Policies give more kids summer jobs and health coverage

Thanks to the stimulus and the expansion of CHIP earlier this year, nationwide more teens and kids of all ages, respectively, are benefiting from summer jobs and health coverage.

From the NYT: "13 states have invested millions of dollars this year to cover 250,000 more children with subsidized government health insurance."  After the overall expansion of CHIP, the government estimates about 8M kids will remain uninsured.  Tragically, about 2/3 of them are eligible but unenrolled.  The federal government is providing grants to states to find this kids and enroll them.

In another positive development, $1.2B in stimulus funds is employing low-income, at-risk kids in summer jobs programs for the next two years.  This infusion of money reverses - albeit temporarily - a declining trend in federal and state funds for youth employment initiatives.

Both of these programs symbolize a sensible up-front investment with long-term payoffs.  Consider the jobs money:

For every year that teens work, their income in their twenties rises 14 percent to 16 percent, said youth employment expert Andrew Sum of Northeastern University. In addition, research shows that girls who have jobs are much less likely to become pregnant and boys are less likely to get involved in property crimes and drug use. High school graduation rates also go up for kids with work experience.

Of course, too few teens are being served by the stimulus money, just as millions of children continue to go uninsured.  The goal here is to continue reducing the number of uninsured and idle children, and to build on the gains we're making now, turning some temporary fixes into permanent human development programs.  Now all we need to do is retool our spending priorities just a bit...

(Photo by urthstripe)