MinnPost17%
Facing new challenges, Step Up program continues to train Minnesota’s future workforce 15%
By Neal St. Anthony27%
7/22/2026, 8:23:37 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Hasty Generalization, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 12.6% saturation with 155 hits. Analysis detected 1,258 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,231 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 31% and a BS Rank of 15% (18,720 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 85.50% of the article peer group.
Jordan Dotson, an environmental compliance manager at Best Buy, was a standout graduate of Minneapolis South High School in 2019.
Dotson hailed from a working-class household on the North Side, took two buses to South every day to participate in theater, and shared her working-class parents’ high expectations for her future.
Dotson, 25, joined Best Buy full-time in 2023 after graduating from the University of Minnesota.
She had worked at the university during the school year and at Best Buy during the summers.
She recalls as crucial to her future her Minneapolis Step Up internship and a long-time mentor.
“It was a little jarring at 15 or 16 to prepare for an interview at a Fortune 500 company,” Dotson said.
“The internship helped me with networking…and to start feeling that I belonged.
I was one of only a few women and people of color on our [headquarters] team.
Best Buy now feels like a good place for me.
I’m encouraged to grow.
I also thank my mom and dad for saying, ‘Do what you need to do, including homework, in order to do what you want to do later.’’’
Minneapolis Step Up was started in 2003 by then-Mayor R.T.
Rybak and former U.S.
Bancorp CEO Richard Davis.
The program targets lower-income Minneapolis teens who are disproportionately students of color.
Some hail from single-parent families or otherwise lack career connections.
Since 2003, 36,000 teenagers have completed summer online career-exploration courses, interviews, mentoring and internships.
Step Up includes training and summer jobs that can pay up to $16.50 for up to 40 hours weekly.
Dotson worked at Best Buy through high school and college for Mary Thomas, a Best Buy attorney who evolved from mentor to colleague.
Dotson, diligent and humble, recalled that Thomas encouraged her to pursue her interest in law and regulation in college.
Her job requires good people skills, as well as her “compliance brain and math brain,” she quipped.
Minnesota’s future workforce
Providing more opportunities for people of color, including immigrants, has been a significant workforce development issue in Minnesota for 25 years and is key to economic growth, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
The incremental growth in Minnesota’s population and workforce since the early 2000s has been people of color, including immigrants.
Employers need more high school graduates ready for on-the-job training or post-high school studies.
Yet Step Up, and a similar St.
Paul program, Right Track , also are challenged by declining employer participation that has lowered the annual number of internships.
Rybak and Davis, who began his career as a part-time bank teller while attending college, were tremendous cheerleaders for the program.
They encouraged private sector, nonprofit and government employers to engage with summer opportunities and mentors.
Step Up employed a record 2,325 teens in 2011.
The number declined to a recent low of 1,250 this summer.
That’s down from 1,385 in 2025.
Two teens apply for every internship.
Related: As college graduates fret over finding jobs, a record shortage of workers is projected
There are several reasons for declining internships.
Step Up leadership, as well as labor market analysts, point to the onset of remote and hybrid work, workforce shifts that have resulted in fewer managers available to take on interns, and businesses adjusting to economic uncertainty exacerbated by the mercurial Trump administration, as well as caution over the coming AI impacts that have slowed overall hiring.
Also, some employers are wary, thanks to Trump’s pressure on employers to eschew anything that looks like a diversity initiative.
In 2025, Step Up’s budget for 1,385 interns and work-readiness students was $3.75 million, from 85 wage-paying employers, as well as government funding.
The data supports that times are tougher for teens, particularly Black students, said Angelina Nguyen, director of labor market information at DEED.
Teen unemployment rose from 7.9% in Minnesota in spring 2025 to 13.5% this May.
Unemployment among Black Minnesotans runs even higher.
“Teens are competing with older, more experienced workers [in this economy], Nguyen said.
“There aren’t as many openings as possible…and it takes longer to find a job.”
Teens often get their start working in fast-food restaurants, retail, entertainment venues and pet care, where there are fewer openings than a year ago.
More promisingly, some of the strongest demand is in healthcare, where more low-cost training programs exist.
Entry-level jobs such as personal care and nursing assistants can lead to better-paid jobs in nursing and medical technology.
Tammy Dickinson, the long-time manager of Step Up, hopes that more healthcare and other employers step up next year, knowing they will train their future workforce.
She added that high school career and counseling staff report that Step Up veterans are better prepared to discuss post-high school plans.
The value of an internship
Rene Madrid, a mentor to more than 50 Step Up and other interns since 2010 and manager of the U.S.
Bank office on East Lake Street, is a Mexican immigrant and University of Minnesota grad with “a passion” for working with interns, who tend to be students of color, including Latinos.
“Some of my top bankers, and I have 20 direct reports here, started as interns,” said Madrid, whose customer base reflects the Black and Latino neighborhood, across Lake Street from the refurbished Midtown Exchange and Midtown Global Market complex that replaced a long- abandoned Sears Roebuck store-warehouse in 2006.
“That’s why I stay here.
I like to work with these young people.”
One day in June, Madrid was flanked by Jorge Estudillo Castillo, 22, a banker who started as an intern while attending nearby Cristo Rey High School.
He enjoys his work and customer interactions, in English and Spanish.
“Some of the interns like banking and some do not,” Madrid said.
“But they all learn about our business, customer relationships, making professional connections, personal finance, credit, savings and money management.
That’s good for all their futures.”
Rene Madrid, a mentor to more than 50 Step Up and other interns since 2010 and manager of the U.S.
Bank office on East Lake Street, shown here with Jorge Estudillo Castillo, 22, a banker who started as an intern while attending nearby Cristo Rey High School.
Credit: Neal St.
Anthony
Mike Archer, 27, was raised by a low-income single mom and graduated from Minneapolis Southwest High School.
Archer, who is Black, credits his first Step Up job and after-school programs with helping him avoid “negative influences” in his neighborhood.
He recalls working summers in a park for $7.24 an hour, with duties such as litter collection and light maintenance.
“I wasn’t just running around the neighborhood,” he said.
“I also became a mentor at the park, including taking kids on field trips.
I was responsible.
I bought my own first phone and some clothes.
I liked that feeling.
My mom had a disability, and she still worked and made only $14,000 a year.
My job gave my mom a break.
“I was never a great student.
But I did the work.
I got into Dunwoody Technical College.
I’m still paying back the loans.
Now I’m a journeyman electrician.
A foreman.
I get paid $63 an hour.
I’ll make over $100,000 this year.
I own a home.
I’m blessed.”
The post Facing new challenges, Step Up program continues to train Minnesota’s future workforce appeared first on MinnPost .
Speakers
7speakers41%attributed speech728writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
88%flagged-word coverageRene Madrid
99 attributed words20% of attributed speech53% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.