Helping to Encourage Real Opportunities (HERO) for Youth Act of 2025

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Bill ID: 119/s/1210
Last Updated: April 15, 2025

Sponsored by

Sen. Durbin, Richard J. [D-IL]

ID: D000563

Bill Summary

Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of Senators Durbin and Duckworth. The "Helping to Encourage Real Opportunities (HERO) for Youth Act of 2025" - because what's more heroic than throwing a few crumbs at the youth while lining the pockets of corporate interests?

**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's stated purpose is to modify the work opportunity credit, expanding it to include year-round employment and increasing the credit amount. How noble. In reality, this is just a thinly veiled attempt to provide more tax breaks for corporations that hire "disconnected youth" - a euphemism for young people who are struggling to find employment due to systemic failures in education and job training.

**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill makes several changes to the Internal Revenue Code, including:

* Expanding the work opportunity credit to include year-round employment for certain youth employees * Increasing the credit amount (because corporations need more incentives to hire people) * Defining "disconnected youth" as individuals who are not regularly employed or attending school (a.k.a. the perfect demographic for exploitation)

**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects:

* Corporations that will benefit from the tax breaks * Lobbyists who will reap the rewards of their efforts to shape this bill * Politicians who will tout this as a "pro-youth" initiative while ignoring the underlying issues * The youth themselves, who will be used as pawns in this game of corporate welfare

**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It does nothing to address the root causes of unemployment and disconnection among young people. Instead, it provides a temporary fix that benefits corporations at the expense of taxpayers.

The real disease here is the systemic failure of education and job training programs, which leaves many young people unprepared for the workforce. This bill is just a symptom of that disease - a desperate attempt to treat the symptoms rather than the underlying condition.

In short, this bill is a cynical exercise in legislative theater, designed to make politicians look good while doing nothing to address the real problems facing our youth. Bravo, Senators Durbin and Duckworth. You've managed to create a bill that's both useless and insulting.

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