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Pennsylvania Ranks No. 21 Among States With Biggest Bullying Problems

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Bullying among children is a huge problem across the United States. Pennsylvania landed No. 21 on WalletHub's States with the Biggest Bullying Problems survey. 

As schools return to in-person learning this year, WalletHub measured the prevalence and prevention of bullying across 47 states and the District of Columbia in an effort to bring awareness to the harmful effects bullying has on America's children and society as a whole.

They used 20 key metrics including bullying-incident rate, truancy costs for schools and share of high school students bullied online.

WalletHub reports that in the next seven minutes a child in the United States will be bullied. Only 1 in 100 adults will intervene, and 11% of the child's peers might do the same. The other 85% will do nothing.

The CDC's 2019 Youth risk Behavior Surveillance System found that 19% of students in grades 9 through 12 said they were bullied on school property in the 12 months prior, while 14.9% said they were cyberbullied.

Social media has played a huge role in cyberbullying.

The Association for Psychological Science found that bullies, victims or both are more likely to experience poverty, academic failure and job termination in their adulthood than those who were neither.

Those affected by bullying are also more likely to commit crimes and abuse drugs or alcohol.

California, Wisconsin and Alaska have been ranked the top 3 states with the biggest bullying problems.

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