By the year 2010, the nation's youth population—meaning those aged between 16 and 24—is projected to grow by 4.6 million or 14 percent, with two-thirds of the increase occurring among Asian, Hispanic, and African-American youth. Young immigrants for whom English is a second language will greatly change the profile of this age group, and present new challenges for youth development efforts.

Yet over the past 20 years, the federal government has reduced its spending on youth development and employment, from $9 billion (in current dollars) to $3 billion annually. Despite our recent robust economy, during that time the inflation-adjusted weekly earnings of young people aged 16 to 24 dropped precipitously—26% for males; 11% for females.

In many of our nation's cities, more than 50 percent of entering ninth graders leave high school without earning a diploma. About 2.4 million young people lack a high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma (GED); only one in six of these young people are able to get a full-time job paying above the poverty level of $320 a week. Those who leave school without a diploma or GED face a lifetime of low-wage jobs, where hard work and long hours cannot provide enough income to support a family or raise them out of poverty.

A Deepening Crisis
The picture could become even bleaker, if current trends continue. The criminal justice system has become the biggest growth industry for disconnected young people, incarcerating unparalleled numbers of young males, especially minorities, and in the process consuming ever-increasing public resources. There are 360,000 16-to-24-year-olds in prison; 65 percent of them are high school dropouts.

Meanwhile, the academic standards movement and the implementation of high-stakes tests tied to graduation could push dropout rates even higher in troubled school districts. Even those who graduate may struggle: In an information-based economy, those who stay in school can graduate from low-performing schools with a diploma, yet still lack the skills to succeed in the current workplace.

What Works
We have learned a lot from solid research and practical experience about how to change the prospects for youth at risk. Many innovative and inspiring national and local programs demonstrate every day that we know what it takes to keep young people engaged and on track to become skilled and productive workers and responsible parents and citizens.

We have learned that young people who want to turn their lives around can do so with the right combination of caring adult support; education and training in smaller, less anonymous settings; leadership development; positive peer groups; rigorous education and training options coupled with meaningful work experience; performance-based standards linked to 21st century labor market expectations; and clear pathways to post-secondary education and career-ladder jobs.

Behind every individual success story lies not only a courageous young person and a caring adult, but a community, an agency, or a public/private partnership with the resources to offer job training, literacy and other basic skills, plus career planning, placement and follow up. Around the country, hard-working and determined individuals, organizations, and partnerships—of government, business, community-based organizations, labor, and others—are working together , making the connections that can to help their community's young people succeed.

Many building blocks for more coherent and effective youth policies are in place:

• There is an infrastructure within almost every community of non-profit agencies, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations and community colleges that stand ready to address this challenge—if given the resources within an intelligently-designed delivery system;
• Governors, mayors, and other local elected officials across the nation are mobilizing Workforce Investment Boards and Youth Councils to put youth back on the agenda and create comprehensive local delivery systems;
• Unions and private employers are already engaged in public/private partnerships for recruiting and training workers;
• A bipartisan majority in Congress has steadily supported youth employment and training and development programs and could be persuaded to support and sustain a significantly larger initiative;
• Several federal agencies play a responsible role today in developing policies and programs, including the Departments of Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Defense, Energy, Justice, Health and Human Services, Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency, and National Park Service.

But hard work and good will are just not enough. The federal youth employment budget gives fewer than 200,000 disadvantaged young people opportunities to turn their lives around—less than 10 percent of the 2.4 million poor or near-poor young people who are at-risk, out-of-school and out-of-work.

What's Needed
We need a coordinated, comprehensive national youth policy that moves beyond the current patchwork system; sustained funding that matches the growing numbers of young people who need support and skill development; and a system of effective strategies that take into account the growing importance of higher-level skills and training. The Senate's earlier attempt to add $1 billion a year for education and workforce programs during the next ten years was an important marker. Ultimately, a more comprehensive and consistent commitment will be needed from federal, state and local policymakers.

We must make sure that our actions match the rhetoric of "Leave no child behind." We cannot afford to have so many of our young people doomed to live their lives at the margins of a prosperous society. Our society cannot afford to lose their potential productivity as workers, citizens and leaders.

The Sar Levitan Center for Social Policy Studies (www.levitan.org) has information, research and links to resources on youth development.

Marion Pines has been active in the workforce development and community development fields for over 25 years, both as a practitioner working as Director of the Mayor's Office of Manpower Resources and Housing Commissioner in the City of Baltimore and as a policy analyst in her current position as Sr. Fellow at the JHU Institute of Policy Studies.