10:06am: Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval

Idle youth equals lost opportunity

A significant portion of the country’s youth has, among other things, a lot of time on their hands.

Research by Opportunity Nation—a bipartisan organization comprised of 250 community, education, faith-based and business groups—finds that almost six million young people from ages 16 to 24 are neither in school nor at work.

That means 15 percent of all young men and women have nothing to do.

The percent is even higher in West Virginia.  The study found that 20 percent, or one in five West Virginians age 16 to 24, are not collecting a pay check or furthering their education.

There’s plenty of research to show that high school dropouts and idle youth are at a much higher risk of drug use, crime, unmarried childbearing and other activity that is costly to the individual, as well as society.

But it’s unfair to categorize all these young men and women as layabouts.

“This is not a group that we can write off,” said Mark Edwards with Opportunity Nation.  The tendency is to see them as lost souls and see them as unsavable.  They are not.”  But the less educated they are, or the more trouble they have finding a job, the more likely it is that they will become reprobates.

According to the study, “By 2018, more than 60 percent of American jobs will require at least an associate’s degree. But we aren’t training our rising generation to meet these workforce demands.”

All this untapped potential is expensive, says Opportunity Nation.  “They cost taxpayers $93 billion annually and $1.6 trillion over their lifetimes in lost revenues and increased social services.”

Meanwhile, the United States is losing ground to other countries when it comes to having the best educated workforce.  The New York Times cites a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation saying Americans are “comparatively weak-to-poor” in math, science and literacy skills when compared with other industrialized countries.

“The United States… has yet to take on a sense of urgency about this issue,” the Times concluded in an editorial.  “If that does not happen soon, the country will pay a long-term price.”

All of this news is disheartening.

One of the backbones of the country’s economic power has been the willingness and ability of individuals to work hard and earn their success. But now it appears for many young people today the opportunities are either more limited or require skills they simply do not have.

And that adds up to a lot of wasted time and potential.

 





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