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E C O N O M I C R E P O R T O F T H E P R E S I D E N T

Economic Report of the President - The American Presidency Project

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Box 5-4.The National Strategy to Reduce Teen PregnancyFrom 1980 to 1991 the overall birth rate to teens aged 15-19 rose from53.0 to 62.1 per 1,000. Since then, however, this trend has been improving.Nationwide, this rate declined by 18 percent from 1991 to 1998, andteen birth rates have fallen in every State and across ethnic and racialgroups. For a subset of this group, girls aged 15-17, the 1998 birth ratewas at its lowest on record. In addition, teen pregnancy rates are at theirlowest since 1976, the earliest year for which data on this group are available.Yet despite these recent improvements, teen pregnancy remains aproblem, since the financial resources and opportunities of unwed teensand their children are significantly less than those of other families.Each year more than 900,000 pregnancies occur among Americanteenagers. A collection of studies on teen parenthood found that roughlyfour-fifths of teen mothers end up on welfare. The children of adolescentmothers were found to have poorer health outcomes and were 50percent more likely to be of low birthweight. In addition, the sons of adolescentmothers were found to be 2.7 times as likely to be incarceratedas the sons of mothers who delayed pregnancy, and the daughters ofadolescent mothers were one-third more likely to become teen mothersthemselves.On January 4, 1997, the President announced a comprehensive nationalstrategy to reduce teen pregnancy in this country. The new initiative,led by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), respondedto a call from the President and the Congress for a national strategy toprevent out-of-wedlock teen pregnancies. It also responded to a directive,under the welfare reform act, to ensure that at least 25 percent ofcommunities in this country have teen pregnancy prevention programsin place. Key efforts under this initiative include the following:• Implementing New Efforts Under Welfare Reform. Under the welfarereform law signed by the President on August 22, 1996, unmarriedminor parents are required to stay in school and live at home, or inan adult-supervised setting, in order to receive assistance. The lawencourages the creation of Second Chance Homes, supportive andsupervised living arrangements that provide teen parents with theskills they need to become good role models and providers for theirchildren, giving them guidance in parenting and in avoiding repeatpregnancies.• Supporting Promising Approaches and Building Partnerships. TheAdministration continues to support innovative teen pregnancy preventionstrategies tailored to the unique needs of communities.HHS-funded programs supporting teen pregnancy prevention havebeen established in about 34 percent of the 4,752 Census-definedcommunities in the United States. In addition, HHS has built partcontinuedon next page...188 | Economic Report of the President

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