A National Profile of Youth and Young Adults

The age span of rough­ly 14 to 24 marks a crit­i­cal stage of devel­op­ment. Dur­ing this phase, youth and young adults expe­ri­ence pro­found cog­ni­tive, bio­log­i­cal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes. At the same time, these young peo­ple must nav­i­gate increas­ing auton­o­my, form­ing their iden­ti­ties, devel­op­ing rela­tion­ship and life skills, advanc­ing their edu­ca­tion, acquir­ing job train­ing and more. For many young peo­ple, this phase is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by finan­cial hard­ship, men­tal health issues, expe­ri­ences of racism or dis­crim­i­na­tion and oth­er chal­lenges. How­ev­er, this vul­ner­a­ble and for­ma­tive peri­od is also a win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty for par­ents, care­givers and adults in the com­mu­ni­ty — as well as for pro­grams, invest­ments and poli­cies — to sup­port young peo­ple on a pos­i­tive path for the future.

As part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing the suc­cess of youth and young adults, the KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter offers more than 60 indi­ca­tors on the health and well-being of young peo­ple ages 14 to 24. This dataset cov­ers top­ics rang­ing from employ­ment, pover­ty and edu­ca­tion to health, men­tal health, and fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty issues. Many of these indi­ca­tors are avail­able by race and eth­nic­i­ty or fam­i­ly nativ­i­ty, as well, high­light­ing endur­ing inequities for youth of col­or. To help advo­cates, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, ser­vice providers and oth­ers under­stand how youth expe­ri­ences vary across the coun­try, the data are also pro­vid­ed by state and, in some cas­es, by ter­ri­to­ry, city and con­gres­sion­al dis­trict. This pro­file spot­lights key find­ings from this dataset.

Key Find­ings

Many issues con­tin­ue to be seri­ous con­cerns for young peo­ple in Amer­i­ca, includ­ing finan­cial secu­ri­ty, hous­ing afford­abil­i­ty, men­tal health, sub­stance abuse, death rates and access to health insur­ance, among oth­ers. Racial and eth­nic inequities per­me­ate vir­tu­al­ly every issue fac­ing youth and young adults. Socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus and where youth live also great­ly impact their oppor­tu­ni­ties or bar­ri­ers to suc­cess. At the same time, the coun­try has made mean­ing­ful progress in oth­er areas, such as improv­ing high school grad­u­a­tion rates, increas­ing young adult civic engage­ment and reduc­ing rates of pover­ty, teen births and juve­nile deten­tion. Addi­tion­al strides have been made in sup­port­ing young peo­ple in the tran­si­tion to adult­hood, although much more work is need­ed in this area, par­tic­u­lar­ly for youth aging out of fos­ter care.

Demo­graph­ics

• Youth and young adults make up near­ly 50 mil­lion Amer­i­cans: In 2023, 48.2 mil­lion young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 lived in the Unit­ed States. Their pop­u­la­tion size has remained around 47 to 48 mil­lion over the last decade. The major­i­ty of this group — 30.5 mil­lion in 2023 — are young adults ages 18 to 24.
• They are becom­ing more racial­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly diverse: The KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter pro­vides racial and eth­nic break­downs for young adults ages 18 to 24, just over half of whom are white (52% in 2023). About one-fourth (24%) are Lati­no, 14% are Black, 6% are Asian, 4% are mul­tira­cial, 1% are Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native and less than 0.5% are Native Hawai­ian and oth­er Pacif­ic Islander. Between 2010 and 2023, the share of white young adults decreased by 5 per­cent­age points, while the share of Lati­nos increased by 4 per­cent­age points. Shares of Asian and mul­tira­cial young adults also increased one and 2 per­cent­age points, respectively.
• More than 1 in 5 youth and young adults live in immi­grant house­holds: Among young peo­ple ages 14 to 24, 22% are immi­grants or live with at least one for­eign-born par­ent, i.e., they are first- or sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion immi­grants, accord­ing to 2018–22 data. This fig­ure has held steady in recent years but is up slight­ly from 20% in 2006-10. More than half (53%) of these esti­mat­ed 10.8 mil­lion young peo­ple live in four states: Cal­i­for­nia, Texas, New York and Florida.
• Three-fourths of Asian and Pacif­ic Islander young peo­ple are first- or sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion immi­grants: In 2018–22, 75% of Asian and Pacif­ic Islander youth and young adults ages 14 to 24 were immi­grants or lived with immi­grant par­ents. The same was true for 50% of Lati­no and 34% of mul­tira­cial young peo­ple in this age group, fol­lowed by 21% of Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native, 15% of Black and 6% of white youth and young adults.

Read our series about Asian and Pacif­ic Islander youth

Pover­ty and Income

• The pover­ty rate for young adults dropped by more than 25% between 2010 and 2023: Among young peo­ple ages 18 to 24, pover­ty rates peaked at 26% dur­ing 2010 to 2012, then steadi­ly declined to 19% in 2021 and stayed at this rate through 2023. Although young adult pover­ty rates have improved in near­ly all states since 2010, as well, fig­ures remained at 25% or high­er in three states in 2023: Mon­tana (25%), West Vir­ginia (25%) and Louisiana (28%). The fed­er­al pover­ty def­i­n­i­tion uses thresh­olds based on fam­i­ly size and com­po­si­tion, e.g., it was $30,900 for a fam­i­ly of two adults and two chil­dren in 2023. House­holds can earn well above this pover­ty lev­el and still strug­gle to meet basic needs.
• Near­ly 2 in 5 youth and young adults still live in low-income fam­i­lies: The share of young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 in low-income house­holds reached an alarm­ing high of 45% in 2010–14 and has since declined to 37% in 2018–22. While this is progress, the lat­est fig­ure still equates to about 16.6 mil­lion young peo­ple liv­ing in low-income fam­i­lies (defined as a house­hold income of less than twice the fed­er­al pover­ty level).
• Reflect­ing long-term inequities, Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native, Black and Lati­no young peo­ple dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly live in low-income fam­i­lies: Half of Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native (50%) and Black (49%) youth ages 14 to 24, and almost half of Lati­no youth (45%), lived in low-income house­holds in 2018–22. Shares were low­er for mul­tira­cial (38%), Asian and Pacif­ic Islander (35%) and white (30%) young peo­ple. At the same time, these fig­ures improved for all racial and eth­nic groups since 2010–14, and racial dis­par­i­ties nar­rowed slight­ly dur­ing this period.

• Rates for low-income youth in immi­grant fam­i­lies large­ly mir­rored those of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion: Sim­i­lar to the over­all trend for youth and young adults, about 2 in 5 (39%) young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 in immi­grant fam­i­lies were liv­ing in low-income house­holds in 2018–22, down from 51% in 2010–14. Among states with data in 2018–22, this fig­ure ranged from a low of 25% in New Hamp­shire to a high of 54% in Mississippi.

House­hold Resources: Hous­ing Costs, Food Secu­ri­ty and Dig­i­tal Access

• More than 1 in 4 youth and young adults expe­ri­ence high hous­ing cost bur­dens: In 2018–22, 28% of young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 lived in house­holds with high hous­ing cost bur­dens — mean­ing more than 30% of month­ly income was spent on hous­ing. This fig­ure has stag­nat­ed in recent years, but it is down from 35% in 2006-10. In 10 states and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia in 2018–22, shares of youth expe­ri­enc­ing high hous­ing cost bur­dens were even high­er than the nation­al aver­age. See more on hous­ing secu­ri­ty trends.
• Black and Lati­no young peo­ple are most like­ly to face high hous­ing cost bur­dens: At least 1 in 3 Black (36%) and Lati­no (34%) youth and young adults ages 14 to 24 lived with high hous­ing cost bur­dens in 2018–22, fol­lowed by Asian and Pacif­ic Islander (30%), mul­tira­cial (30%), Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native (26%) and white (22%) young people.
• One in 8 expe­ri­enced food insuf­fi­cien­cy in the fall of 2022: Accord­ing to a Cen­sus Bureau sur­vey from Oct. 5–Nov. 14, 2022, 13% of young adults ages 18 to 24 did not have enough to eat in the past week. This share reached at least one in five in the fol­low­ing states, out of 21 states with data: Cal­i­for­nia (20%), Louisiana (22%), Iowa (26%) and Ken­tucky (29%). Read about food inse­cu­ri­ty in America.
• More than 3 in 4 youth and young adults have a com­put­er and inter­net at home: While most (78%) young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 live in house­holds with access to a com­put­er device and high-speed inter­net, 18 states fell below the nation­al aver­age in 2018–22. Young peo­ple in Mis­sis­sip­pi were the least like­ly (63%) to have this dig­i­tal access at home, where­as those in New Hamp­shire were the most like­ly (88%). Hav­ing a com­put­er and high-speed inter­net at home is increas­ing­ly essen­tial for edu­ca­tion, employ­ment, health care and oth­er basic needs.

Edu­ca­tion

• The U.S. high school grad­u­a­tion rate reached a new high of 87%: In 2021–22, 13% of high school stu­dents did not grad­u­ate on time, an improve­ment of 5 per­cent­age points from 2013–14, the ear­li­est year avail­able on the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter. At the state lev­el in 2021–22, the share who did not grad­u­ate on time fell as low as 9% in West Vir­ginia but remained as high as 24% in New Mex­i­co and the Dis­trict of Columbia.

• All racial and eth­nic groups made grad­u­a­tion gains but dis­par­i­ties remain: While time­ly high school grad­u­a­tion rates improved for all racial and eth­nic groups from 2013–14 to 2021–22, inequities in edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to be a prob­lem across the coun­try. Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native, Black and Lati­no stu­dents con­sis­tent­ly face more hur­dles to time­ly grad­u­a­tion — with 26%, 19% and 17%, respec­tive­ly, not grad­u­at­ing on time in 2021–22 — com­pared to white (10%) and Asian and Pacif­ic Islander (6%) students.
• Just under half of young adults had enrolled in or com­plet­ed a four-year degree, with uneven atten­dance across the coun­try: In 2022, 48% of adults ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in col­lege or had grad­u­at­ed, a sta­tis­tic that’s been rel­a­tive­ly even since 2010. Col­lege atten­dance varies wide­ly across the nation, though, with more than 3 in 4 (77%) young adults in the Dis­trict of Colum­bia either enrolled in or fin­ished with col­lege in 2022, the high­est rate in the coun­try that year, while the low­est rate occurred in Alas­ka (24%). See dif­fer­ences by race and ethnicity.

The Tran­si­tion to Adulthood

• Few­er young peo­ple ages 16 to 24 are dis­con­nect­ed from work and school than a decade ago, but over 4 mil­lion still need sup­port: In 2022, 11% of youth and young adults were nei­ther in school nor employed, an improve­ment from 14% (or 5.6 mil­lion) in 2012. How­ev­er, the lat­est fig­ure still rep­re­sents more than 4.3 mil­lion young peo­ple who are detached from edu­ca­tion and work and need sup­port re-engag­ing in these set­tings. See dis­par­i­ties in youth dis­con­nec­tion rates by race and geography.
• More than 2 in 3 young adults were employed in the fall of 2022: Cen­sus Bureau sur­vey data from Oct. 5–Nov. 14, 2022, found that 68% of adults ages 18 to 24 report­ed being employed in the past week. Among states with avail­able data at that time, shares ranged from few­er than half (45%) of young adults with employ­ment in Mis­sis­sip­pi to about 9 in 10 (89%) in Mis­souri.
• Yet near­ly 2 in 5 young adults still had dif­fi­cul­ty pay­ing for basic expens­es: The same fall 2022 sur­vey showed that 38% of 18- to 24-year-olds report­ed dif­fi­cul­ty cov­er­ing usu­al house­hold expens­es, such as rent, health care or stu­dent loans. This was true for more than half of young adults (53%) in Maine and New Mex­i­co, the high­est fig­ures in the coun­try among states with data.

Health and Safety

• Just over 1 in 10 young peo­ple ages 14 to 24 do not have health insur­ance: Accord­ing to 2018–22 data, 89% of youth and young adults have health insur­ance, an increase from 79% in 2008-12. While this is sig­nif­i­cant progress com­pared to a decade ago, 11% of this pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ues to lack cov­er­age. Among racial and eth­nic groups, more than 9 in 10 (93%) white and Asian and Pacif­ic Islander young peo­ple had insur­ance in 2018–22, exceed­ing the nation­al aver­age, while much small­er shares of Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native (78%) and Lati­no (82%) youth had cov­er­age. State-lev­el rates are sim­i­lar­ly dis­parate: only 77% of young peo­ple in Texas were insured in 2018–22, com­pared to 97% in Mass­a­chu­setts.
• Unin­sured rates are worse among adults ages 18 to 24, with about 1 in 6 lack­ing cov­er­age: Although it is encour­ag­ing that most young adults (92%) report being in good health, a fall 2022 Cen­sus Bureau sur­vey found that 17% of young adults did not have health insur­ance. This was an increase from sur­vey find­ings ear­li­er that year.
• About 1 in 10 youth ages 12 to 17 abuse alco­hol or drugs: In 2021–22, 9% of ado­les­cents in this age group report­ed a depen­dence on or abuse of illic­it drugs or alco­hol in the past year. Illic­it drug use includes the mis­use of pre­scrip­tion psy­chother­a­peu­tics or the use of mar­i­jua­na, cocaine (includ­ing crack), hero­in, hal­lu­cino­gens, inhalants or metham­phet­a­mines. Across the coun­try, these reports of alco­hol or drug abuse ranged from 5% in Utah to 16% in New Mex­i­co.
• Teen deaths due to lead­ing caus­es declined in 2022 after a two-year spike: The lead­ing caus­es of death for youth ages 15 to 19 are acci­dents or unin­ten­tion­al injuries, homi­cides and sui­cides. The teen death rate due to these caus­es fell in 2022, to 45 per 100,000, after sharply ris­ing in 2020 and 2021. How­ev­er, this rate is still up by 41% com­pared to a decade ear­li­er in 2013. Under­ly­ing caus­es for the over­all rise in teen deaths include drug over­dos­es and firearm-relat­ed homi­cides.

• Black and Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native youth con­sis­tent­ly have the high­est death rates: The KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter pro­vides the teen death rate from all caus­es by race and eth­nic­i­ty. In 2022, the Black teen death rate was near­ly twice the nation­al rate, at 111 ver­sus 59 deaths per 100,000 youth ages 15 to 19, and high­er than rates for all oth­er racial and eth­nic groups. The Amer­i­can Indi­an or Alas­ka Native teen death rate — 84 per 100,000 in 2022 — also remained well above the nation­al rate and fig­ures for Lati­no, white, mul­tira­cial and Asian and Pacif­ic Islander youth. See trends and lead­ing caus­es of death for each group.

Men­tal Health

• Per­sis­tent feel­ings of sad­ness and hope­less­ness surged by almost 50% among U.S. high school­ers. From 2011 to 2021, the share of high school stu­dents report­ing that they felt so sad or hope­less for two weeks in a row that they stopped doing usu­al activ­i­ties rose from 29% to 42%, a large and con­cern­ing increase.

• One-third of young adults also report per­sis­tent depressed or hope­less feel­ings: Accord­ing to a Cen­sus Bureau sur­vey in the fall of 2022, 33% of adults ages 18 to 24 felt down, depressed or hope­less for more than half of the days or near­ly every day for the past two weeks. An even larg­er per­cent­age (44%) of young adults report­ed per­sis­tent ner­vous, anx­ious or on-edge feel­ings at that time.
  

Read our post on Gen­er­a­tion Z and Men­tal Health for addi­tion­al sta­tis­tics on issues such as depres­sion and sui­cide and a dis­cus­sion of why youth men­tal health prob­lems are rising.

Young Par­ents

• Few­er young adults are becom­ing par­ents: The share of adults ages 18 to 24 who are par­ents has been declin­ing for decades, with a recent drop from 10% in 2006-10 to 6% in 2018–22. The num­ber of young par­ents fell accord­ing­ly, from 3.2 mil­lion to 1.8 mil­lion in the same peri­od. The share of young par­ents also declined for all racial and eth­nic groups — falling by 50% for Black and Lati­no young adults and by 44% for Amer­i­can Indi­ans or Alas­ka Natives — and all states from 2006-10 to 2018–22.
• The teen birth rate has plum­met­ed by almost 80% in recent decades: Between 1990 and 2022, the rate of births to teens ages 15 to 19 fell by 77%, from 60 to 14 per 1,000. In num­bers, this was a drop from 521,826 to 143,789 births. Rates dropped for all states dur­ing these three decades, as well. Data by race and eth­nic­i­ty are avail­able for a short­er peri­od from 2016 to 2022 and also showed declines for all groups dur­ing this time. See births to younger teens com­pared to old­er teens.

More Data and Resources on Youth and Young Adults

Today’s youth and young adults are part of Gen­er­a­tion Z, which spans ages 12 to 27 in 2024. See the Foundation’s many resources on Gen Z:

• Gen­er­a­tion Z and Men­tal Health
• Social Issues Impor­tant to Gen­er­a­tion Z
• What the Sta­tis­tics Say About Gen­er­a­tion Z
• Core Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Gen­er­a­tion Z
• Gen­er­a­tion Z and Education

KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter indi­ca­tors on Gen Z and oth­er generations:

• Gen Z pop­u­la­tion size, by race and ethnicity
• Gen Zers liv­ing in poverty
• Gen Zers in pover­ty by race and ethnicity
• Gen Zers liv­ing in low-income households
• Gen Zers in low-income house­holds by race and ethnicity

Access all youth and young adult data on the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, and learn more about the chal­lenges fac­ing youth, as well as oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­port them, in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Thrive by 25 announce­ment.

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