Among Minorities, a New Wave of ‘Disconnected Youth’
Lauren Weber, Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2011
{snip}
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the unemployment rate last year among high-school dropouts between ages 16 and 24 was 29%–up from 17.7% in 2000 and seven points higher than that of their peers who finished high school but didn’t go on to college.
The problem is particularly acute among Hispanics and African-Americans. Several studies have found that only about 50% of black and Hispanic students graduate from high school, compared with 75% of white students.
Up to 40% of the young people in these communities qualify as “disconnected youth,” the term for young adults who are neither in school nor working, says David Dodson, president of MDC Inc., a research organization in Durham, N.C.
“They’ve given up hope,” says Phillip Jackson, executive director of Chicago’s Black Star Project, which helps African-American youth stay in school. He estimates that 75% to 80% of the young black men in Chicago are jobless.
“It leads to violence, broken families and hyperincarceration,” for economic crimes that range from selling bootleg CDs to drug trafficking, he says.
{snip}
Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University who studies disconnected youth, says dropouts will suffer a lifetime earnings loss of around $400,000 compared with high-school graduates.
{snip}
“This is the only group with no net contribution to the fiscal well-being of state and national government,” says Mr. Sum.
