Work, Education and Income

Investing to expand access to education, jobs and careers to build lifelong financial security for adults, youth and their families.

Mil­lions of job seek­ers in their late teens and twen­ties — espe­cial­ly young peo­ple of col­or and those from low-income fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties — con­tin­ue to strug­gle to land and keep mean­ing­ful work. His­tor­i­cal­ly, young peo­ple ages 16 to 24 expe­ri­ence unem­ploy­ment rates that are at least twice the nation­al aver­age. Young peo­ple of col­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly Black and Lati­no youth, con­sis­tent­ly have high­er unem­ploy­ment rates than their white coun­ter­parts. When young peo­ple are employed, their jobs tend to not pay the kinds of com­pet­i­tive wages that would allow them to sup­port them­selves and, even­tu­al­ly, a family.

In recent years, struc­tur­al changes to the U.S. econ­o­my have made it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to sup­port a fam­i­ly. Most jobs that pay fam­i­ly-sus­tain­ing wages require more post­sec­ondary edu­ca­tion and train­ing than they did in the past. At the same time, edu­ca­tion sys­tems are strug­gling to pre­pare young peo­ple to enter this chang­ing econ­o­my. While high school com­ple­tion rates have increased over time, few­er young peo­ple from low-income fam­i­lies are com­plet­ing a post-sec­ondary degree or cre­den­tial. To make mat­ters worse, the ris­ing cost of col­lege means that these young peo­ple who do attend col­lege will like­ly take on debt to do so.

From the Blog

A young adult mother, in her cap and gown, smiles at her baby girl. The sit on a lawn, with other graduates in the background.

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