Teens ages 16 to 19 not attending school and not working in the United States

Definitions: Teenagers between age 16 and 19 who are not enrolled in school (full- or part-time) and not employed (full- or part-time).

This measure is sometimes referred to as “Idle Teens” or “Disconnected Youth.”
Inclusion of the group quarters population in the ACS in 2006 could have a noticeable impact on the universe population for this age group. Therefore, the 2007 ACS estimates might not be fully comparable to estimates prior to 2006.

Data Source: Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Supplementary Survey, 2001 Supplementary Survey, 2002 through 2007 American Community Survey.
The data for this measure come from the 2000 and 2001 Supplementary Survey and the 2002 through 2007 American Community Survey (ACS). The 2000 through 2004 ACS surveyed approximately 700,000 households monthly during each calendar year. In general but particularly for these years, use caution when interpreting estimates for less populous states or indicators representing small sub-populations, where the sample size is relatively small. Beginning in January 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau expanded the ACS sample to 3 million households (full implementation), and in January 2006 the ACS included group quarters. The ACS, fully implemented, is designed to provide annually updated social, economic, and housing data for states and communities. (Such local-area data have traditionally been collected once every ten years in the long form of the decennial census.)

Footnotes: Updated September 2009.
S - Estimates suppressed when the confidence interval around the percentage is greater than or equal to 10 percentage points.
N.A. – Data not available.
Data are provided for the 50 most populous cities according to the most recent Census counts.  Cities for which data is collected may change over time.
A 90 percent confidence interval for each estimate can be found at Teens ages 16 to 19 not attending school and not working.