Youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor enrolled within a learning institution.

Ensuring that St. Petersburg’s youth are prepared to enter the modern economy is crucial to enhancing the city’s stock of human capital, which provides things like higher tax revenue and lower public expenditures. However, many of St. Petersburg’s youth, especially those of color, remain disconnected from advancement opportunities in employment and education.

Currently, these youth are far more likely to live in poverty, have a disability, to have dropped out of high school, to have parents with low educational attainment, to be young mothers, and to be institutionalized. Many of these challenges are transferred to their children due to lack of parental resources—continuing the cycle of intergenerational poverty.