By Lauren Weber, WSJ.com – Men and women in their late teens and early 20s are struggling, but some are especially hard hit.
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. Read the full story here at the Wall Street Journal Online.
