get paid for one. As a
result, the program ended up costing $31 million more than planned.
Oops.

Former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, who created the program 29 years
ago, called this year's "the most mismanaged
programmatically and financially in the history of the
program."

Don't worry. Mayor Fenty said his administration is taking steps to
"ensure these problems will not happen again." What a relief. Yet,
if history teaches us anything, it's that whenever government
learns from its mistakes, it finds a way to make new ones.

Supporters of the program would have us believe this year is an
anomaly. As appalling as it was, it followed the historical
pattern. Consider these old headlines: "Youth Job Drive in Deep
Trouble Before It Starts" (1980), "1 in 3 Eligible Youths in
District Fails to Appear for Summer Job" (1980), "City Summer Jobs
Program Off to Its Usual Glitch-Riddled Start" (1981), "D.C. Summer
Jobs Coming Up Short" (1997), just to name a few.

THE PROGRAM IS continually plagued by glitches because it is
premised on a fallacy. Its reason for existence is to employ the
unemployable -- kids who, by definition, have minimal skills and
little to no experience. Many of them have anger-management issues
to boot. "Sure, some of our young people have attitudes," Alexis
Roberson, former director of the Department of Employment Services
(DOES), once admitted. "If you have a young person with a bad
attitude, help them change it."

That offer is unlikely to entice many employers.

That's not the point, say advocates of subsidized child labor.
As they see it, D.C.'s summer jobs program exists not so much to
make kids productive as to prevent them from being
counterproductive. It is a method of crime prevention, supposedly.
"Youth offending is directly correlated to youth employment,"
claims City Administrator Dan Tangherlini.
Earlier this year, Mayor Fenty told a group of business leaders, "So many young
people can get into trouble when they're not challenged, when
they're not busy."

Fair enough. But the whole point of staying busy is to suppress
boredom, and it's obvious these summer jobs don't suppress boredom
but, in many cases, intensify it.

If there is a solution to this dilemma, it is to stop devising
solutions. D.C.'s summer jobs program, like many of its
participants, doesn't work. As its numbers increase, so do its
failures. However, it does succeed in one respect. By teaching kids
that it pays to do nothing, it is preparing them for, if nothing
else, future careers in the public sector.