LONDON, Aug. 10 -- For every pound the British government spends supporting young people into work, it spends twenty-five pounds on benefits for those who remain outside employment and education entirely. That ratio, cited by The Guardian in analysis published Monday, is perhaps the clearest available measure of how a problem primarily discussed in terms of social failure has become, by any accounting, a fiscal one.

The United Kingdom is losing an estimated £125 billion - roughly $168.7 billion - each year to the generation of young people classified as NEET: not in education, employment, or training. The figure represents approximately one million people currently outside the labour market and formal learning simultaneously. They d...