ACS Data Users Group

Does anyone know off-hand the best table to use for calculating "disconnected youth" (16-19 year olds not in school and not working)? B23001 only gives me "not in labor force" but not school enrollment part of it.

We did a project on this in Phoenix and really you'll need to use PUMS data to create a custom cross tab. The closest you'll get from the ACS summary file is table B23001 (which you already found) and B14005 (sex by school enrollment by educational attainment by employment status for the population 16 to 19 years).

ah, just re-read your original post and realized you are defining as 16-19 year olds. We did it for 16-24 year olds so the 20-24 year olds we couldn't get through the ACS summary files- so perhaps B14005 will be sufficient for you.

Table B14005 crosses employment status by educational enrollment status, but covers only persons 16-19.

If you want to look at a wider age range you could turn to the PUMS data set, depending on the geography of interest. I used PUMS data analysed on-line through the IPUMS USA website to estimate the number of disconnected youths are 16-24. You can also use PUMS data to further refine your analysis to look at just one sex or specific race and ethnicity groups.

Thank you both so much!

Depending on what geography you're looking for, there's also some data already tabulated on the KIDS COUNT Data Center:
By age group (16-19, 20-24, 16-24):
datacenter.kidscount.org/.../9292-youth-not-attending-school-and-not-working-by-age-group

16-19 only:
datacenter.kidscount.org/.../9292-youth-not-attending-school-and-not-working-by-age-group

Hi, Diana, did you get any info?

Hi Jin. Yes, I ended up using table B14005, had exactly what I was looking for.