‘Youth disconnection’ varies widely in state [SACBee.com]

Within California’s Central Valley farm belt, Bakersfield has stood out for having a relatively vigorous local economy, largely due to its very visible oil industry.

However, a new nationwide study reveals that among the nation’s 98 largest metropolitan areas, Bakersfield has the second highest rate of “youth disconnection.”

The Measure of America, a project of the Social Science Research Council, defines that term as the percentage of young adults aged 16 to 24 who are neither in school nor working. It found that rates tend to be the highest among black, Latino and Native American youths and much lower among whites and Asian-Americans.

“Disconnected young people tend to come from historically disadvantaged neighborhoods and segregated communities, meaning disconnection is not a spontaneously occurring phenomenon; it is an outcome years in the making,” project co-director Sarah Burd-Sharps said in a statement attached to the report. “We hope that zeroing in on place and race will make previously invisible groups visible and help those working to reconnect young people and prevent future disconnection succeed in their efforts to provide all young people a meaningful shot at their own American Dreams.”

The national rate is 13.8 percent, and Bakersfield, at 21.2 percent, is lower than only Memphis at 21.6 percent. The Omaha-Council Bluffs region of Nebraska and Iowa has the lowest rate, 7.7 percent.

The lowest California metropolitan area rate, ninth lowest in the nation, is the 9.8 percent in the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura area. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area in Silicon Valley is 14th lowest.

[For more of this story, written by Dan Walters, go to http://www.sacbee.com/news/pol...article23791396.html]