Related UI Researchers

Publications on Adolescents

Most publicly funded adolescent substance abuse treatment is provided and managed by the juvenile justice system, and juvenile courts and allied agencies are often the first responders to teen drug problems. But is this the right approach?

Paul Offner’s legacy of applying good scholarship to public policy solutions, especially for society’s disadvantaged, will be celebrated with a lecture series sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs in partnership with the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute.

In this paper I review Daniel Patrick Moynihan's views on employment and young black men in his 1965 report. I then update the evidence on their employment status, and review the causes and policy implications of these trends. Moynihan was extremely prescient in forecasting a "crisis...that would only grow worse." He understood that these trends involve both limits on labor market opportunities that these young men face as well as skill deficits and behavioral responses by the young men themselves. Policies that deal with a wide range of disadvantages and behaviors are needed to reverse these trends.

Federal investment in children is likely to decline markedly within the next decade, according to a new Urban Institute study. The share of the federal budget for programs that enhance kids' future productivity or income is forecast to drop from 1.6 percent of the gross domestic product in 2006 to 1.3 percent by 2017, under current policies.

"Investing in Children" tracks trends in federal investment from 1965 to 2017 for children as compared against the nation as a whole. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.