Low-Income Youths Facing Higher Odds : Surveys: State has higher unemployment and poverty rates, but spends $1,000 less per pupil than the national average.

Julius Charles, 18, dropped out of his gang-infested South-Central high school to get away from the “shooting and stuff.” Poor and seemingly futureless, he had turned to “weed” for solace.

But today he is beating the odds.

In nine months at a federal Job Corps center in Downtown Los Angeles, where he is making “steady progress” studying again and learning a trade, Charles has a perfect attendance record. Picking up carpentry, electrical and plumbing skills, Charles says he loves his work so much that for now even girls don’t interest him much.

According to two studies released this week of California’s low-income young people, Julius Charles defies the norm. The odds he’s beating run something like this: Forgetting for a moment the high dropout rate, of the students who do graduate from high school each year, 100,000 go no further in their studies, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Children Now.

Other findings of the group:

* In 1993, the year Charles dropped out of Jefferson High School, California had the highest teen-age unemployment rate in the nation: more than 26%.

* In the same year, 857 children and teen-agers were murdered in the state, 59% more than the national average.

* The child poverty rate is almost a quarter of all American children, 23.5%. But California’s is higher, at 28.6% the highest ever measured here.

* Reports of child abuse as of 1993--more than 660,000--had more than doubled from 1985.

* In education, California spends $1,000 less per pupil than the national average, and in its crowded classrooms, fourth-graders scored next to last in reading skills measured nationally three years ago.

Lois Salisbury, executive director of Children Now, said that the problems children face are so widespread and diverse that they are usually overlooked by legislators debating the need for social changes.

The answer, she said, would be to require a “children’s impact statement,” similar to an environmental impact report, to be prepared before legislation is approved.

Salisbury also told an Assembly committee Wednesday that a master plan should be drawn up to address the long-term challenges of assisting children in need.

Another group, the Children’s Advocacy Institute, drawing conclusions from a lengthy study, says that “by almost every indicator of child well-being, California’s children have declined steadily and are at record levels of jeopardy.” That is reflected in poverty rates, paternal abandonment, teen-agers giving birth, and drug and alcohol use, the group said. Blaming state government and specifically Gov. Pete Wilson, the institute calls for reshuffling revenues to afford children a larger share.

Robert C. Fellmeth, executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute and a law professor at the University of San Diego, said Californians can afford to spend more on children. He said the most telling figure from the study shows that Californians are being taxed less, not more, than they were in 1989, reflected in a decrease of state tax revenues measured against personal income.

In 1989, the study said, those revenues came to $6.88 per $100 in personal income earned by state residents. Declining ever since, the figure now stands at $5.86 and continues to fall, the group’s study said.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, said it was true that revenues declined in that period, but so did personal income, mostly as a result of the economic recession.

Fellmeth said the institute measured eight government programs affecting children in the categories of family welfare grants, the Medi-Cal health treatment program for the poor and primary and secondary education assistance. He said children are being deprived in all three areas.

Soon, he said, Aid to Families With Dependent Children could drop to $350 a month for a family of three--less than half the level of 1989, because of progressive cuts made in the past and proposed in the future by the Wilson Administration.

The institute study found that 2 million California children are in families with no health insurance, and of the rest who qualify for Med-Cal benefits, those benefits in some cases have declined by half since 1989-90.

Education spending has declined 7.5% from those years to the present, the study said, and shows no improvement in the governor’s proposed 1995-96 budget.

The Wilson Administration officials defended the reduction in welfare grants, saying they are aimed at reducing dependency and are not severe. They point out that there have been offsetting programs to help recipients return to the work force. The basic grant for a family of three, now at $607, would drop to $594 next year under Wilson’s plan, an official said, down from $694 when Wilson took office.

State officials also dispute the contention that spending on education has declined. While conceding that California is 42nd among states in spending per pupil, Administration aides cited education funding holding steady or slightly rising in recent years to a proposed $4,334 per student next year.

Both sides said dollar differences were in part accounted for by an adjustment for inflation by the Advocacy Institute.