The Cost of Exclusion 2010
The Cost of Exclusion 2010 report reveals the
cost of youth disadvantage to our economy. We know that long-term
youth unemployment has recently hit a 16-year high, but what is the
true cost of this to the taxpayer?
The cost of exclusion can be quantified in monetary terms, but
at The Prince’s Trust we also see the devastating effect on
individuals and communities. Every day at The Trust we meet another
young person who has grown up without a positive adult role model
or has left school without any hope they will find a job.
The Prince’s Trust runs programmes to give young people the
skills and confidence to move on with their lives.
What we do works. Even in these tough economic
times, more than three-quarters of young people helped by The Trust
go on to work, education or training.
Not only this; the schemes we run are value for money. A
conservative estimate for the annual cost of a young jobseeker
would be £5,400 but, based on the upper estimates in this report,
it can be as much as £16,000. The Trust can use just a fraction of
this cost - from as little as £1,000 - to put this young person
through an intensive personal development course, helping them
leave the dole queue for good.
Last year, The Prince’s Trust helped more than 44,000
disadvantaged young people. What is clear from this report is that
there are thousands more who need our help.
The cost of youth unemployment
This report shows that there is a cost to the taxpayer of £22
million a week in terms of Jobseeker’s Allowance. On top of this,
there is the cost to the economy of lost productivity. A
conservative estimate for this is approximately the same amount per
week again.
An upper bound figure for lost productivity is £133 million,
making the upper estimate for youth unemployment £155 million a
week. Read more
The cost of youth crime
The cost of youth crime is a further £23 million a week. This is
£1.2 billion a year. Read more
The cost of educational underachievement
The cost for educational underachievement is estimated at £22
billion for a generation.
Read more
