From Child Trends: 5 Things to Know About Youth Not Employed or in School.
Connecting” disconnected youth could result in significant societal savings and individual benefits.
Nationally, unserved disconnected youth represent a devastating forfeiture of human potential and enormous financial costs (i.e., potential savings). Youth who do not finish high school earn less and subsequently pay significantly less in taxes than graduates.
Further, they consume more public benefits and are more likely to consume more public benefits and are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal acts. The estimated cohort of 6.7 million young people cited earlier resulted in a staggering cost of $93 billion to U.S. taxpayers in 2011. These are only economic costs-those that result directly in increased public expenditure or forfeiture, such as a decreased tax base or increased expenditure on prisons-and do not include social costs including reduced individual earnings and pain and suffering associated with crime victimization, among other things. Recent research estimates that each disconnected youth costs taxpayers about $ 236,000 over their lifetime and that the social costs are at least $704,000. When social factors are considered, the lifetime estimated cost of the current 6.7 million disconnected youth is $3.6 trillion.