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SPOTLIGHT ON EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUTH
Another trend is the widening gap between young and older workers. During the late 1960s
the median weekly pay ofmen under 25 with full-time jobs was nearly three-fourths that ofolder
men. By 1994 it had fallen to half.
The link between youth unemployment and crime. While economic and employment prospects
spiraled downward, crime by teens and young adults shot up. The number of men under
age 25 in prisons and jails more than doubled between 1986 and 1995, from 178,000 to
359,000. A recent study, Market Wages and Youth Crime by Jeffrey Grogger, concluded that this
phenomenon was not coincidental and that there is, in fact, a strong relationship between wage
levels and criminal behavior.
Grogger examined data from the 1980 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and found
that the more money young men earn by legitimate means, the less likely they are to commit
crimes. Grogger estimated that a 20 percent drop in wages leads to a 12 to 18 percent increase
in youth participation in crime. He also observed that "wages largely explain the tendency of
crime to decrease with age," because as people get older, their earning power increases.
Addressing the employment needs of at-risk youth ought to be a central part of anti-crime
efforts. Unfortunately, recent congressional initiatives in the area of juvenile crime (see
pp. 82-84) have focused on punishment rather than on prevention efforts that help equip young
people to become productive members of society.
The National Youth Employment Coalition, in its 1994 report, Toward a National Youth
Development System: How We Can Better Service Youth at Risk, highlighted the challenges ahead.
The report noted:
A quick-fIx summer job or brief training program isn't enough to change the life of
the most at-risk youth in today's world. If we hope to bring the most at-risk youth into
the mainstream of American economic life, we need to craft and implement a national
youth training, education, employment and development strategy that is coherent and
long-term.
Federal commitment: What's missing. While a number of important local initiatives are
helping young people move into the work force and become economically self-suffIcient, a
tremendous vacuum exists at the national level. For more than 35 years the federal government
was the primary source of funds for youth employment efforts and the sponsor of numerous
programs. However, in the past several years this commitment has faltered.
In 1995 Congress slashed funding for youth programs under the Job Training Partnership
Act (JTPA) by 80 percent, from $600 million to less than $130 million. Funding for the JTPA
Summer Youth Employment Program and for YouthBuild, another important public program,
has also been under attack. Although Congress reversed earlier decisions to eliminate funding
for summer jobs for youths, it provided only $871 million for 1998-the same amount as in
1997. This will pay for approximately 530,000 summer jobs-70,000 fewer than in 1995.
YouthBuild, a highly successful youth training model funded through the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development, had its appropriations cut from $50 million in 1995 to
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