--:-- Georgia Howe: After decades of steady decline, adolescent mortality rates are now increasing. What accounts for the troubling trend? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's June 3rd, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. With the Supreme Court poised to hand down a ruling on affirmative action, questions loom about the future of race-based government contracts. What is minority contracting? And how could a ruling on college admissions affect the U.S. economy down the line? And San Francisco's mayor has a new plan to cut homelessness in half, but it won't come cheap. What is the new plan and how much will it cost taxpayers? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: According to a new report, after years of decline, the mortality rate among American children is now rising at rates not seen in a half century. The news comes as depression rates among the general population have also risen to an all-time high. Here with more on the concerning trend and what's behind it is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, not the kind of story we like to report. What do we know? Yeah, it's not good news. So for the last 50 years, with advancements in the medical field and improvements in car safety, mortality rates among young Americans plummeted, falling 65% from 1970 to 2018. But in recent years, that trend has reversed. According to a recent report from the Journal of the American Medical Association, from 2019 to 2021, the death rate for American children and adolescents climbed 20%, marking the steepest increase on record. We're still waiting on the final federal data from 2022, but unfortunately, all indications point to another similar increase. So it's not getting any better.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the big question, what's behind the spike in deaths? Four main causes of death are having an outsized impact on the trend. Drug overdoses, homicides, auto accidents, and suicide are all on the rise. When it comes to drugs, fentanyl has fueled a major spike nationwide for all ages when it comes to overdoses. Last year, fentanyl was the leading cause of death among Americans 18 to 45. And young people are unfortunately no exception. From 2010 to 2020, fatal overdoses among American adolescents doubled and then rose another 20% in 2021 alone.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: While rates of drug use among young people actually are not on the rise, deadly overdoses are in large part because of the prevalence of fentanyl. Similarly, the homicide rate among adolescents has also spiked, rising 30% from 2019 to 2020 and continuing up ever since. And if you look at the numbers, there's a clear demographic breakdown between those two types of death. White adolescents accounted for about 60% of drug overdose deaths over the last three years, while black adolescents accounted for nearly two-thirds of homicide deaths.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, what about car accidents and suicide? I think that's what most people think of when they think about adolescent deaths. Well, auto deaths among adolescents also rose 23% from 2019 to 2021. And there are a few theories on the cause there. Distracted driving, especially with cell phones, has been on the rise. And during COVID, there were also fewer cars on the road, leaving many people to drive more recklessly. With regard to suicide, rates went up 18% over that same time frame, with younger boys seeing the highest spike.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Last week, we discussed some really disturbing data about the effects of social media on kids. What does the data look like right now for depression in kids and teens?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, more bad news on that front. According to a new Gallup report, the number of Americans who say they've been diagnosed with depression at some point has risen to 29, while 17 say they're currently being treated for depression. Not only is that the highest mark on record, but it's almost 10 points higher than what we saw as recently as 2015. The rates are highest among women, with 36% saying they've been diagnosed. That's almost twice as high as the number we see for men, which is around 20%, though that figure has also doubled among men since 2017.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And looking at the generational data, Americans under 29 are most likely to report current depression. They're at around 25%. So some stunning and concerning figures for sure. So what's behind the rise on that front?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, COVID lockdowns appear to have played a significant role when it comes to mental health. As millions of Americans were isolated from their communities and loved ones, depression rates had been rising slowly before 2019, but really spiked in 2020 and continued to go up throughout the next two years. But what's really concerning is that in 2022, the rates continue to go up even as lockdowns came to an end, implying the effects of that isolation are longer lasting than we'd hoped for.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Like we reported last week, experts say social media is also playing a key role, especially among younger Americans. There's overwhelming evidence that shows a direct correlation between screen time and social media use and depression rates. There's also a slew of data showing that depression rates among adolescents in broken homes are far higher than their counterparts, which is especially concerning when you consider the rapid decrease in two-parent homes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, it is worth noting, there are skeptics who say that overall depression rates are potentially exaggerated. In their view, medical professionals diagnose anyone going through a rough patch or feeling down as being clinically depressed. And in their view, many people might mistakenly think they have a mental illness, which could skew the data. But regardless, a concerning trend that only seems to be getting worse.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Absolutely.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. Any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling on affirmative action. The ruling will have far-reaching implications for colleges and may pretend broader changes in the workplace in the future. Yet there is another kind of affirmative action that gets less attention but could be of even greater significance. Here to discuss is the Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute, Judge Glock.
--:-- Judge Glock: Thanks so much for having me back.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, you recently wrote a piece for City Journal called Welcome to the World of Minority Contracting. What is minority contracting?
--:-- Judge Glock: Basically, it's a government policy, and this happens at all levels of government, federal, state, and local, to favor minority-owned businesses when awarding contracts. That means, say, if a city wants to issue a road-paving contract, they allow minority businesses to charge higher prices than their competitors and still get the contract. Sometimes government says certain types of contracts have to go to minorities and no white-owned companies can compete. Sometimes governments can just give contracts out without any competition at all as long as that company is owned by a minority.
--:-- Judge Glock: Now, how common is this? It's very common at this point. In fact, it would be really hard to kind of overstate how big these programs are. It's a really big part of what government in America does today, award contracts. Everything from building a new aircraft carrier to buying accounting software. Many politicians have set really high goals for awarding a percentage of these contracts to minorities. So President Biden said he wanted 15% of all federal contracts to go to minorities. State and city of New York said they want 30% of all contracts to go to minority-owned businesses. So we're talking at least tens of billions of dollars a year for these race-based contracts.
--:-- Judge Glock: Well, aside from the ethical questions, do these type of quotas have a cost for taxpayers? Yes, there are lots of different ways to measure these costs. As I said, sometimes they just allow minority businesses to charge a higher rate than their competitors. And you can see that in the cost to taxpayers. But one way to look at this is to look at what happened in California when they had a vote in the 1990s that banned racial preferences. The focus then, as always, was with colleges and jobs and so forth. But the vote also affected these contracting programs. And one economist who studied what happened found that the highways, for instance, that were funded by the state were much cheaper after these racial preferences were ended, about 6% cheaper because they didn't have to meet all these minority contractor requirements.
--:-- Judge Glock: Now, if you take that kind of percent, which sounds a little small, you take that percent of these trillions of dollars in government contracts across the economy, start talking about a really big number. You also just have lots of scandals with these contracting programs that can sap trust in government. It's really common for white-owned businesses to put up front companies owned by minorities that just take a cut and then pass the contract on. And this angers businesses owned by people of all different races because it's really tough to compete when there's such pervasive fraud. And that has a cost for taxpayers, for the business community at large, and for everybody.
--:-- Judge Glock: Now, obviously, there are some landmark cases relating to college admissions. Has the Supreme Court ever weighed in specifically on minority contracting?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, so it's been a while, but there were two big cases in the late 80s and mid-1990s, and the Supreme Court tried to at least cabin or limit the programs. The court basically said the government could only use minority contracting if they're making up for explicit discrimination in the past. But instead of ending these programs, the cases fought this whole new industry to write what are known as disparity studies, would try to show how some government is or was discriminatory so they can keep using these race-based contracts. By some estimates, just writing these studies would cost governments hundreds of millions of dollars.
--:-- Judge Glock: Now, would a Supreme Court ruling that strikes down affirmative action in colleges directly affect these minority contracting programs? Not directly, but down the road, it definitely could. It could show the court was more interested in taking a further look at racial preferences in general. And that means they might take a second look at how all these governments are still using these minority contracting programs despite their earlier attempts to limit. And maybe it means over the long run, the Supreme Court could look again at ending them entirely.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right. Well, Judge, thanks so much for coming on and explaining that to us.
--:-- Judge Glock: Thanks again for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Judge Glock of the Manhattan Institute.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: San Francisco's mayor has an expensive new plan to tackle homelessness, which has become a crisis for the city. But the city is facing a budget deficit and lots of homeless housing currently sits empty. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraida Lordi is here with the details for us.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Hi, Georgia. So Mayor London Breed wants San Francisco to spend another $692.6 million on homelessness next year as part of the city's five-year plan to reduce homelessness by half. The plan would pay for 600 new shelter beds and 545 new housing units in the next year. The plan will also help non-homeless people pay their rent so they don't become homeless. Those are the broad strokes, but for the plan to move forward, the mayor and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have to agree on the specifics of the plan.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Here's the problem, though. San Francisco has a two-year budget deficit of $744 million, and the mayor has to sign a balanced budget by August 1st. This expensive homeless project will cut deep into the budget. This is in addition to a different homeless policy Breed recently rolled out which is to have non-personnel respond to certain 911 calls.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: So does that apply to all 911 calls made in San Francisco or just homeless-related calls? It's specifically for certain types of calls. Breed's goal is to pivot away from police as much as possible when it comes to homelessness. This new program is called the Homeless Engagement Assistant Response Team, or HART. The program will involve people from the homeless nonprofit Urban Alchemy, and they will respond to non-medical, non-emergency 911 calls about homeless people.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: There's also a pragmatic reason for the change. The police department is currently understaffed by more than 500 officers. Back in 2020, Breed cut $120 million from the San Francisco police and sheriff's budgets. But by 2021, Breed did a 180 on her decision. She made an emergency request to the Board of Supervisors for more police money to crack down on crime, including open air drug dealing, car break-ins and theft from stores.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Lieutenant Tracy McRae of the San Francisco Police Officers Association criticized the mayor for reversing her stance on police funding. Here's McRae.
--:-- Lieutenant Tracy McRae: Stop hating what you need. Obviously, no one else is going to go and deal with this problem but the police, right? You throw everything on us. So you know what? Stop criticizing us. Stop trying to break us down because you know you need us to deal with it.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: In March, Breed also pleaded for federal assistance to handle the crime and homelessness problems. Now, I know homelessness spiked during COVID. What's the situation like now in San Francisco?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it's gotten worse since the pandemic. About 38,000 people are homeless in the Bay Area on a given night. That's up 35% since 2019. More than 7,000 people are homeless in San Francisco itself. Right now, San Francisco has just over 3,000 shelter beds, but only about 2,800 people sleep in the shelter beds. The city also has more than 12,400 permanent supportive housing units, but 825 of those units are sitting empty.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Circling back to the plan, though, you said the mayor wants to create 600 new shelter beds and more than 500 new housing units in the next year. If beds and housing are currently standing empty, why does the mayor want more of them?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it's not entirely clear, but some of the empty housing is due to bureaucratic delays. Some homeless people who have been approved for housing have remained homeless because the city is so slow about placing them in housing units. Also, one of the persistent problems is that many homeless individuals prefer not to use the services offered. Sometimes they don't want a housing unit without a bathroom or an elevator. So shelter beds and housing sit empty while people choose to stay on the streets.
--:-- Georgia Howe: As you can imagine, the situation is extremely frustrating to residents. Here's one man who spoke to local outlet KRON.
--:-- Resident: I lived in this city. I was born and raised in this city. I have never seen anything like this in San Francisco, California. Mayor Bree, you promised, you promised us, fix this.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, certainly one of the city's most stubborn problems. Maraid, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, thank you so much for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and stand with our mission, consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. You can also follow us now on Twitter. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with an extra edition of Morning Wire. Thank you.
