Coordinated efforts of all levels of government and business are needed to address this challenge. Minority youth unemployment remains high. While progress has been made in the last few years in reducing the wage gap between the highest and lowest income workers, the gap has grown over the past few years. The lack of safe and affordable child care hits central cities hard, preventing many parents unable to afford higher priced child care from going to work. Only 10 percent of the families who qualify for federal child care assistance receive help.
Many cities have tens of thousands of families on waiting lists for child care assistance.
Education Gap Urban schools are failing to prepare an alarming number of America's children to meet the challenges of the new high-technology economy. In many cases, the poorest schools are serving the children with the greatest needs, and have the fewest resources to do so. More than 81 percent of urban schools have a student population that is at least 70 percent poor and 50 percent minority. In the nation's 20 largest urban school districts, more than half of all students never graduate high school. School violence is concentrated in large urban schools.