Boys and young men of color are at risk for poor health and developmental outcomes from birth through young adulthood. Many risks flow from a lack of economic resources and residence in segregated neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage. This paper outlines these developmental challenges and identifies societal, institutional, and community changes that would increase resources, eliminate or reduce stress and trauma, and provide support for boys and families. It also identifies some knowledge gaps that must be filled in order to increase the effectiveness of programs directed toward this population.

The environments in which children grow up profoundly shape their socio-emotional health and development and set the stage for future success. This essay provides a framework for understanding how various settings influence lives of boys and young men of color. Failure to take these environments into account treats the problems experienced by this group as entirely of their own making and ignores the role that external forces play in contributing to poor outcomes. This essay provides a context for future research and analysis, in hopes that it will examine the lives and circumstances of boys and young men of color using more complex and nuanced perspectives.

Knowing the economic challenges young fathers without postsecondary education face in providing for their families, New York City’s Young Men’s Initiative launched a fatherhood program housed in LaGuardia Community College in spring 2012. The CUNY Fatherhood Academy (CFA) aims to connect young fathers to academic and employment opportunities while supporting them through parenting classes and workshops. This report summarizes Urban Institute’s qualitative evaluation of the program. The evaluation, completed under contract with the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity, focuses on CFA’s design, implementation, and participant outcomes in the four cohorts served between March 2012 and December 2013.

We know little about how early work experience influences adult outcomes for high school dropouts. This brief reports on how these early workers fare compared with youth who drop out but don’t go to work and youth who complete high school. Although early workers are twice as likely to be employed at age 25 as youth who drop out without working, dropouts who were employed at age 25 work roughly the same number of hours and have similar average earnings regardless of whether they worked as teenagers. Both groups fare worse than youth who complete high school.

From 2006 to 2014, the number of children ages 0 to 17 with at least one immigrant parent grew by 2 million children, from 15.7 to 17.7 million. They account for nearly one-quarter of all children in the United States. This brief highlights national, state and metro level information, using data from the 2013 and 2014 American Community Surveys.

For children to thrive and reach their full potential, they need adequate food and shelter, high-quality health care and education, safe environments, and supportive parents and families. Though families play a key role in meeting children’s needs, society also provides resources and services to support children’s healthy development.

Through their funding of public schools, health systems, and social services, state and local governments provide resources and services to support children’s healthy development. Although not all investments translate directly into better child outcomes, a wide disparity in public investments raises concerns about whether children from low-spending states are on equal footing when pursuing the American Dream.

How much do states differ in spending on children?

State spending on children varies widely, with Vermont spending nearly three times as much on children as Utah. States spending $10,000 or more are generally concentrated in the Northeast, while many states spending $7,000 or less are found in the South and West.

Differences in education allocations drive most of the spending differences on children. Though children’s outcomes are affected by multiple factors, health and education outcomes tend to be higher in states with higher spending levels.

Do children of color tend to live in low-spending states?

Latino and American Indian children are more likely than non-Latino white and black children to live in low-spending states. Half of American Indian/Alaska Native children live in Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and other states spending less than $7,000 per child.

Similarly, 47 percent of Latino children live in low-spending states, with particular concentrations in California and Florida. Only 28 percent of non-Latino white children and 30 percent of black children live in states spending less than $7,000 per child.



How will growth in child populations affect future spending?

Child populations are projected to grow in southern and western states such as Florida and Texas that spend less per child and to decline in states such as New York and Ohio that spend more. 

It is uncertain whether states that have traditionally spent low amounts per child will boost spending on children to keep up with population growth. If they do not, spending per child will fall in many states, widening the gap between high-spending and low-spending states and heightening concerns about child outcomes.

Policy Implications

• Low-spending states with increasing child populations may face a fiscal and political challenge of increasing spending on children to keep up with population growth. Although growth in child populations will be accompanied by growth in the adult parent populations (voters and income-earning workers who help support state spending policies), it still may be challenging for these states to increase spending to keep up with population growth.
• The federal government also could respond to shifts in child populations and disparities in state spending on children. The federal government already plays some role in redistributing resources across states. It spent about $4,500 per child in 2013, and its share of spending on children rose during the Great Recession. But we do not know how average federal spending per child varies across states.
• We should avoid block grants, which lock in current spending patterns at the expense of children in states experiencing population growth. If converted to federal block grants with fixed funding amounts to each state regardless of the number of children, federal spending per child for federal entitlement programs (e.g., Medicaid) would decline in the 35 states with increasing child populations, while those states may be facing declines in the state spending per child.
• Should we consider increasing federal spending on children to offset declines in state and local spending and to target federal resources on states with high population growth or low spending on children? Doing so would run counter to the long history of relying on state and local investment in children and public education. We might consider approaches that maintain control of public education at the state and local level while providing less-affluent states with more shared federal and state tax revenue or develop new financing mechanisms for joint federal-state programs.

Before considering whether state and federal policymakers should do more to equalize spending on children across states, we have to address basic assumptions within the status quo. For example, we take it for granted that seniors in various states generally receive the same minimum retirement benefit and have the same access to Medicare. If we expect equity for seniors living in different states, why are we so accepting of large differences in state spending on children?

It may be hard to reach agreement on policy solutions to the disparities in public spending on children, but the first step is to acknowledge the problem.