Indicators of Welfare Dependence, 2001

Chapter III:
Predictors and Risk Factors Associated with Welfare Receipt

[ Main Page of Report | Table of Contents ]

Contents

• Economic Security Risk Factors (ECON)
• Employment and Work Related Risk Factors (WORK)
• Non-Marital Birth Risk Factors (BIRTH)

The Welfare Indicators Act challenges the Department of Health and Human Services to identify and set forth not only indicators of welfare dependence and welfare duration, but also predictors and causes of welfare receipt.  Up to this point, welfare research has not established clear and definitive causes of welfare dependence.  However, research has identified a number of risk factors associated with welfare utilization.  For purposes of this report, the terms “predictors” and “risk factors” are used somewhat interchangeably.

Where the Advisory Board established under the Welfare Indicators Act recommended narrowing the focus of dependence indicators, it recommended an expansive view toward predictors and risk factors. The range of possible predictors is extremely wide, and until they are measured and analyzed over time as the PRWORA changes continue to be implemented, their value will not be fully known.  Some of the “predictors” included in this chapter may turn out to be simply correlates of welfare receipt, some may have a causal relationship, some may be consequences, and some may have predictive value.

For purposes of this report, the predictors/risk factors included in this chapter are grouped into three categories: economic security risk factors, employment-related risk factors, and risk factors associated with non-marital childbearing.

Economic Security Risk Factors (ECON).  The first group includes nine measures associated with economic security.  This group encompasses six measures of poverty, as well as measures of child support receipt, food insecurity, and lack of health insurance.  The tables and figures illustrating measures of economic security are labeled with the prefix ECON throughout this chapter. 

Poverty measures are important predictors of dependence, because families with fewer economic resources are more likely to be dependent on means-tested assistance.  In addition, poverty and other measures of deprivation, such as food insecurity, are important to assess in conjunction with the measures of dependence outlined in Chapter II. 

Reductions in caseloads and dependence can reduce poverty, to the extent that such reductions are associated with greater work activity and higher economic resources for former welfare families.  However, reductions in welfare caseloads can increase poverty and other deprivation measures, to the extent that former welfare families are left with fewer economic resources.

Several aspects of poverty are examined in this chapter.  Those that can be updated annually using the Current Population Survey include: overall poverty rates (ECON 1); the percentage of individuals in deep poverty (ECON 2), and poverty rates using alternative definitions of income (ECON 3 and 4).  The chapter also includes data on the length of poverty episodes or spells (ECON 5); and the cumulative time spent in poverty over a decade (ECON 6).

This chapter also includes data on child support payments (ECON 7), which can play an important role in reducing dependence on government assistance and thus serve as a predictor of dependence.  Household food insecurity (ECON 8) is an important measure of deprivation that, although correlated with general income poverty, provides an alternative measure of tracking the incidence of material hardship and need, and how it may change over time.  Finally, health insurance (ECON 9) is both tied to the income level of the family, and may be a precursor to future health problems among both adults and children.

Employment and Work-Related Risk Factors (WORK). The second grouping, labeled with the WORK prefix, includes nine factors related to employment and barriers to employment.  These measures include data on overall labor force attachment and the employment and earnings for low-skilled workers, as well as data on barriers to work.  The latter category includes incidence of adult disabilities and children with chronic health conditions, adult substance abuse, levels of educational attainment and school drop-out rates, and child care costs. 

Employment and earnings provide many families with an escape from dependence.  It is important, therefore, to look both at overall labor force attachment (WORK 1), and at employment and earnings levels for those with low education levels (WORK 2 and WORK 3).  The economic condition of the low-skill labor market is a key predictor of the ability of young adult men and women to support families without receiving means-tested assistance.

The next two measures in this group (WORK 4 and WORK 5) focus on educational attainment.  Individuals with less than a high school education have the lowest amount of human capital and are at the greatest risk of becoming poor, despite their work effort.

Measures of barriers to employment provide indicators of potential work limitations, which may be predictors of greater dependence.  Substance abuse (WORK 6), disabling conditions (WORK 7), and chronic child health conditions (WORK 8) all have the potential of limiting the ability of the adults in the household to work.  In addition, debilitating health conditions and high medical expenditures can place a strain on a family’s economic resources.  High child care costs (WORK 9) are both a potential barrier to work and an additional strain on family finances.

Non-Marital Birth Risk Factors (BIRTH).  The final group of risk factors addresses out-of-wedlock childbearing. The tables and figures in this subsection are labeled with the BIRTH prefix.  This category includes long-term time trends in births to unmarried women (BIRTH 1), births to unmarried teens (BIRTH 2 and BIRTH 3), and children living in families with never-married parents (BIRTH 4).  Children living in families with never-married mothers are at high risk of dependence, and it is therefore important to track changes in the size of this vulnerable population.

As noted above, the predictors/risk factors included in this chapter do not represent an exhaustive list of measures.  They are merely a sampling of available data that address in some way the question of how a family is faring on the scale of deprivation and well-being.  Such questions are a necessary part of the dependence discussion as researchers assess the effects of the major changes that have occurred in the laws governing public assistance programs.

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTORS

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 1.
POVERTY RATES

Figure ECON 1.  Percentage of Persons in Poverty, by Age: 1959-1999

Source:  U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Poverty in the United States: 1999,” Current Population Reports, Series P60-210 and data published online at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html.

• The percentage of persons living in poverty has continued to decline since 1993, when the poverty rate for all persons was at a ten-year high of just over 15 percent.  In 1999, the overall poverty rate was just under 12 percent, the lowest level since 1979.
• While the poverty rate for children has declined along with the overall rate in the past several years, children, particularly young children, continue to have higher poverty rates than the overall population.  For example, in 1999, the poverty rate for related children ages 0 to 5 was 18 percent, compared to 12 percent for the overall population.
• The poverty rate for blacks declined nearly 10 percentage points between 1992 and 1999, from 33 percent to less than 24 percent, as shown in Table ECON 1.  The gap between black and white poverty rates was at an historic low of 14 percentage points; the gap has narrowed by a third since the early 1990s, when it exceeded 21 percentage points.  The poverty rate among Hispanics reached 23 percent in 1999, the lowest level since 1979. 
• The poverty rate for the elderly (persons ages 65 and over) reached an historic low of less than 10 percent in 1999.  This was a lower poverty rate than the rate both for children under 18 (17 percent) and adults ages 18-64 (10 percent).

Table ECON 1.
Percentage of Persons in Poverty,
by Race and Age: Selected Years

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 2.  DEEP POVERTY RATES

Figure ECON 2.
Percentage of Total Population Below 50 and 100 Percent of Poverty Level:
1975-1999

Source:  U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Poverty in the United States: 1999,” Current Population Reports, Series P60-210 and unpublished tables available online at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html.

• Between 1993 and 1999, the percentage of the population in “deep poverty” (with incomes below 50 percent of the federal poverty level), decreased by more than a quarter (from over 6 percent in 1993 to less than 5 percent in 1999). 
• In general, the percentage of the population with incomes below 50 percent of the poverty threshold has followed a pattern that reflects the trend in the overall poverty rate, as shown in figure ECON 2.   The percentage of people below 50 percent of poverty rose in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then, after falling slightly, rose to a second peak in 1993.  The overall poverty rate followed a somewhat similar pattern, with more pronounced peaks and valleys.
• Over the past two decades, there has been an overall increase in the proportion of the poverty population in deep poverty.  From a low of 28 percent of the poverty population in 1976, this population rose to nearly 41 percent by 1992.  In 1999, 39 percent of poor persons had incomes that fell below 50 percent of the poverty level.
• Not only the poverty rate, but also the total number of poor people fell in 1999, as shown in Table ECON 2.  While the overall U.S. population increased by nearly 100 million people between 1959 and 1999, there were actually 7 million fewer people in poverty in 1999 than forty years prior.

Table ECON 2.
Number and Percentage of Total Population
Below 50, 75, 100, and 125 Percent of Poverty Level: Selected Years

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 3.  ALTERNATIVE POVERTY MEASURES

Figure ECON 3.
Percentage of Persons in Poverty Using Official and Alternative Poverty Measure: 1990-1999

Source:  Census Bureau tabulations of March CPS data.

• An alternative measure of poverty yields a poverty rate that is consistently higher than the official poverty rate, but that follows a similar pattern over time.  The “DES-U” measure shown here is one of several developed by the Census Bureau to implement changes recommended by a panel from the National Academy of Sciences.  These changes include counting non-cash benefits as income, subtracting from income certain work-related, health and child care expenses, and adjusting poverty thresholds for family size and geographic differences in housing costs (see note, Table ECON 3).
• The percentage of children in poverty has steadily dropped since 1993, under both the “DES-U” alternative poverty measure (as shown in Table ECON 3) and the official poverty measure (as shown in Table ECON 1).
• The alternative poverty rate used here suggests a significantly higher poverty rate among the elderly (adults ages 65 and over) than the official poverty rate.  The official percentage of elderly adults in poverty in 1999 was under 10 percent, close to that of non-elderly adults (see Table ECON 1), while the alternative poverty measure resulted in a rate of poverty among elderly adults of 17 percent, almost as high as that for children.

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 4.  POVERTY RATES WITH VARIOUS MEANS-TESTED BENEFITS INCLUDED

Figure ECON 4.  Percentage of Total Population in Poverty with Various Means-Tested Benefits Added to Total Cash Income: 1979-1999

Source:  Congressional Budget Office tabulations of March CPS data.  Additional calculations by DHHS.

• Benefits from means-tested assistance programs remove some people from poverty.  The official definition of poverty – which includes means-tested cash assistance (primarily TANF and SSI) in addition to cash income and social insurance – was 11.8 percent in 1999, as shown in the bold line in Figure ECON 4.  Without cash welfare, the 1999 poverty rate would be one percentage point higher, or 12.7 percent, as shown by the top line in the figure above.
• Adding other, non-cash, public assistance benefits to this definition has the effect of lowering the percentage of people who have incomes below the official poverty rate.  Adding in the value of food and housing benefits reduces the poverty rate to 10.6 percent in 1999.
• When income is defined as including benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and federal taxes, the percentage of the total population in poverty decreases to 9.8 percent in 1999.  Taxes have had a net effect of reducing poverty rates since the significant increases in the size of the EITC in 1993 and 1995.

Table ECON 4.
Percentage of Total Population in Poverty
with Various Means-Tested Benefits Added to Total Cash Income: Selected Years

• The combined effect of means-tested cash assistance, food and housing benefits, EITC and taxes was to reduce the poverty rate in 1999 by 2.9 percentage points, as shown in Table ECON 4.  Net reductions in poverty rates were somewhat lower during the recession of the early 1980s, and somewhat higher in the mid-1990s, largely due to expansions in the EITC. 

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 5.  POVERTY SPELLS

Figure ECON 5. 
Percentage of Poverty Spells for Individuals Entering Poverty
During the 1993 SIPP Panel, by Length of Spell

Source:  Unpublished data from the SIPP, 1993 panel.

• Nearly half (47 percent) of all poverty spells that began during the 1993 SIPP panel ended within 4 months and three-fourths ended within one year.  Only 16 percent of all such spells were longer than 20 months.
• Spells of poverty among adults age 65 and older tend to last longer than poverty spells among younger individuals.  As shown in Table ECON 5, only 65 percent of poverty spells among adults age 65 and older ended within one year compared to 80 percent for women ages 16 to 64, 75 percent for men ages 16 to 64, and 73 percent for children ages 0 to 15.
• A larger percentage of poverty spells among non-Hispanic blacks were longer than 20 months (23 percent) than was the case for spells among non-Hispanic whites (14 percent) and among Hispanics (15 percent).
• In general, poverty spells are shorter than spells of welfare receipt begun in the same time period, as can be seen by comparing Figure ECON 5 to Figure IND 8 in Chapter II.  That is, there is more movement in and out of poverty than movement on and off welfare.  For example, 75 percent of poverty spells lasted a year or less, whereas only 60 percent of food stamp spells and 56 percent of AFDC spells lasted a year or less.

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 6.  LONG-TERM POVERTY

Figure ECON 6.
Percentage of Children Ages 0 to 5 in 1982 Living in Poverty Between 1982 and 1991,
by Years in Poverty and Race

Source: Unpublished data from the PSID, 1983-1992.

• Among children who were ages 0 to 5 in 1982, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) never lived in poverty for any year over the next ten years.  One-fifth (20 percent) lived in poverty for one to five years and 7 percent were poor for six to ten years.
• During the 1982-1991 period, 28 percent of black children experienced longer-term poverty of six to ten years, a percentage much higher than that for non-black children during the same ten-year period (3 percent).  Similar patterns existed in the 1972-1981 period, as shown in Table ECON 6.
• For both time periods, the percentages of all individuals who were poor for only one to two years were much larger than the percentages of all individuals who experienced longer-term poverty.  For example, while 11 percent of all individuals were poor for only one to two years between 1982 and 1991, only 3 percent were poor for six to eight years and only 2 percent were poor for nine to ten years during the same time period.
• Children were more likely than others to experience long-term poverty, especially poverty of nine or ten years.  Table ECON 6 shows that this pattern was true in both time periods. 

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 7.  CHILD SUPPORT

Figure ECON 7a.  Total, Non-AFDC/TANF, and AFDC/TANF Title IV-D Child Support Collections: 1978-1999
Source:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Preliminary Child Support Enforcement FY 1999 Data Report, 2000 (and earlier years), Washington, DC.

• Collections paid through the Child Support Enforcement system (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) totaled $15.8 billion in 1999, nearly $1.5 billion more than in 1998.  During the 1990s, child support collections grew rapidly, at an average rate of almost $1.1 billion a year. 
• Non-TANF collections as a percentage of overall collections by the IV-D program have rapidly increased in recent years.  Non-TANF collections increased by nearly $1.7 billion between 1998 and 1999, while TANF collections declined by nearly $0.2 billion.  However, the 6 percent drop in TANF collections between 1998 and  1999 was smaller than the 13 percent drop in the number of TANF recipient families over the same time period. 
• The amount of TANF collections paid to AFDC/TANF families has decreased since FY 1996, when the first $50 of each month’s child support collection were “passed through” to families that were receiving cash benefits.  The $50 pass-through was repealed by the 1996 welfare reform law, although a number of states have opted to pass through some or all of collections to the custodial TANF family, despite the loss of revenues to the state.
• In 1999, over 95 percent of TANF collections (collections on behalf of TANF recipients and for past due support assigned to the state by former TANF recipients) was retained to reimburse the state and federal governments for the cost of welfare benefits, as shown in Table ECON 7a.

Table ECON 7a.
Total, Non-AFDC/TANF, and AFDC/TANF Title IV-D Child Support Collections:
1978-1999

Figure ECON 7b.  Average Annual Child Support Enforcement Payments for Current Support by Non-Custodial Parents with an Obligation and Payment (1998 Dollars): 1986-1998

Source:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Child Support Enforcement Twenty-Third Annual Report to Congress, for the period ending September 30, 1998 (and earlier years), Washington, DC.

• Average child support payments on behalf of families not receiving AFDC/TANF have, over time, been about twice as large as those payments for families receiving AFDC/TANF.  (Note that many families classified as not on AFDC/TANF in a particular year may have received AFDC/TANF at some point in the past.)
• When converted to constant dollars, average payments have not quite kept pace with inflation, as shown in Table ECON 7b.  In constant (1998) dollars, annual child support enforcement payments to AFDC/TANF families decreased by 8 percent between FY 1986 and FY 1998, from $1,425 to $1,319.  Payments to non-AFDC/TANF families fell by 18 percent in constant dollars over the same time period, from $2,877 to $2,361. 

Table ECON 7b.
Average Annual Child Support Enforcement Payments for Current Support
by Non-Custodial Parents with an Obligation and Payment
(Nominal and 1998 Dollars): 1986-1998

Note:  Data for 1996 and 1997 are revised from previous report.  Data for 1998 do not include information from Florida, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Child Support Enforcement Twenty-Third Annual Report to Congress, for the period ending September 30, 1998 (and earlier years), Washington, DC.

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 8.  FOOD INSECURITY

Figure ECON 8.
Percentage of Households Classified as Food Insecure: 1999

Source:  U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, ERS, calculations using data August 1998 CPS Food Security Supplement.

• A large majority (90 percent) of American households was food secure in 1999 – that is, showed little or no evidence of concern about food supply or reduction in food intake.
• Approximately 10 percent of households experienced food insecurity (not being able to afford enough food) at some level during the twelve months ending in April 1999.  More than two-thirds of the food insecure households were without hunger, meaning that although food insecurity was evident in their concerns and in adjustments to household food management, little or no reduction in food intake was reported.
• The prevalence of food insecurity with hunger in 1999 was 3 percent.  One or more members of these households were estimated to have experienced reduced food intake and hunger as a result of financial constraints.
• Households with income below poverty had a higher rate of food insecurity (37 percent) than the 10 percent rate among the general population, as shown in Table ECON 8a.  Only 4 percent of families with incomes at or above 185 percent of the poverty level showed evidence of food insecurity.
• As shown in Table ECON 8b, the incidence of food insecurity and hunger has declined since 1995, when food security data were first collected.  Increases in 1996 and 1998 may be due to the timing of data collection in even years (fall) as compared with odd years (spring).

ECONOMIC SECURITY RISK FACTOR 9.  LACK OF HEALTH INSURANCE

Figure ECON 9.  Percentage of Persons without Health Insurance, by Income: 1999

Source:  U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March 2000.

• Poor persons were twice as likely as all persons to be without health insurance in 1999 (32 percent compared to 16 percent).  While the ratio varied across categories, persons with family income at or below the poverty line were more likely to be without health insurance regardless of race, gender, educational attainment, or age.
• Hispanics were the racial/ethnic group least likely to have health insurance in 1999, among both the general population and those with incomes below the poverty line.  While whites in general were more likely to have insurance than blacks, poor blacks were more likely to have insurance than poor whites.
• Among all persons, amount of education was inversely related to health insurance coverage, as shown in Table ECON 9.  However, among poor persons, educational attainment made little difference as to whether individuals had health insurance.
• As shown in Table ECON 9, individuals ages 18 to 34 are the most likely to be without health insurance, among both the general population and the poor population.  Nearly half of all 18 to 34 year-olds with incomes below the poverty line had no health insurance in 1999.

[ Go to Contents ]

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTORS

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 1.
LABOR FORCE ATTACHMENT

Figure WORK 1.
Percentage of Individuals in Families with Labor Force Participants, by Race: 1999
Source: Unpublished tabulations of March CPS data.

• In 1999, over 72 percent of the total population lived in families with at least one person working on a full-time full-year basis, as shown in Table WORK 1a.  Full-time full-year work was higher in 1999 than in the rest of the 1990s, as shown in Table WORK 1b.
• Overall, 13 percent of the population lived in families with no labor force participants and 15 percent lived in families with part-time and/or part-year labor force participants in 1999.
• Persons of Hispanic origin were less likely than non-Hispanic blacks or non-Hispanic whites to live in families with no one in the labor force in 1999 (9 percent compared to 15 and 14 percent, respectively).
• Working-age women were more likely than working-age men to live in families with no one in the labor force.  Men were more likely to live in families with at least one full-time full-year worker.

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 2.  EMPLOYMENT AMONG THE LOW-SKILLED

Figure WORK 2.  Percentage of All Persons Ages 18 to 65 with No More than a High School Education Who Were Employed: 1969-2000

Source:  ASPE tabulations of March Current Population Surveys.

• Between 1969 and 1984, the percentage of low-skilled men who were employed dropped significantly, with the largest decline among black men, as shown in Figure WORK 2.  During this time period, the percentage of black men with no more than a high school education who were employed dropped 20 percentage points; for low-skilled white men, employment rates dropped 8 percentage points.
• Since 1984, employment levels for white and Hispanic men with a high school education or less have leveled off, hovering close to 85 percent.  Employment levels for low-skilled black men have fluctuated over the past fifteen years, rising as high as 76 percent in 1991, and falling as low as 69 percent in 1995.  
• In 2000, only 72 percent of black men with no more than a high school education were working, as compared to 85 to 86 percent of similarly educated white and Hispanic men.  However, employment rates for black women with no more than a high school diploma were at an all-time high in 2000 of 68 percent, nearly identical to the 69 percent for white women and higher than the 59 percent for Hispanic women, as shown in Table WORK 2.

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 3.  EARNINGS OF LOW-SKILLED WORKERS

Figure WORK 3.
Mean Weekly Wages of Men Working Full-Time, Full-Year with No More than a High School Education,
by Race (1999 Dollars): Selected Years

Source:  ASPE tabulations of March CPS data.

• Mean weekly wages for full-time work by men with no more than a high school diploma have decreased in real terms for much of the past quarter century, with some recovery in the late 1990s.  In 1970, the mean weekly wage for low-skilled men working full-time was $660 (in 1999 dollars); the comparable wage in 1995 was $597, a decrease of 10 percent.
• In recent years, this pattern has changed, and weekly wages for low-skilled men have risen, even after taking inflation into account.  The mean weekly wage for low-skilled full-time workers was $619 in 1999 – a rise above the 1995 level, but still not as high as wages for this group in 1970 (in 1999 dollars).
• The gap between mean weekly wages for white and black men with low education levels has narrowed over time, especially over the last five years.  In 1970, the mean weekly wage for low-skilled black men working full-time was $481 (in 1999 dollars), or 70 percent of the $683 average for white men.  However, full-time working black men with no more than a high school education received 80 percent of the mean weekly wages of white men in 1995 ($493 compared to $614) and 88 percent of the mean weekly wages of white men in 1999 ($554 compared to $633).

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 4.  EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Figure WORK 4.
Percentage of Adults Age 25 and Over,
by Level of Educational Attainment: 1960-2000

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Educational Attainment in the United States: March 2000, (Update)”, Current Population Reports, Series P20-536, March 2000, and earlier reports, December 2000.

• There has been a marked decline over the past forty years in the percentage of the population who has not earned a high school diploma.  This percentage fell from 59 percent in 1960 to 16 percent in 2000.
• The percentage of the population receiving a high school education only (with no subsequent college) was 25 percent in 1960 and rose to 39 percent in 1988.  Since then this figure has fallen to 33 percent, although some of this decline is a result of a change in the survey methodology in 1992 (see note to Table WORK 4).
• Between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of the population with some college (one to three years) doubled, from 9 percent to 18 percent.  The apparent jump in 1992 is a result of a change in the survey methodology (see note to Table WORK 4), but the trend continued upward, reaching a little over 25 percent in 2000.
• The percentage of the population completing four or more years of college more than tripled from 1960 to 2000, rising steadily from 8 percent to nearly 26 percent.

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 5.  HIGH-SCHOOL DROPOUT RATES

Figure WORK 5.
Percentage of Students Enrolled in Grades 10 to 12 in the Previous Year
Who Were Not Enrolled and Had Not Graduated in the Survey Year,
by Race: Selected Years

Source:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Trends in the Well-Being of America’s Children and Youth: 1998.  Table EA 1.4; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Dropout Rates in the United States: 1998, Table 1 and Dropout Rates in the United States: 1999, Table 1.

• After declining steadily during the 1980s, dropout rates for teens in grades 10 to 12 began rising, from a total dropout rate of 4.0 percent in 1991 to a peak of 5.7 percent in 1995.  The overall rate declined to 4.6 percent in 1997 but has since then trended slightly upward, to 5.0 percent in 1999. 
• Among races, dropout rates are highest for Hispanic teens over time. In 1999, the dropout rate was 7.8 percent for Hispanic teens, compared to 6.5 percent for black teens and 4.0 percent for white teens.

Table WORK 5. Percentage of Students Enrolled in Grades 10 to 12 in the Previous Year Who Were Not Enrolled and Had Not Graduated in the Survey Year, by Race: Selected Years

EMPLOYMENT AND WORK-RELATED RISK FACTOR 6.  ADULT ALCOHOL AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Figure WORK 6.
Percentage of Adults Who Used Cocaine or Marijuana or Abused Alcohol, by Age: 1999

Source:  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

• In 1999, young adults (ages 18 to 25) were more likely than other adults to report cocaine use, marijuana use, or alcohol abuse in the past month.  About one in six (16 percent) of adults 18 to 25 reported using marijuana in the past month, compared with 6 percent of adults 26 to 34 and 3 percent of adults 35 and older.  Young adults were also significantly more likely to abuse alcohol than older adults.
• The percentages of persons reporting binge alcohol use were significantly larger than the percentages for all other reported behaviors, across all age groups and for all years with reports on alcohol use, as shown in Table WORK 6.
• Use of marijuana and cocaine has decreased across all age groups over the past twenty years.  For example, reported cocaine use among adults ages 18 to 25 fell from 10 percent in 1979 to 2 percent in 1999; marijuana use fell from 36 percent in 1979 to 16 percent in 1999.  There has been a much smaller decline in the use of alcohol since 1985.

Table WORK 6.
Percentage of Adults Who Used Cocaine or Marijuana or Abused Alcohol,
by Age: Selected Years