Young people nationwide, ages 16-24, still lag far behind the overall economy in levels of employment. This continues to be a crisis of major proportions, hitting black and Latinx youths especially hard. And Chicago is among the hardest hit.
Historically, the black unemployment rate stays close to double that of whites. And nationally, that is true for youth. Using the 2017 data supplied by the University of Illinois, Great Cities Institute, we found that for 16-24 year olds, the percentage out of school, out of work whites was 9.4%, while that of blacks was 17.9%. But zero in on Chicago and 5.4% of white 16-24 year olds were out of school and out of work, while the rate for blacks was 25.6% -- nearly five times higher.
These figures, and others in this report, should inform policy makers as they search for answers to the high cost of incarceration, the high levels of violence and the lack of an adequately trained and experienced workforce.
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