By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce has applied for a federal grant that would help evaluate a low worker participation rate in Buchanan County.
The Chamber applied for the grant after being prompted by federal officials as a way to begin tackling the problem.
Director of the St. Joseph Community Alliance Tama Wagner says the grant will help them evaluate why eligible workers aren't seeking a job.
"Who's not working, why aren't they working, are they stay at home parents, are they somebody who's on disability, are there valid reasons they're not working?" Wagner tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "But whatever percentage of that population is under employed or unemployed or it's stopped looking for work, it will help us identify that population."
A study indicates that 40% of eligible Buchanan County workers are not seeking employment.
Wagner says the Chamber will evaluate several factors of why workers aren't seeking employment, including.
"People who have just given up in the job market, that they've looked and looked and looked and haven't found anything which in this day and age is hard to imagine because jobs seem so readily available, but we just don't know what those factors are," Wagner explains.
Wagner says the Chamber should know by the end of the month if it received the grant by the end of this month.
"We'll have a decision at least on that first part, the research part, and then the bigger part," Wagner says. "Surprisingly, it works a little bit different than most grants I've been involved with, you submitted both at the same time, so you didn't just submit for the first part and then wait until you hear about the first part you went ahead and submitted for the second part, so they happen kind of in tandem."
The grant is a two-part grant, the first part being a $500,000 research grant, but if they're successful the Chamber could get an up to additional $50 million to help with solutions.