No Longer Invisible: Opportunity Youth in New Orleans

October 2016

The Cowen Institute has released No Longer Invisible: Opportunity Youth in New Orleans. This new report outlines the challenges facing 16-24 year olds in New Orleans who are disconnected from employment and education. These young people are often referred to as opportunity youth. The report found that there are 6,820 opportunity youth in New Orleans, which was 14 percent of all 16-24 year olds in the city. Those youth faced significant economic barriers: a third lived below the poverty line and these young people also received food stamps and were uninsured at high rates.

To address a challenge as complex as youth disconnection, the report recommends expanded efforts to leverage the educational experiences of the city’s opportunity youth to link them to employment. The Cowen Institute supports numerous initiatives to reconnect opportunity youth, such as the EMPLOY Collaborative, the Earn and Learn apprenticeship program and New Orleans Opportunity Works. EMPLOY’s Youth Action Team, a committee of New Orleans young people, reviewed and advised on the report. The report was supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.