A sizable minority of America’s youth aren’t in school or attached to the labor force. And it’s costing taxpayers big.

About 17 percent of America’s young people are “opportunity youth” — or people ages 16-24 who aren’t attached to the labor force — according to a report prepared by researchers for the Corporation for National and Community Service and the White House Council for Community Solutions (h/t Think Progress). Each one of these 6.7 million young people is costing taxpayers $13,900 per year and it doesn’t stop there. After 25 years old, they’ll cost taxpayers $170,740 over their lifetime, the report found.

That means that in total, those currently classified as so-called opportunity youth will cost taxpayers $1.56 trillion in present value terms over their whole lifetime.

“Both taxpayers and society lose out when the potential of these youth is not realized,” the report said.

There is clearly work that needs to be done, even if it’s simply keeping streets clean and roads repaired. It’s not as if these youth are unwilling or unable to perform tasks like that, either. A government run guaranteed employment program would allow us to provide a social safety net for anyone on hard times; this translates to less crime, less poverty, fewer evictions or major financial repercussions, better education for the populace and a more stable environment for any children.

It could look like the unemployment office now, except that instead of being handed leads for employment after you’re done with the paperwork and waiting on a bimonthly check, you pick from a series of jobs that need to be done by the government (infrastructure and community building, primarily) and are paid a living wage until you can find a better job.

It would definitely cost money, but maybe not as much as you might think. We already pay huge sums of money as a consequence of our unemployment rates. Increased crime rates means more money spent on police work, judicial processes and incarceration. Less access to healthcare (without a steady check, insurance is tough to maintain) means increased reliance on emergency care, a more expensive and less effective option.

We’ve already spent $434 Billion on unemployment benefits, $185 billion of which was paid by taxation. I’m not saying that it would pay for itself, but surely a tax increase is worth all the benefits.