Report recommends investment in youth employment.

A report by the University of Illinois-Chicago Great Cities Institute says that Black teens in Chicago are experiencing much higher jobless rates than other young people in Illinois.

Lead researcher Matt Wilson said Black teens in Chicago have been disconnected from work and school at twice the rate they were in 2021.

“So we have this huge jump where there’s an additional over 16,000 Black 16-to-19-year-olds that are not working and not in school,” Wilson said.

The report indicated that not all communities have recovered from pandemic-related shutdowns at the same rate. The Chicago Public Schools system returned to in-person learning much later than other schools in the area.

“Those individuals … the probability of them seeping through the cracks is going to be very high,” Wilson said.

 

From The Center Square (To go to the actual article, please click on this link.)