Report: How Michigan Ranks in Number of At-Risk Youth
Many young people in America face a wide range of social disadvantages — lack of a stable home or positive role models, for example — that make for a rocky transition to adulthood, according to a new study that ranked the U.S. states by the number of at-risk youth. Michigan ranked No. 13 in the study.
For the study, the personal finance website WalletHub looked at 14 variables affecting "disconnected youth," that is teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24. Among others, those factors include high school graduation rates, labor force participation, physical and mental health conditions, illegal drug and heavy alcohol use, poverty and homelessness, and incarceration rates.
If not addressed, those conditions can affect young people later in life, as well as society as a whole, according to the study.
Policymakers "need to get a sense of what is happening on the ground," said Antonio Garcia, an assistant professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of its School of Social Policy & Practice.
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