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https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

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Chief's corner-cutting left poor family house with no foundations

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Village official and builder did shoddy job for homeless family and hide poor workmanship and planning under layers of cement.

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation.

Presidential campaigns are not usually about poverty. It's a neglected issue, not least because most voters, even in Democratic primaries, live above the poverty threshold, and so economic policy tends to be discussed in terms of helping the "middle class" or "American families," not the poorest of the poor.

2020 is shaping up to be a little different. Several Democratic presidential candidates have coalesced on a distinctive approach to fighting poverty - transferring people money - and are including it as part of bigger proposals that help poor and middle-class people alike, ensuring that these ideas have a more prominent spot in the campaign than past anti-poverty plans have had.

So far, rumored and announced candidates have outlined at least five formal proposals designed to direct additional cash to low-income households. These proposals, all co-authored by senators - Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, and Michael Bennet (Rep. Ro Khanna is a co-sponsor on one) - attempt to do different things: Two would expand the earned income tax credit (EITC), another two offers assistance for rent, and one is a child allowance. But they all have the same overriding objective: improving the lives of low-income Americans.

The press tends to analyze proposals like these in terms of how much they cost, how realistic their passage is, and so on. And while that's important, I had a different question: Which of these plans would do the most to cut poverty in America?

It turns out that a team of researchers at Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy was asking that question too, and they have the skills to actually answer it. They estimated how much each of these five bills would reduce poverty, deep poverty (measured as the share of people living at or below 50 percent of the poverty line), and child poverty.

The five bills are Harris's LIFT the Middle Class Act and Rent Relief Act; Brown and Khanna's GAIN Act; Booker's HOME Act; and Brown and Bennet's American Family Act. And according to Columbia analysis, all five would significantly cut poverty.

All of them cost a lot - but they all cost about the same or less than the recent round of Republican tax cuts. All five are more ambitious than any cash proposals during the 2016 primary, or any other Democratic primary I can remember. And in a head-to-head matchup of all five, two plans (surprisingly) stood out as doing the most to reduce poverty at the least cost: bills from Cory Booker and Kamala Harris subsidizing rent for low-income households.

But all five are worth consideration. Let's dive into each and how they stack up against one another.

The five bills, explained

Every one of the five proposals reduces poverty, and child poverty, substantially. But the proposals differ in cost and in the scale of their effect on poverty rates. The most effective bill reduces poverty by 1.3 percentage points more than the least effective bill, meaning it would lift some 4.2 million additional people out of poverty.

To compare the effects of each plan, the researchers set a baseline poverty rate. They projected a baseline poverty rate of 13.5 percent, a deep poverty rate of 4.9 percent, and a child poverty rate of 14.8 percent, before any programs are enacted. (The researchers use the supplemental poverty measure - a more accurate metric the Census Bureau releases as an alternative to the official poverty measure - as their bar.)

They then estimated how much each of the five proposals would change these baseline poverty numbers. Here's what they found:

The differences in effects can be explained by the fact that the bills all attempt to do different things. Two bills are effectively massive expansions of the EITC, which provides supplemental cash to low-income people who work:

The LIFT (Livable Incomes for Families Today) the Middle Class Act ($247 billion a year) by Kamala Harris would add another credit tied to work paid out monthly at a rate of $3,000 a year for childless single adults and $6,000 a year for couples or parents, phasing out for childless singles who make at least $50,000 a year and couples and parents who make $100,00.

The GAIN (Grow American Incomes Now) Act ($111 billion a year) by Sherrod Brown and Ro Khanna would double or triple the EITC's benefits, depending on family size, and increase the maximum income for families to receive the credit from the mid-$40,000 range to as high as $75,000.

Two bills are meant to provide rental assistance by giving away cash. (Elizabeth Warren also has an affordable housing bill, but it spends money directly on building low-cost housing, rather than distributing it to renters as cash the way the below bills do, so we left it out of this analysis.):

The Rent Relief Act ($93 billion a year), also by Harris, would offer a refundable tax credit to people making $100,000 or less and spending at least 30 percent of their income on rent. The credit would be worth a certain percentage of the difference between their rent (capped at 150 percent of area fair market rent) and 30 percent of their income. For the poorest renters, the credit would cover the full difference; for slightly less poor renters, 75 percent, and so on.

The HOME (Housing, Opportunity, Mobility, and Equity) Act ($134 billion a year) by Booker would, like the Harris bill, provide a refundable credit to people paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent. The credit would be worth the difference between their year's rent (capped at the area fair-market rent) and 30 percent of their income. Unlike the Harris bill, there's no strict income requirement, though the fair market rent requirement prevents the credit from going to luxury renters.

Finally, one bill would establish a child allowance, a policy common in rich countries wherein parents receive a regular cash stipend for each child they're raising, both to reduce poverty and to defray the costs of raising the next generation:

The American Family Act ($91 billion a year), by Sherrod Brown and fellow potential candidate Michael Bennet, would provide $3,000 a year for kids 6 to 18, and $3,600 per year for kids 0 to 5, paid out monthly to everyone earning under $75,000 (single parents) or $110,000 (couples), after which the credit would phase out. The version of the bill set to be introduced in Congress will feature higher phaseout thresholds, the Columbia team (which is in touch with the staff drafting it) says, so the Columbia researchers modeled it with phaseouts at $130,000 for single parents and $180,000 for couples.

How the bills stack up

Every one of these five bills would lift millions of Americans out of poverty. Even the "least" effective one - the GAIN Act - would reduce the poverty rate by 2 points, which means lifting 6.6 million people out of poverty.

But each one approaches that task differently. For instance, the American Family Act by Brown and Bennet, which pays out $250 to $300 a month per child to low- and middle-income parents, would cut child poverty especially deeply. The American Family Act also cuts deep poverty more than the other plans, suggesting that deep poverty is concentrated among families with kids.

The bill that makes the biggest dent in overall poverty was Harris's LIFT Act. That makes sense, as it's by far the most expensive. But the second most effective - and this was a surprise to me - is Cory Booker's HOME Act, a rental subsidy bill that provides tax credits to rent-burdened households. (More on this below.)

The researcher team at Columbia - Christopher Wimer, Sophie Collyer, Robert Paul Hartley, and Sara Kimberlin - also wanted to find out how the bills compared on a cost-equivalent basis.

That is, Bennet-Brown's child tax credit plan costs less than half what Kamala Harris's LIFT Act would cost every year. If they were both scaled to cost the same, what would be the impact?

So the Columbia team produced cost-equivalent estimates of the bills' effects on poverty, estimating what the bills would do to poverty if they all cost the same amount. In order to keep the comparisons simple, they keep the proposed beneficiaries constant and either inflate or deflate the net benefits. Here's how the plans stack up if they all cost $247 billion a year, the cost of the most expensive proposal (Harris's LIFT Act):

Here, too, Booker's HOME Act fares extremely well - but even it is bested by Kamala Harris's other cash proposal: the Rent Relief Act, which, like the HOME Act, would give tax credits to households paying high rents. Giving money in the form of rental assistance appears to be more efficient, dollar for dollar, in reducing poverty than handing it out with more strings attached.

Who benefits from these plans?

Another way to weigh the bills against each other is to compare how much of their cost goes to each segment of the US income distribution: those in deep poverty (less than half the poverty line); those in poverty but not deep poverty (50 to 100 percent of the poverty line); those near poverty (between 100 and 150 percent of the poverty line); those who are not poor but still low-income (between 150 percent and 200 percent of the poverty line); and lower-middle-, middle-, and high-income people making twice the poverty line or above.

Everyone low-income and below is struggling, and the "higher income" category still includes many lower-middle and middle-class people who could use assistance. But mapping out where the benefits go among these groups gives you a sense of how targeted each plan is to the ultra-poor versus the working class generally.

This analysis reveals that the rental assistance bills are very well-targeted to the poor and ultra-poor:

Harris's Rent Relief Act costs less than half as much as her LIFT Act. But while the latter provides $39.1 billion a year to people in poverty, the former provides $42 billion. It's vastly cheaper, and yet it directs more money to people in poverty.

Booker's HOME Act, which costs significantly more per year than Harris's rental bill, accordingly provides $51.9 billion to households in poverty, the most of any plan considered.

Going into this analysis, I honestly expected the Bennet-Brown child benefit bill to be the most focused for reducing poverty. It has no phase-in or work requirement the way the LIFT and GAIN Acts do, so it's available to the poorest parents in a way that existing tax credits are not at all.

But the rental bills outdid it. Columbia's Robert Paul Hartley notes, "The rental plans' effects on poverty make a lot of sense when you think about how poor renters are relative to owners, and how GAIN and LIFT are really geared toward the middle class" and making EITC benefits available to the middle class. Fellow researcher Sara Kimberlin adds that housing and utilities "generally make up the largest share of total basic needs expenses for most families." A targeted credit meant to address those expenses would, thus, be expected to have a very strong effect on poverty.

To some extent, the problem being identified here is the same one that sociologist Matthew Desmond explicated in his excellent book . Desmond notes that even in relatively low-rent cities like Milwaukee (as opposed to hyper-expensive coastal cities like San Francisco or New York), the constant burden of rent and the additional burdens and costs of being evicted for failure to pay helps trap poor families and prevent them from escaping both poverty itself and poor, low-opportunity neighborhoods. (Desmond endorsed the Harris rental credit bill in a statement released upon the bill's unveiling.)

The rental subsidy bills, however, could have an unintended consequence that hampers their poverty-reducing potential: They could raise rents, particularly in cities like New York or San Francisco, where demand for housing vastly outstrips supply. Rental subsidies, by definition, increase demand for housing. That doesn't have to lead to an increase in rents if developers respond by increasing housing supply in turn, but in many American cities and particularly suburbs, bans on multi-family housing (a.k.a. "single-family zoning"), onerous parking requirements, height limitations, and other zoning measures combine to artificially strangle the construction of new apartment units.

In that environment, a sudden surge in demand for housing due to rental credits could lead to increased market rents all around. The Harris and Booker bills would adapt to this reality, because the size of their credits is pegged to prevailing rents in the area where the beneficiary lives. But if the credit grows in response to a spike in rents that it generated, that increases the price tag of the program from the federal government's perspective and risks setting off a vicious cycle. Booker's bill includes inducements to local governments to adopt laxer zoning rules, which could mitigate this problem, but Harris's bill does not include that component.

Hartley, at Columbia, argued in an email to me that rental costs are such a huge part of low-income budgets that policies increasing the EITC or child tax credit could have the same problem: They'd boost demand for housing as well. He also noted that Booker's and Harris's bills distribute the rental credit on a yearly basis. If people see it as part of their tax return, that might disincline recipients to use it to find and pay for a higher-rent apartment.

He also notes that the most recent empirical study on the effect of rent subsidies in the US on rental prices - by economists Michael Eriksen and Amanda Ross - found small effects even in supply-constrained markets, though as Brookings Institution economist Jenny Schuetz added on Twitter, we've never had subsidies on the scale of the Booker or Harris proposals before.

These bills are meant to do more than reduce poverty

This analysis does not tell you everything you need to know to evaluate these proposals. These plans have goals other than poverty reduction.

Harris's LIFT Act and Brown and Khanna's GAIN Act, for instance, are meant to make work more lucrative for low- and middle-income families who aren't necessarily poor. The Bennet-Brown child benefit is meant to go to even upper-middle-class families and defray child care expenses. The rental assistance bills are, first and foremost, housing policy.

There are also other bills that will likely have an impact on poverty that the Columbia team has not yet modeled. Primary among these are a job guarantee proposal from Bernie Sanders and an actual bill from Cory Booker (backed by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand), and Elizabeth Warren's housing bill, which targets affordable housing construction rather than sending money directly to renters. The candidates are also likely to run on big spending plans that focus their benefits on the middle class and probably won't make a big dent in poverty, like free college or paid family leave. Medicare-for-all would likely reduce poverty somewhat, but that depends a lot on how it's financed, and in particular on whether poor people now getting Medicaid have to pay new taxes.

It's also important to keep in mind that many candidates have endorsed each other's proposals. Gillibrand, Warren, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Kamala Harris have endorsed Booker's job guarantee bill; Gillibrand and Merkley have endorsed Harris's Rent Relief Act; Gillibrand, Warren, Booker, Harris, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) have all endorsed the Bennet-Brown child benefit bill. These aren't either/or propositions; it is possible to enact multiple of these plans. Indeed, Harris and Sherrod Brown have each sponsored two.

That means the 2020 primaries could see a virtuous cycle as candidates compete to see who can put together the more effective anti-poverty platform, with the most resources going to the deeply poor. The competition is already off to a good start.
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5 anti-poverty plans from 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, explained

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation. Presidential campaigns are not usually about poverty. It's a neglected issue, not least because most voters, even in Democratic primaries, live above the poverty threshold, and so economic policy tends to be discussed in terms of helping the "middle class" or "American families," not the poorest of the poor.

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January is Poverty Awareness Month and marks the 55th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

During his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America. ... Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it."

What ensued was pounds of government poverty "prevention" that have barely eked out an ounce of cure.

In all, some 200 anti-poverty laws and related programs were enacted during Johnson's administration. They now cost more than $1 trillion combined annually and represent the third most expensive government expenditure - exceeding national defense spending.

These programs include the federal Head Start preschool program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), and an expanded Social Securityprogram through which the Medicare and Medicaid programs were created.
But if we want less poverty, do we really need more government?

Some people certainly think so. According to a Washington Post article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty, "Government action is literally the only reason we have less poverty in 2012 than we did in 1967."

On the contrary, American poverty rates were already declining 15 years before President Johnson's declaration of war, dropping from 35 percent to 19 percent in 1964. Over the next two years that decline accelerated, dropping to just below 15 percent in 1966, before anti-poverty programs and spending increases were in full effect.

So not only did the poverty rate drop by more than half in the decades prior to the War on Poverty, the downward trend was accelerating without government intervention. Since 1967, however, the poverty rate has remained largely flat hovering between 11 percent and 15 percent.

While the current 12.3 percent poverty rate is welcome news, it's worth considering why it isn't a whole lot lower given how much money we've poured into the government's anti-poverty war chest.

The estimated aggregate cost of the War on Poverty is nearly $28 trillion, which is three and a half times higher than the $8 trillion total price tag of every major war since the American Revolution. What's more, since 1965 government-transfer payments to low-income families have increased more than ten-fold, from just over $3,000 per person to more than $34,000 per person, in inflation-adjusted dollars. If the federal government counted these payments as income, the poverty rate would be around 3 percent.

Yet increasing welfare spending and growing government hasn't cured poverty. In fact, myriad government regulations on everyday necessities make the average cost of living more expensive for all Americans, which disproportionately impacts the most impoverished who can least afford it.

The Cato Institute's Ryan Bourne compiled a conservative tally of the additional annual costs housing, childcare, food, transportation, clothing, and other regulations imposed on the poor. He concluded that the lower-bound annual regulatory burden is around "$830 per year for a household with no children living in a rural area, up to $3,500 for a poor family living in an expensive city such as New York with a young child in full-time infant care."

Barriers to work, such as occupational licensing mandates and minimum-wage laws, also make it harder for low-income Americans to find jobs or start businesses so they can afford those day-to-day expenses.

As if that weren't discouraging enough, anti-poverty programs often undermine participants' work ethic by not requiring them to work in exchange for their payments, or punishing those who do with "benefits cliffs" when they work harder and earn more. These and other perverse incentives have contributed to a declining work effort among able-bodied adults. Marriage penalties compound the problem by discouraging intact families, which jeopardizes children's prospects for upward mobility,

President Johnson insisted that the War on Poverty would " replace...despair with opportunity" for the "many Americans [who] live on the outskirts of hope." Instead, it created a virtually permanent underclass of government dependents.

To lift people out of poverty, we need to grow the economy, not government.
President Trump is rolling back costly regulations and lowering taxes. More than 300,000 new jobs were just added to the labor market, and wages are up. The president has also recently signed executive orders concerning work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid recipients.

When it comes to alleviating poverty, good intentions aren't enough. After more than five decades of the War on Poverty, it's time to admit that government isn't the solution. It's been a big part of the problem.

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It's Time to Admit the Feds Are Making Poverty Worse--Not Better

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January is Poverty Awareness Month and marks the 55th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. During his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America. ... Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it."

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation.

Presidential campaigns are not usually about poverty. It's a neglected issue, not least because most voters, even in Democratic primaries, live above the poverty threshold, and so economic policy tends to be discussed in terms of helping the "middle class" or "American families," not the poorest of the poor.

2020 is shaping up to be a little different. Several Democratic presidential candidates have coalesced on a distinctive approach to fighting poverty - transferring people money - and are including it as part of bigger proposals that help poor and middle-class people alike, ensuring that these ideas have a more prominent spot in the campaign than past anti-poverty plans have had.

So far, rumored and announced candidates have outlined at least five formal proposals designed to direct additional cash to low-income households. These proposals, all co-authored by senators - Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, and Michael Bennet (Rep. Ro Khanna is a co-sponsor on one) - attempt to do different things: Two would expand the earned income tax credit (EITC), another two offers assistance for rent, and one is a child allowance. But they all have the same overriding objective: improving the lives of low-income Americans.

The press tends to analyze proposals like these in terms of how much they cost, how realistic their passage is, and so on. And while that's important, I had a different question: Which of these plans would do the most to cut poverty in America?

It turns out that a team of researchers at Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy was asking that question too, and they have the skills to actually answer it. They estimated how much each of these five bills would reduce poverty, deep poverty (measured as the share of people living at or below 50 percent of the poverty line), and child poverty.

The five bills are Harris's LIFT the Middle Class Act and Rent Relief Act; Brown and Khanna's GAIN Act; Booker's HOME Act; and Brown and Bennet's American Family Act. And according to Columbia analysis, all five would significantly cut poverty.

All of them cost a lot - but they all cost about the same or less than the recent round of Republican tax cuts. All five are more ambitious than any cash proposals during the 2016 primary, or any other Democratic primary I can remember. And in a head-to-head matchup of all five, two plans (surprisingly) stood out as doing the most to reduce poverty at the least cost: bills from Cory Booker and Kamala Harris subsidizing rent for low-income households.

But all five are worth consideration. Let's dive into each and how they stack up against one another.

The five bills, explained

Every one of the five proposals reduces poverty, and child poverty, substantially. But the proposals differ in cost and in the scale of their effect on poverty rates. The most effective bill reduces poverty by 1.3 percentage points more than the least effective bill, meaning it would lift some 4.2 million additional people out of poverty.

To compare the effects of each plan, the researchers set a baseline poverty rate. They projected a baseline poverty rate of 13.5 percent, a deep poverty rate of 4.9 percent, and a child poverty rate of 14.8 percent, before any programs are enacted. (The researchers use the supplemental poverty measure - a more accurate metric the Census Bureau releases as an alternative to the official poverty measure - as their bar.)

They then estimated how much each of the five proposals would change these baseline poverty numbers. Here's what they found:

The differences in effects can be explained by the fact that the bills all attempt to do different things. Two bills are effectively massive expansions of the EITC, which provides supplemental cash to low-income people who work:

The LIFT (Livable Incomes for Families Today) the Middle Class Act ($247 billion a year) by Kamala Harris would add another credit tied to work paid out monthly at a rate of $3,000 a year for childless single adults and $6,000 a year for couples or parents, phasing out for childless singles who make at least $50,000 a year and couples and parents who make $100,00.

The GAIN (Grow American Incomes Now) Act ($111 billion a year) by Sherrod Brown and Ro Khanna would double or triple the EITC's benefits, depending on family size, and increase the maximum income for families to receive the credit from the mid-$40,000 range to as high as $75,000.

Two bills are meant to provide rental assistance by giving away cash. (Elizabeth Warren also has an affordable housing bill, but it spends money directly on building low-cost housing, rather than distributing it to renters as cash the way the below bills do, so we left it out of this analysis.):

The Rent Relief Act ($93 billion a year), also by Harris, would offer a refundable tax credit to people making $100,000 or less and spending at least 30 percent of their income on rent. The credit would be worth a certain percentage of the difference between their rent (capped at 150 percent of area fair market rent) and 30 percent of their income. For the poorest renters, the credit would cover the full difference; for slightly less poor renters, 75 percent, and so on.

The HOME (Housing, Opportunity, Mobility, and Equity) Act ($134 billion a year) by Booker would, like the Harris bill, provide a refundable credit to people paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent. The credit would be worth the difference between their year's rent (capped at the area fair-market rent) and 30 percent of their income. Unlike the Harris bill, there's no strict income requirement, though the fair market rent requirement prevents the credit from going to luxury renters.

Finally, one bill would establish a child allowance, a policy common in rich countries wherein parents receive a regular cash stipend for each child they're raising, both to reduce poverty and to defray the costs of raising the next generation:

The American Family Act ($91 billion a year), by Sherrod Brown and fellow potential candidate Michael Bennet, would provide $3,000 a year for kids 6 to 18, and $3,600 per year for kids 0 to 5, paid out monthly to everyone earning under $75,000 (single parents) or $110,000 (couples), after which the credit would phase out. The version of the bill set to be introduced in Congress will feature higher phaseout thresholds, the Columbia team (which is in touch with the staff drafting it) says, so the Columbia researchers modeled it with phaseouts at $130,000 for single parents and $180,000 for couples.

How the bills stack up

Every one of these five bills would lift millions of Americans out of poverty. Even the "least" effective one - the GAIN Act - would reduce the poverty rate by 2 points, which means lifting 6.6 million people out of poverty.

But each one approaches that task differently. For instance, the American Family Act by Brown and Bennet, which pays out $250 to $300 a month per child to low- and middle-income parents, would cut child poverty especially deeply. The American Family Act also cuts deep poverty more than the other plans, suggesting that deep poverty is concentrated among families with kids.

The bill that makes the biggest dent in overall poverty was Harris's LIFT Act. That makes sense, as it's by far the most expensive. But the second most effective - and this was a surprise to me - is Cory Booker's HOME Act, a rental subsidy bill that provides tax credits to rent-burdened households. (More on this below.)

The researcher team at Columbia - Christopher Wimer, Sophie Collyer, Robert Paul Hartley, and Sara Kimberlin - also wanted to find out how the bills compared on a cost-equivalent basis.

That is, Bennet-Brown's child tax credit plan costs less than half what Kamala Harris's LIFT Act would cost every year. If they were both scaled to cost the same, what would be the impact?

So the Columbia team produced cost-equivalent estimates of the bills' effects on poverty, estimating what the bills would do to poverty if they all cost the same amount. In order to keep the comparisons simple, they keep the proposed beneficiaries constant and either inflate or deflate the net benefits. Here's how the plans stack up if they all cost $247 billion a year, the cost of the most expensive proposal (Harris's LIFT Act):

Here, too, Booker's HOME Act fares extremely well - but even it is bested by Kamala Harris's other cash proposal: the Rent Relief Act, which, like the HOME Act, would give tax credits to households paying high rents. Giving money in the form of rental assistance appears to be more efficient, dollar for dollar, in reducing poverty than handing it out with more strings attached.

Who benefits from these plans?

Another way to weigh the bills against each other is to compare how much of their cost goes to each segment of the US income distribution: those in deep poverty (less than half the poverty line); those in poverty but not deep poverty (50 to 100 percent of the poverty line); those near poverty (between 100 and 150 percent of the poverty line); those who are not poor but still low-income (between 150 percent and 200 percent of the poverty line); and lower-middle-, middle-, and high-income people making twice the poverty line or above.

Everyone low-income and below is struggling, and the "higher income" category still includes many lower-middle and middle-class people who could use assistance. But mapping out where the benefits go among these groups gives you a sense of how targeted each plan is to the ultra-poor versus the working class generally.

This analysis reveals that the rental assistance bills are very well-targeted to the poor and ultra-poor:

Harris's Rent Relief Act costs less than half as much as her LIFT Act. But while the latter provides $39.1 billion a year to people in poverty, the former provides $42 billion. It's vastly cheaper, and yet it directs more money to people in poverty.

Booker's HOME Act, which costs significantly more per year than Harris's rental bill, accordingly provides $51.9 billion to households in poverty, the most of any plan considered.

Going into this analysis, I honestly expected the Bennet-Brown child benefit bill to be the most focused for reducing poverty. It has no phase-in or work requirement the way the LIFT and GAIN Acts do, so it's available to the poorest parents in a way that existing tax credits are not at all.

But the rental bills outdid it. Columbia's Robert Paul Hartley notes, "The rental plans' effects on poverty make a lot of sense when you think about how poor renters are relative to owners, and how GAIN and LIFT are really geared toward the middle class" and making EITC benefits available to the middle class. Fellow researcher Sara Kimberlin adds that housing and utilities "generally make up the largest share of total basic needs expenses for most families." A targeted credit meant to address those expenses would, thus, be expected to have a very strong effect on poverty.

To some extent, the problem being identified here is the same one that sociologist Matthew Desmond explicated in his excellent book . Desmond notes that even in relatively low-rent cities like Milwaukee (as opposed to hyper-expensive coastal cities like San Francisco or New York), the constant burden of rent and the additional burdens and costs of being evicted for failure to pay helps trap poor families and prevent them from escaping both poverty itself and poor, low-opportunity neighborhoods. (Desmond endorsed the Harris rental credit bill in a statement released upon the bill's unveiling.)

The rental subsidy bills, however, could have an unintended consequence that hampers their poverty-reducing potential: They could raise rents, particularly in cities like New York or San Francisco, where demand for housing vastly outstrips supply. Rental subsidies, by definition, increase demand for housing. That doesn't have to lead to an increase in rents if developers respond by increasing housing supply in turn, but in many American cities and particularly suburbs, bans on multi-family housing (a.k.a. "single-family zoning"), onerous parking requirements, height limitations, and other zoning measures combine to artificially strangle the construction of new apartment units.

In that environment, a sudden surge in demand for housing due to rental credits could lead to increased market rents all around. The Harris and Booker bills would adapt to this reality, because the size of their credits is pegged to prevailing rents in the area where the beneficiary lives. But if the credit grows in response to a spike in rents that it generated, that increases the price tag of the program from the federal government's perspective and risks setting off a vicious cycle. Booker's bill includes inducements to local governments to adopt laxer zoning rules, which could mitigate this problem, but Harris's bill does not include that component.

Hartley, at Columbia, argued in an email to me that rental costs are such a huge part of low-income budgets that policies increasing the EITC or child tax credit could have the same problem: They'd boost demand for housing as well. He also noted that Booker's and Harris's bills distribute the rental credit on a yearly basis. If people see it as part of their tax return, that might disincline recipients to use it to find and pay for a higher-rent apartment.

He also notes that the most recent empirical study on the effect of rent subsidies in the US on rental prices - by economists Michael Eriksen and Amanda Ross - found small effects even in supply-constrained markets, though as Brookings Institution economist Jenny Schuetz added on Twitter, we've never had subsidies on the scale of the Booker or Harris proposals before.

These bills are meant to do more than reduce poverty

This analysis does not tell you everything you need to know to evaluate these proposals. These plans have goals other than poverty reduction.

Harris's LIFT Act and Brown and Khanna's GAIN Act, for instance, are meant to make work more lucrative for low- and middle-income families who aren't necessarily poor. The Bennet-Brown child benefit is meant to go to even upper-middle-class families and defray child care expenses. The rental assistance bills are, first and foremost, housing policy.

There are also other bills that will likely have an impact on poverty that the Columbia team has not yet modeled. Primary among these are a job guarantee proposal from Bernie Sanders and an actual bill from Cory Booker (backed by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand), and Elizabeth Warren's housing bill, which targets affordable housing construction rather than sending money directly to renters. The candidates are also likely to run on big spending plans that focus their benefits on the middle class and probably won't make a big dent in poverty, like free college or paid family leave. Medicare-for-all would likely reduce poverty somewhat, but that depends a lot on how it's financed, and in particular on whether poor people now getting Medicaid have to pay new taxes.

It's also important to keep in mind that many candidates have endorsed each other's proposals. Gillibrand, Warren, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Kamala Harris have endorsed Booker's job guarantee bill; Gillibrand and Merkley have endorsed Harris's Rent Relief Act; Gillibrand, Warren, Booker, Harris, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) have all endorsed the Bennet-Brown child benefit bill. These aren't either/or propositions; it is possible to enact multiple of these plans. Indeed, Harris and Sherrod Brown have each sponsored two.

That means the 2020 primaries could see a virtuous cycle as candidates compete to see who can put together the more effective anti-poverty platform, with the most resources going to the deeply poor. The competition is already off to a good start.
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5 anti-poverty plans from 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, explained

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Finding the best ways to do good. Made possible by The Rockefeller Foundation. Presidential campaigns are not usually about poverty. It's a neglected issue, not least because most voters, even in Democratic primaries, live above the poverty threshold, and so economic policy tends to be discussed in terms of helping the "middle class" or "American families," not the poorest of the poor.

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Winter is coming, and colder temperatures mean that our coats and scarves have been pulled from their summer resting places and put to good use once more. But if you're a parent in the United Kingdom, you might want to think twice before you send your kids off to school in their favorite winter coats. This year, certain brand-name apparel is being banned in an effort to combat income inequality.

"Poverty proofing" is all the rage in the UK as educators have become concerned that lower-income students are facing too much social stigma from their peers in public schools. Many fear that this stigma is causing children to become too preoccupied with their family's financial situation and interfering with their performance in the classroom. Though so far, the impact this has on education appears to be speculative.

Still, the UK has prioritized this issue, even launching a project called Poverty Proofing the School Day. The project's mission is "to reduce stigma and remove barriers to learning and to assist schools in exploring the most effective way to spend pupil premium allocation." This is done through school audits where representatives go into schools and speak to students, teachers, and administrators in order to get a feel for the culture and environment of the campus. After the audit has taken place, an action plan is formulated to address the stigmatizing policies or practices of each school.

One school is taking this concept of poverty proofing to extremes by outlawing certain designer-name coats from being worn on campus so as not to make children from lower-income families feel self-conscious. But as well-intentioned as this new initiative might be, it does little to actually alleviate the problem, and its consequences actually do a great disservice to children.

Poverty Proofing

When the children from Woodchurch High School in Wirral, England, return from their winter break in a few weeks, they will no longer be allowed to wear coats made by Canada Goose, Moncler, or Pyrenex on school grounds. True, these "luxury" coats are anything but cheap, costing consumers anywhere from $350 to $955 per coat. But they are extremely high-quality and will keep you warm for several seasons to come, making the investment justifiable to many families.

To be clear, the decision to purchase expensive coats should be left to the families and specifically to the parents. Even so, the school believes there is no reason for students to have winter gear this luxurious and has moved forward with its prohibition on expensive outerwear.

Woodchurch High School's Head Teacher, Rebekah Phillips, praised this new rule, saying, "We are very concerned about the fact that our children put a lot of pressure on parents to buy them expensive coats, a lot of parents at our school cannot afford that." Speaking of the students, she continued, "They feel stigmatized, they feel left out, they feel inadequate."

Poverty is a sensitive issue, and the school officials' hearts are most certainly in the right place. But that doesn't mean this new policy is positive or that it will do anything to actually help the students.

Poverty is a sensitive issue, and the school officials' hearts are most certainly in the right place. But that doesn't mean this new policy is positive or that it will do anything to actually help the students. On the contrary, it is sheltering them from the realities of the world we live in and teaching them to resent the wealth of others. And for those who do own these nicer coats, they are now made to feel as though wealth is something to be ashamed of.

The Problem with "Poverty Proofing"

Life is not poverty proof. And thank goodness for that. Unless we want to live in a political and economic climate where choice is abolished and force becomes our way of life, there will always be income inequality, and relative poverty will exist. But this doesn't have to be viewed so negatively, nor does it mean the problem cannot be mitigated. And in fact, poverty is already decreasing.

Currently, global poverty is lower than ever thanks to more countries adopting free market capitalism, the same system that makes these prohibited coats available to those willing to purchase them. So while administrators try to use income inequality stats to justify their policies, the truth of the matter is that global poverty is not a growing problem but a shrinking one.

Since each individual is free to choose the profession of his or her choice, there will always be "income inequality." A landscaper will likely not be compensated the same as a high-powered attorney. But this is not some inherent flaw in the system. Instead, it tells us that our economy thrives on specialization where each individual chooses their job based on their own set of wants and desires that might have nothing to do with money.

This is the world we live in: Some people have nicer homes than their peers, but that does not mean we should make all homes uniform so as not to offend anyone.

A parent's inability or unwillingness to buy their child an expensive coat is not a symptom of a wider economic problem; it is merely a manifestation of priorities. You'll notice that the problem at this UK school was not that too many children were without coats, but instead that some kids had nicer coats than others. This is the world we live in: Some people have nicer homes than their peers, but that does not mean we should make all homes uniform so as not to offend anyone. We should instead be thankful that so many people have homes at all.

Oddly enough, the reports of complaints about coat inequality at the school have all come from administrators and parents, not from the students themselves. But for any students who have somehow convinced themselves that someone else's nice coat is a personal affront to their life situation, they have far bigger issues to deal with than winter coats.

The world owes you nothing. Being resentful and bitter about what someone else has won't change that. So instead of being jealous about what someone else has, those in more strained financial situations would do well to use that want of finer material goods as a motivator to improve their lives.

Poverty Can Be a Powerful Tool

As a child, I always wondered why my father's Little League picture was featured front and center on our living room mantel. It always struck me as weird that in the photo, one of his shoes was covered with a baseball glove while the other was hidden by his kneeling pose. Curious as to both the placement of this photo in our home and the reason for the glove covering his shoe, I pressed my father to tell me more about this photo.

His family's inability to afford baseball shoes, while embarrassing at the time, fueled him to do whatever he could to provide a better life for his future children.

"My family couldn't afford to buy the cleats that all the other players had," he told me, "so the adults thought they would do me the courtesy of covering my regular, very worn shoes for the picture so no one saw." My father grew up in impoverished circumstances, the likes of which I never had to experience. But his family's inability to afford baseball shoes, while embarrassing at the time, fueled him to do whatever he could to provide a better life for his future children.

That picture sat on our mantel as a reminder to my father of how far he had come. Rather than being resentful or cursing the heavens for all the things he did not have access to as a child, he made it a priority to give me and my siblings a much better life than he had. I highly doubt the same lesson would have been learned had the adults in charge outlawed the use of expensive shoes on the field.

By allowing this ban to occur, the school's administrators are robbing their students of the opportunity to learn valuable life lessons. And instead of being prepared for the real world, these students are being taught that every time someone else has something they do not, a central authority figure will swoop in and level the playing field.

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School Bans Designer Coats in Order to "Poverty Proof" Campus | Brittany Hunter

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Winter is coming, and colder temperatures mean that our coats and scarves have been pulled from their summer resting places and put to good use once more. But if you're a parent in the United Kingdom, you might want to think twice before you send your kids off to school in their favorite winter coats.

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Katia

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Poverty stretches across the globe affecting almost half of the world's population. Its effects reach deeper. Uniquely connected to different causes, the effects of poverty are revolving -one result leads to another source leads to another consequence. To fully understand the effects of poverty, the causes have to be rooted out to develop strategies to end hunger and starvation for good. Let's discuss some of the top effects of poverty.

Poor Health

Globally, millions suffer from poverty-related health conditions as infectious diseases ravage the lives of an estimated 14 million people a year and are of the top effects of poverty. These diseases are contracted through sources like contaminated water, the absence of water and sanitation, and lack of access to proper healthcare. The list is broad and long. Here are the top diseases commonly linked to poverty.

Malaria: Malaria is urbanely referred to as the poor man's disease, as more than a million people living in poverty die from it each year. Caused by a parasite, malaria is contracted through mosquito bites. Most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, malaria affects the lives of many in 97 countries worldwide.

Tuberculosis: Often referred to as TB, tuberculosis is a bacteria-borne disease. The bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, targets the lungs. It also affects the kidneys, brain, and spine. When discussing the effects of TB worldwide, it must be broken down by burden-high burden TB and low burden TB-all of which has to do with the number of cases that impact a country. High burden TB affects more than 22 countries, as low burden TB accounts for 10 cases per 100,000 people in a geographical location.

HIV/AIDS: HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. This infection attacks the immune system and is contracted by contact with certain fluids in the body. If HIV is left untreated, certain infections and diseases can take over the body and cause a person to develop AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency syndrome). Thirty-six million people in the world have HIV/AIDS. In countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe, one in five adults live with HIV or AIDS.

Continuing the fight against poverty through economic expansion will help eliminate poverty-related illnesses and raise the value of health in poor communities.

Crime

There's an old adage that says, "If a man don't work, he don't eat." That's not the case for a large number people living in poverty. Lack of economic opportunity leads to impoverishment which then leads to crime.

Global unemployment is at a high point. One hundred ninety-two million people around the world are jobless. In some parts of the world, mainly poor parts, unemployment standings will drive this number higher. In a study done on youth in the Caribbean, it was determined that joblessness fueled criminal activity in those aged 15 through 24.

Because of the struggles in the Caribbean job market, the murder rates are higher there than in any other region in the world. The crime rate affects 6.8 percent of the Caribbean population against the world average of 4.5 percent, calculating the global rate per 100,000 people.

People who live below the poverty line and don't have access to sufficient economic opportunity, live by any dangerous means necessary.

Lack of Education

There is a direct correlation between low academic performance and poverty. Children who are exposed to extreme levels of poverty have difficulty with cognitive development, speech, and managing stress, which leads to adverse behavior.

In the country of Niger-the most illiterate nation in the world-only 15 percent of adults have the ability to read and write. Eritrea follows on the heels of Niger: with a population of 6 million, the average person only achieves four years of school.

In these poor locations, young adults and children have to leave school to work to help provide additional income for their families. Other children don't have access to education due to decent schools being too far for them to travel to. On the other hand, schools nearby don't have enough materials and resources to properly educate children. The conditions of the schools are just as poor as the children's living conditions.

Where there's poverty, there's lack of education, joblessness, and poor health. The key to destroying the top effects of poverty is to attack the causes. More funding is needed for programs such as Child Fund International-a program that brings resources to children in poor communities. The International Economic Development Council supports economic developers by helping them create, retain, and expand jobs in their communities. And then there are the international efforts of the World Health Organization that fights to bring vaccinations and health-related resources to impoverished communities suffering from the infectious diseases of poverty. With these efforts along with other strategies, we can continue making strides to end the effects of poverty.
- Naomi C. Kellogg

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Top Effects of Poverty | The Borgen Project

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Poverty stretches across the globe affecting almost half of the world's population. Its effects reach deeper. Uniquely connected to different causes, the effects of poverty are revolving-one result leads to another source leads to another consequence. To fully understand the effects of poverty, the causes have to be rooted out to develop strategies to end [...]

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Two-generation programs focus on improving education for children and job opportunities for parents at the same time.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

ATLANTA-This neighborhood south of downtown is bleak, with empty parking lots fenced in by barbed wire, and skeletons of buildings covered in graffiti.

Many of the people walking the long blocks of Mechanicsville grew up poor, and their children are likely to be poor, too. It's part of the vicious cycle of poverty-without access to high-quality education, kids born into poverty are likely to remain there for their whole lives, despite the promise of the American Dream. According to the Kids Count Data Center, a project sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 39 percent of African American children lived in poverty in 2013, the highest rate of any racial group. And one study found that 42 percent of African Americans born into the lowest-income category remained there as adults.

Policymakers have some ideas about what can help ensure that children born into poverty succeed. In one oft-cited study from the 1970s, the Abecederian Project randomly selected certain infants from low-income families to attend full-time, high-quality education from infancy through age 5, while others were put in a control group. The children who participated in the education program had higher cognitive test scores, were more likely to attend a four-year college, and put off having a first child for longer.

Similarly, the Perry Project in the 1960s randomly selected African American children born into poverty for high-quality pre-school and followed those students throughout their lives; those who attended pre-school had higher earnings, were more likely to hold a job and had committed fewer crimes than the control group that did not attend pre-school.

But high-quality pre-school is expensive, and most parents struggle to afford any daycare, much less a program that meets quality benchmarks.

Dayisja Davis, 19, discovered this when she had a daughter, who she named Maileia, 10 months ago. She was working for Popeye's and was about to begin attending a medical assistant program. She thought she'd be able to work and go to school if she could find good childcare, so she applied for CAPS, a Georgia childcare subsidy for low-income parents. She was denied because she would have been required to work 25 hours a week, but her fast-food hours were unpredictable and she sometimes didn't get assigned enough shifts.

Since she didn't have anyone to care for Maileia, she quit her job to take care of her daughter. And then she didn't have enough money to go to school, so she quit school, too.

"At first, when I was working, I thought I could do it, but it's not that easy," she told me, pushing a baby carriage down a busy street in Mechanicsville as trucks rattled by.

That's why a foundation is sponsoring a new approach to breaking the cycle of poverty just a few blocks from where Davis and I spoke. It tries to give children access to high-quality, early-childhood education while helping parents get better jobs and build stronger families. It's called the two-generation approach, and has been found to be one of the best bets in helping families escape poverty.

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"It's really attempting to better integrate the services and tools that parents and children receive at the same time," said Leah Austin, the deputy director of the Atlanta Civic Site, the complex in Mechanicsville where the Annie E. Casey Foundation is piloting this approach.

After all, a parent who finds a job working a night shift at a fast-food restaurant may be happy to find work, but end up with a whole new range of childcare problems. A center that focuses on both the parent's working life, and the childcare they'll need, can spare them some of those headaches.

"This two-generation approach aims to create opportunities for families by simultaneously equipping parents and kids with the tools they need to thrive while removing the obstacles in their way," the foundation wrote, in a report about its work released this fall.

The Dunbar Learning Complex is a calm and bright space in the otherwise blighted streets of Mechanicsville. There, children receive free schooling, from infancy to pre-K, when their parents register with a career-development center to begin improving their job skills.

The complex is home to both a public elementary school and a pre-school, which accepts children beginning at six weeks of age. The pre-school, which opened five years ago, holds itself to high standards, and is part of Educare network, a national network of full-day, early-education schools. It has an entire art studio where children can experiment, part of a Reggio approach to learning, and its infant classrooms allow only eight students at once.

The pre-school has clean, white walls covered in children's art work; its classrooms are scenes of controlled chaos, with children drawing shapes on a table covered in shaving cream, playing with LEGOs, dancing with teachers for a part of the curriculum that focuses on music. On the day I visited, it was cold outside, but children played in a big atrium, running around in bicycle helmets. In one classroom, giant, paper snowflakes hung from the ceiling, beneath them, children chanted a song about numbers.

Though parents can drop their kids off for the whole day, from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., director Steve White is adamant that this is not daycare.

"It can't be daycare, it can't be a nursery, it can't be a childcare center," he said. "It has to be a school, so that people who make decisions can understand the importance of what we're doing-we want to have better outcomes."

Indeed, even the toddler classrooms have weekly curriculums posted on the wall; acting out the movements of different animals, learning which animals hibernate in the winter, completing motor motions like tying a shoe.

It's important for not only the children to understand that they're at school, but for parents, too, White said-knowing their child is in school motivates parents to make sure the children get enough sleep and are healthy enough to attend every day.

The results at Dunbar have been impressive-after the first year alone, 55 percent of incoming kindergarten students at the elementary school were reading at or above grade level, up from 6 percent in 2010. The percentage of children below the thirtieth percentile on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test dropped by 23 percentage points the first year alone, while the percentage of those scoring above the 50th percentile increased 12 points.

Parents at the Dunbar Learning Complex also get a handful of resources to help them in parenting: Counselors help them access special teachers if their child is lagging behind in development; health navigators help ensure children get necessary vaccinations and can inspect housing, with parents' permission, to see if anything in a family's home might be making a child sick. The complex has monthly meetings on issues like child development, literacy, and health, and helps teach parents how to read with their children at home.

The strategy has proven so successful that there's now a waiting list of 400 children, double the preschool's enrollment. And that, in turn, has driven parents to show up at the Center for Working Families, up the hill, to register for job training or a career counselor. Kids can't get on the waiting list of the Educare site unless their parents are enrolled with the Center for Working Families.

"When the lure is free childcare, I will sit through whatever class you tell me to," said Jomal Vailes, the chief development officer for the Center for Working Families. "But we do believe that someone coming here is a sign that they have a hope for change and are willing to take a few steps around the corner."

The Center for Working Families is located on the ground floor of a community center just a short walk and up the hill from the learning complex. When parents arrive, a counselor screens them to find out what benefits they qualify for. Then they can enroll in an intensive job-readiness boot camp that gives them the tools to interview for employment. They can also be paired with a counselor who will help them navigate the labor market and the complicated network of grants and education programs available to them.

The Center has placed 1,800 people in jobs and annually connects people with tax refunds, credits, childcare subsidies and other benefits. But it's the way the center works with the school down the hill that has really helped parents improve their children's chances. There's literacy training for parents so they can read with their children, and counselors at the workforce center consult with staff at the school about families' well-being.

"It's not just, 'The parent has a job, kudos, the child is on reading level, kudos," but more 'Oh, I can actually grow in this process, to become a more effective parent,'" Vailes said.

Two-generation programs are not new-the phrase was coined in the early 1990s, when a few programs linked early-childhood education and self-sufficiency programs for parents. But those programs mostly faded away under welfare reform, when policy emphasis was put on "work-first" policies, according to this report on two-generation programs in The Future of Children.

Oklahoma was one of the first states to try the approach more recently; the state has universal pre-K, and a program called CAP Tulsa helped parents participate in GED and parenting classes at the same time.

But the two-generation approach in Atlanta is unique because of the scope of poverty in the area. In Atlanta, a child raised in the bottom-fifth of income levels has only a 4 percent chance of rising to the top-fifth income level, according to a paper published earlier this year that looked in depth at mobility across the country. That rate is lower than in any other developed country, and pales in comparison to areas such as Salt Lake City, where a child raised in the bottom- fifth has a 11.5 percent chance of moving to the top, and San Francisco, where a child has an 11.2 percent chance of moving up.

Even parents who feel secure about the job market and their child-raising abilities struggle in Atlanta. D'Nise Fitzpatrick moved to Atlanta from Connecticut five years ago for a new job at the IRS; a few weeks after she began working, she was informed her job was being relocated to another state. She decided she couldn't move again and started applying for other jobs, only to find out how tough the job market was in Atlanta, where the unemployment rate was hovering around 11 percent. Then she got pregnant at age 43-an unplanned occurrence, since she'd already raised two kids, who are now grown. Then her car got stolen, and Fitzpatrick had to rely on Atlanta's public transportation-which doesn't cover much ground get to potential jobs.

After her son Joshua was born, Fitzpatrick found a job working in a fast-food restaurant at the Atlanta airport for minimum wage. She was given only three shifts a week, and was struggling to pay the bills, since her husband had been laid off too. She would ask neighbors or her mother-in-law to watch her son when she went to work, but knew that working a minimum-wage job for 15 or so hours a week wasn't sustainable, especially since she had to beg for the amount of hours she was getting. So when someone told her about the Center for Working Families, she decided to give it a shot. She started working with a coach who helped her prepare for interviews, revamp her resume and apply for different jobs. She also put her son on the Educare waiting list.

It was terrifying to be in a new city with a minimum-wage job and a new baby, Fitzpatrick said. But going into the center and seeing other parents in similar situations helped, she said.

"It was more like a support group-kind of like, wow, I'm not in this by myself," she told me. In the meantime, she attended classes on budgeting, repairing her credit, and interviewing.

This June, her son, Joshua got off the Educare waiting list and into the program, and the free childcare was "an awesome burden lifted," she told me. Joshua also has some speech problems, but the school was able to hook him up with a speech pathologist, and Fitzpatrick said he's improving quickly. Now, Joshua loves school, and gets up every morning-even on weekends-and wants to play school with his mother. Fitzpatrick often volunteered at the school when she wasn't working, because it seemed like such a positive place to be.

"This is so important, since it sets the pace for his future-we're going to college, and then you're going to have gainful employment in the field of your choice," Fitzpatrick said about the benefits of school.

In September, Fitzpatrick was offered a job working part-time in the school. Having her son in school all day allowed her to take more classes and get a teacher certification, she's still going to budgeting classes and hopes to save up enough to buy a car in the next year. The center also helped her figure out what was causing Joshua's constant illnesses-mold and mildew in their rental apartment was exacerbating his asthma, it turned out. The family moved into a temporary apartment while the landlord got rid of the mold.

The two-generation model isn't cheap. It requires high teacher-to-student ratios and counselors for parents as well. The average cost per child at Educare Atlanta is around $14,000 a student. Much of that comes from federal and state dollars, but foundation money helped get the program off the ground.

That means that despite the program's successes, two-generation might be hard to scale. Public funding is hard to come by these days-although state funding for pre-K increased by $30.6 million in 2012-2013, it was cut by nearly half a billion dollars the previous year. Only about 17 percent of eligible families receive childcare subsidies, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.

Though 41 states have some sort of funding for pre-K, only 15 states qualified as providing enough funding to meet standards provided by the National Institute for Early Education. Georgia, for instance, has a pre-K program, but it does not serve 3-year-olds, and there's a long waiting list for 4-year-olds in many counties. Federal programs provide some relief, but also fall short: Head Start only operates for half a day in many states, and is often closed for the summer.

But White, the director of the pre-school, insists the program is scaleable. He says it's smarter not to depend on federal dollars for pre-K funding anyway. He and Austin speak of the possibility of businesses funding childcare or family-wellness programs for their employees, or of foundations stepping in on interventions like this one, since they save money down the road.

"We have to get away from the dependence on Congress and the Senate to determine our fate, because our kids are going to exist regardless," he said.

Austin, of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, offered me a different perspective on the cost issue.

"We hear that all the time, people say, 'That sounds expensive, all that work for little kids,'" she told me, as we walked up the hill from the school, through a park to the Center for Working Families. "My response is, it's much more expensive to have to intervene, whether you're talking about rehab or prison."

A gleaming juvenile justice center across the street accentuated her point.

"We have to change our mindset to be willing to invest in the front end versus always wanted to kind of wait and revealing the results," she said.

One of the things that struck me about the two-generation model is that it favors parents who are self-starters, and who have the wherewithal to fight to get their children enrolled in school, and to get themselves some career help. D'Nise Fitzpatrick was savvy enough to get her son into a better pre-school program and enter the working world. But what about the parents who don't know about the program, or who are too overwhelmed to take any steps for themselves or their children? Aren't they the ones that need the most help?

Dayisja Davis, for instance, had never heard of the Center for Working Families. I talked to other young mothers near the West End MARTA station and many said they had tried to apply for childcare subsidies, and had quit when they were denied the first time. A few told me they didn't trust anyone else with their babies, that there have been bad stories about childcare centers that lose or abuse kids.

Even those that would trust their children with others say it's hard to access any sort of financial assistance.

But research suggests that two-generation programs could be more effective than offering just job training or childcare independently, because they draw in two types of parents-those who are interested in better jobs, and will put their children in pre-school if it's offered to them, and those who are interested in childcare alone, but will jump through some job hoops if it gives them access to school for their children. Being a part of both programs often motivates parents to behave differently, said Curtis Skinner, director of family economic security at the National Center for Children in Poverty.

"The child seems to inspire the parent to really dedicate him or herself to their own education, the programs seem to work in tandem," he said.

It may become easier to convince some parents that the two-generation program will lead to results for both themselves and their children once they see how it affects others on their street or in their neighborhood.

Tyra Massey is noticing the difference in her own family. She, her husband, and four children moved to Atlanta from Illinois and soon heard from neighbors about the program at the Dunbar Learning Complex. She enrolled with the Center for Working Families and soon got a job at AirServ, which cleans planes at the Atlanta airport. Massey's husband was able to watch their 3-year old and infant when she was working. Their 8-year-old and 11-year-old were enrolled in local schools.

Then, the 3-year-old got into Educare. He's been in the program for just two months, but Massey says she's seen a big difference. He was shy when he enrolled at age 3, and wasn't speaking to other students or to teachers. Now, he talks to other teachers, and students, and comes home and talks to Massey and her husband about trains and colors and cars, and tells stories about things he did during the day.

But she also has an infant who is still on the waiting list to get into Educare. She's working part-time now and her husband works in sales, so he only gets paid on commission, and sometimes the family has trouble coming up with the $150 a week to pay for infant care.

"I'm going to teach my infant all that I can," she said. "But if my infant doesn't get into a quality learning center, definitely the 3-year old will have an advantage, because he will be kindergarten ready."

Like many of the other mothers I talked to, Massey had applied for Georgia's CAPS program and was denied funding. She's planning on working full-time come January, and is getting desperate about what to do about childcare. Now that she's seen the benefit of the Dunbar Learning Complex, she worries that her infant won't have the advantages that her son did.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Alana Semuels is a former staff writer at The Atlantic.

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A Different Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

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Two-generation programs focus on improving education for children and job opportunities for parents at the same time. ATLANTA-This neighborhood south of downtown is bleak, with empty parking lots fenced in by barbed wire, and skeletons of buildings covered in graffiti.

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A record number of adults are living in poverty in Britain despite having a job as rising levels of employment are offset by high housing costs, low pay and a squeeze on benefits, according to a new report.

The analysis, published by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation charity, said that there were almost four million working adults whose low incomes put them below the poverty line, about 500,000 more than five years ago. There has been an almost identical rise in the number of children growing up in poverty over the same period, the study said.

The report threatens to reopen a controversy that erupted last month when Philip Alston, a United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, undertook a fact-finding visit...

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Record number of workers forced to live in poverty

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A record number of adults are living in poverty in Britain despite having a job as rising levels of employment are offset by high housing costs, low pay and a squeeze on benefits, according to a new report.The analysis, published by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation charity, said that there

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Childhood poverty is a widespread issue in the United States with one in five children living in need. Poverty has both immediate and lasting consequences that can follow a child into adulthood. Here are just ten ways poverty can impact the health and education of a child.

Health

There are identifiable side-effects of poverty such as hunger, but there are also long-term side-effects that can go unnoticed and follow a child into adulthood.

1. Brain Development: Conditions that correspond with poverty (noise, substandard housing, family turmoil, etc.) can be toxic to a developing brain.

2. Self Confidence: A healthy self-esteem is crucial to a child's health. Without strong levels of confidence, children may be susceptible to various other health problems or unhealthy habits. And since self-esteem tends to form in childhood and continue through adulthood, it's even more important to help kids feel good about themselves.

3. Heart Disease: Studies have shown that growing up in poverty (less access to healthy meals, lack of proper attire, and insufficient health coverage) might put children at risk for heart disease in adulthood.

4. "Learned Helplessness": Children feel as if they have no power to control their circumstances. This is a behavioral pattern that can be a result of prolonged poverty.

5. Toxic Stress: Toxic stress is the prolonged activation of stress response systems in the body/brain. This can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity-such as emotional abuse or the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship-without adequate adult support.

Education

Poverty can also impact a child's ability to succeed in school. Here are two shocking statistics from a study by the Urban Institute:

Children who are poor from birth to age 2 are 30 percent less likely to complete high school than children who are poor for the first time later in their life.

Nearly 30 percent of poor children do not complete high school, which limits future economic success and potential employability, leading to poverty as an adult.

1. School Preparation: Students living above the poverty line are entering kindergarten more prepared than those below it. Higher income families are able to put more money towards their children's cognitive development than those living in poverty. Parents with low incomes, on average, have less time to read to their children, no-funds for pre-school, and less stable home environments. The difference in preparation tends to persist through elementary and high school.

2. School Attendance: Chronic absenteeism (missing more than 10 percent of school a year) occurs at rates three to four times higher in high-poverty areas. An overwhelming majority of chronically absent kids are impoverished, dealing with such daily stresses as caring for siblings, high rates of disease, violence in the community, and frequent familial moves to find employment.

3. Educational Attainment: Early childhood poverty is related to lower educational achievement.

4. Bullying: A study by the American Journal of Public Health found that kids and teens from poor families are more likely to be bullied than others and also concluded that schools with the largest economic inequality (or a big difference between how wealthy some families are and how poor other families are) had the highest rates of bullying.

5. School Behavior: Strong, secure relationships help stabilize children's behavior and provide the core guidance needed to build lifelong social skills. Children who grow up with such relationships learn healthy, appropriate emotional responses to everyday situations. But children raised in poor households often fail to learn these responses, to the detriment of their school performance.

Receive stories of warmth, confidence and hope and learn how you can help children in need. Join the Operation Warm monthly newsletter!

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Long-Term Impacts of Poverty on Children: Health & Education | Operation Warm

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Childhood poverty is a widespread issue in the United States with one in five children living in need. Poverty has both immediate and lasting consequences that can follow a child into adulthood. Here are just ten ways poverty can impact the health and education of a child.

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A million children under the age of 10, in England and Scotland, are facing "Dickensian" levels of poverty as they prepare for Christmas, a charity says.

Action for Children drew on government figures for the number of low-income families with children of that age that are experiencing material deprivation.

The charity also highlights a 30% rise in the demand for financial advice over the past three years.

The government said since 2010, 300,000 fewer children were living in poverty.

The charity will be running unofficial food banks over the Christmas period for families it says lack fresh food, suitable clothes and, in some cases, money to pay for heating.

'Prices going up'

It blames the "double blow" of government austerity and problems with the introduction of universal credit.

Chief executive Julie Bentley said: "While the government tells us austerity is at an end, every day at Action for Children we see first-hand the impossible choices that families living in practically Dickensian levels of poverty have to make."

Parents of four, Paul and Donna Maund, from near Norwich, said the family had to rely on benefits to cover the weekly basics, despite Paul working full time in a sandwich shop.

Donna said: "It won't be long before we'll have to start using food banks, as I've noticed prices going up and up.

"By finding the bargains at discount supermarkets, I've worked hard to get my weekly food bill for the whole family down to £45 - but the only way we can afford Christmas dinner and all the treats for the kids this year is by going to my parents.

"Finding the money for our oil heating is the worst.

'Warm bed'

"I always have to borrow the money from my dad and then pay him back every week.

"I've only just paid for one refill and it looks like at this rate I'm going to run out again just before Christmas."

Ms Bentley said: "Our youngest children should be waking up in a warm bed after a visit from Santa on Christmas morning - but the shocking truth is that in 2018 many will be cold and hungry in the fifth richest country of the world.

"No parent should be forced to face the appalling choice between 'eating or heating' at Christmas - but this is the reality for far too many in the UK today."

'Best chances'

The charity is calling for the chancellor to end the freeze on children's benefits so that rising prices do not push more families into poverty.

A government official said it wanted every child to have the very best chances in life.

"There are now one million fewer people living in absolute poverty since 2010, including 300,000 children.

"With this government's changes, there are fewer children in workless households than ever before, boosting their prospects in life.

"Household incomes have never been higher, income inequality has fallen and taxes are down for families and businesses."

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A million children 'in Dickensian poverty'

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A million children under the age of 10, in England and Scotland, are facing "Dickensian" levels of poverty as they prepare for Christmas, a charity says. Action for Children drew on government figures for the number of low-income families with children of that age that are experiencing material deprivation.

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British children living in poverty 'could hit record high' - report

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By 2023-24, the proportion of children living in relative poverty is on course to hit 37%

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5 causes of poverty in China

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Poverty exists around the world. It's in developing countries as well as in the modern world. While the effects are often similar, the causes vary greatly from area to area. In China there is a unique set of circumstances leading to the current conditions.

Even with China's recent improvement in poverty, there are still over 252 million people living on less than $2/day (that's 6.5 times the population of California!). Most of them live in rural areas where even the best-intentioned policies fail to make a real impact.

This list is an overview of the major causes of poverty in China. It provides a high-level explanation of the most common causes of poverty in China today.

For the first time in its history, China became an urbanized country in 2012. That means the urban population (52%) is larger then it's rural one. People are moving into urban centers at a record pace in search of high-paying jobs. While this creates a substantial amount of poverty in the cities with people taking underpaying jobs and increasing their cost of living substantially, the most severe poverty is in the rural areas. That's where the ones left behind (women, children, elderly) now struggle daily to survive.

Read more about the rural-urban migration here.

The Hukou system is the household registration program in China. Among other demographics, it identifies every person as either rural or urban. The unfair and discriminatory system began in 1958 and is credited with preventing large slums from forming around major cities like those in India and Latin America. Today, though, it's only a major barrier to economic reform and prevents migrant workers from receiving government provided services like healthcare, education and pension. Since these services are managed by regional governments, rather than the centralized national government, Chinese citizens are only eligible to receive the benefits from their local government. When they move, they are not eligible to receive benefits from their new regional government.

As an example, according to The Economist, "Shanghai had 170,000 students enrolled in high school in 2010, but there were 570,000 migrant children aged 15 to 19 living in the city who were unable to attend those schools."

Read more about the Kukou System here.

Education is widely accepted as a key to eliminating poverty. The Chinese government recognized this in the 1980s and began a nine-year compulsory education system to cover kids from ages 6-15. The system has had some success for urban children, but has created a large divide between urban and rural students. Many of the urban students attend state-of-the-art facilities to learn from outstanding teachers. Rural children are subjected to deteriorating buildings, poor materials and substandard education. "Rural students stand virtually no chance when competing academically with their urban counterparts," Jiang Nengjie, an independent filmmaker who make a documentary on these children, explained for an NY Times interview.

Education is also a benefit subject to the national family planning policy (One-child Policy) as well. There are exceptions, specifically in rural areas, but many families are still subject to the policy. If not exempt, only one child per family are eligible for government provided education. Additional education is the financial responsibility of the family.

Read more about China's education gap here.

Healthcare suffers from a similar challenge. While it is also considered a basic right under the Chinese constitution (along with education and social security), there is a disparity between urban and rural. While the central government provides some funding, most of the funding comes at the local government level. All of the administration comes from the local government. For families in the rural areas, their local government often is underfunded, medical clinics are few and far between, and the level of care is lacking.

Over two-thirds of China's rural population make their living from farming, forestry or fishing. The poorer the household, the larger portion of income is derived from agricultural activities. With the urban migration of males, it leaves women and children to particularly vulnerable. Farming in rural China faces several challenges:

Remote locations without paved roads and poor markets

Unsafe drinking water

Naturally dry climate, over-cultivation and excessive demand on water and soil

Lack of skills and capacity

Reliance on traditional farming equipment and techniques

Project Partner exists to fight the Poverty Crisis created from the conditions above. While it's a substantial challenge, we're making an impact. You can read about our proven solutions that address each of these causes here.

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5 Causes of Poverty in China | Project Partner

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Poverty exists around the world. It's in developing countries as well as in the modern world. While the effects are often similar, the causes vary greatly from area to area. In China there is a unique set of circumstances leading to the current conditions.

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For a second year in a row, the Global Poverty Project is mounting a benefit concert in Central Park, on Sept. 28, to urge world leaders at the United Nations to do more to raise the living standards among the world's poor. This time the show will feature Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon, John Mayer and Stevie Wonder.

Like last year's event, the Global Citizen Festival concert will be held on the Great Lawn as leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly Meeting. "We must push our leaders to step up and commit to action," said Hugh Evans, the founder and chief executive of the charity. He added: "This is not just a concert. We are building a movement."

Among other goals, organizers hope to use the concert to generate pressure on industrialized nations to devote a tenth of their foreign aid budgets to education and to lend more support to programs that empower women and girls in the third world. They also want to lobby U.N. health officials to deploy thousands of new health workers across Sub-Saharan Africa and to make basic vaccines available to more children in under-developed countries. As part of its health-care agenda, organizers plan to push the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a U.N.-sponsored group of leaders in the telecommunication industry, to provide community health workers in Africa with free cell phones and data lines.

Over the last year, Mr. Evans has assembled a powerful circle of allies in the music industry, among them some of the biggest talent agents, concert promoters, band managers, artists and festival organizers in the business.

In May, that group succeeded in persuading more than 70 major pop stars, among them Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen and Bruno Mars, to donate two tickets from each of their concerts for a year to be used as prizes for people who volunteer to get involved in the charity's efforts.

The group of industry insiders, which includes figures like the agent Marsha Vlasic and the Live Nation executive Mark Campana, has again persuaded four A-list artists to give free performances this year at Global Citizen Festival. Last year's bill was dominated by rock acts - the Black Keys, Foo Fighters and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. This year's lineup leans more toward R&B with Ms. Keys and Mr. Wonder on the bill.

About 54,000 free tickets will be distributed to the public through a lottery on the Global Citizen Web site. To qualify for the lottery, people must register and earn points by taking various actions: signing petitions, donating to aid groups, writing letters to elected leaders or volunteering their time. Users must accumulate 8 points for a chance at a ticket, compared to the 3 points required last year.

"We are setting the threshold of engagement slightly higher," Mr. Evans said. "Our hope and our desire is that citizens will get deeply involved with our major policy issues."

The concert itself will not raise much money, but is intended by its supporters as a consciousness-raising and lobbying tool; it is underwritten by the several nonprofits and philanthropic funds, among them the Cotton On Foundation, the Sumner M. Redstone Foundation and the Pratt Foundation. Organizers are also receiving support from Hewlett-Packard, FedEx, Coca-Cola, Clear Channel Entertainment and others. About 6,000 V.I.P. tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster to cover some of the production costs.

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Poverty Benefit Concert Set for Central Park

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For a second year in a row, the Global Poverty Project is mounting a benefit concert in Central Park, on Sept. 28, to urge world leaders at the United Nations to do more to raise the living standards among the world's poor. This time the show will feature Alicia Keys, Kings of Leon, John Mayer and Stevie Wonder.

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The U.S. Census estimates that 13.4 percent of Americans, about 42 million, lived below the poverty line in 2017.

Of course, poverty is far from evenly distributed across the United States, and depending on a person's race, gender, occupation, and social status, Americans are far less, or far more, likely to live in poverty. Some groups are more than twice as likely to experience poverty as the average American.

Both personal responsibility and structural pressures can lead to poverty, and experts often argue which affects poverty more. But some factors outside of the control of the individual - including being a woman, black, Hispanic, a child, or a disabled person - are an indicator that one is more likely to live in poverty.

Greg Acs is vice president at the Income and Benefits Policy Center of the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy think tank. Acs helped explain the complexity of poverty, and why those certain groups are more likely to experience poverty. "The issue with poverty is that it's both a cause and a consequence of factors in the economy and society and personal decisions. So you'll find some groups that have higher poverty rates than others in no small part due to their inability to generate a lot of income on their own as a result of historical, economic, social, and personal factors."

More: Brad Paisley, Kimberly Williams-Paisley to open free grocery store for those in need

More: Wealth in America: Where are the richest and poorest states based on household income?

More: What is the worst city to live in your state? Find out.

24/7 Wall Street reviewed 2017 American Community Data from the U.S. Census Bureau to identify 11 distinct groups of Americans who are more likely than their peers to live in poverty. It is important to note that the more commonly reported poverty rate is based on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, but to consistently use the level of detail required to break down poverty rates for specific groups, we used American Community Survey data in all cases.

Some of the groups on this list are more likely to grow up in difficult homes, poor neighborhoods, and inadequate school systems. They face discrimination and limited work or advancement opportunities, and the effects of generational poverty, all which make it more likely they will live in poverty.

11. Service workers

The 10.1 percent poverty rate among service workers might not seem especially high, given that the national poverty rate is 13.4 percent, but Americans who are employed are far less likely to live in poverty than those who are not. For example, only 4.9 percent of America's full-time workforce lived below the poverty line, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, half the poverty rate among service workers. Service workers represent a major part of the American workforce, and a large share of service workers earn minimum wage or close to it. As of 2017, two-thirds of all American workers earning the minimum wage or less were in service occupations. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which, assuming a 40-hour work week, would not be enough to bring an individual with no dependents above the poverty level. Many states and municipalities have already passed, or are currently considering passing, legislation to increase the local minimum wage to $15 an hour.

10. Women

While 12.2 percent of men in the United States live in poverty, the poverty rate for women is 14.5 percent. Because women face a number of unique challenges they at a greater risk of poverty and financial hardship. Women are paid far less than men - women earned 81.3 percent of men's median earnings in the second quarter of 2018. While much of this gap can be explained by the kinds of occupations women occupy, the pay gap between men and women persists even when job duties and qualifications are equal. Women with masters and doctoral degrees earn 71.9 percent of what men with a similar education earn, and they are paid less in nearly every occupation. Women are also more likely than men to work in low-paying occupations and spend more time providing unpaid caregiving to children or elderly family members.

More: Progress in fighting poverty in America has slowed despite recent economic recovery

9. Hispanics and Latinos

Some 19.4 percent of Hispanic and Latino Americans live in poverty, far above the nationwide poverty 13.4 percent poverty rate for all Americans. Two factors contributing to the high poverty rate among Hispanics and Latinos are the group's relatively low education and earnings levels. Just 16.0 percent of Hispanic and Latino adults have a bachelor's degree, half of the nationwide college attainment rate of 32.0 percent - for all races. Individuals with a college degree are more likely to hold advanced, high-paying jobs and report higher incomes overall. In the second quarter of 2018, the typical Hispanic or Latino workers earned just 76.9 percent of the median earnings for all workers.

A large share of Latino workers also face racial discrimination that can reduce the likelihood of gaining employment and ultimately lead to lower earnings. According to a poll conducted by National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, one in three Hispanics and Latinos living in America report being discriminated against when applying for jobs.

8. Children under five

Children cannot earn incomes on their own, and so they are reliant entirely on the incomes of their parents to stay out of poverty. Compared to working-age adults or senior citizens, children are significantly more likely to live in poverty - 18.4 percent of Americans under age 18 live in poverty, compared to 12.6 percent of 18 to 64 year olds and 9.3 percent of senior citizens. And the most vulnerable children are the youngest. While 17.8 percent of children age 5 to 17 live in poverty, 20.2 percent of children under 5-years-old do.

7. Non-citizen immigrants

Of the 44 million immigrants to the United States, slightly less than half have become citizens. Regardless of citizenship status, foreign-born people living in the United States are more likely than natural born Americans to live in poverty. About 20 percent of non-citizen immigrant residents earn poverty wages. Finding steady employment as an immigrant can be particularly difficult due to language barriers, discrimination, and more. Permanent employment status can help pave the path to citizenship, which helps explain why those who are not yet citizens are particularly likely to earn low wages. The Census is widely believe to heavily undercount those who currently live in the country illegally, and poverty estimates for this group likely far exceed poverty rate of other immigrant groups.

6. Black and African Americans

Black and African Americans living in the United States face a wide range of institutional obstacles that make earning a steady, livable income, as well as the possibility of escaping poverty, extremely difficult. Black Americans are more than twice as likely as whites or Asian Americans to live in poverty. According to a report by the Brookings Institution, black Americans encounter inequalities in education, discrimination in the workplace, ineffective parenting, high incarceration rates, and more. One in eight Americans are black, but black Americans make up more than one-fourth of the nation's poor population.

5. Adults with less than a high school diploma

While there are several famous Americans who dropped out of high school or college and are now successful billionaires, generally educational attainment is a strong indicator of one's earnings potential. Most jobs that pay above poverty wages require, at the very least, a high school diploma, and a large share also require a bachelor's degree. Among American adults, typical earnings correspond directly with educational attainment. The typical adult who did not graduate from high school earns $20,924 a year, roughly $8,000 less than median earnings for those graduated high school but did not proceed to higher education. The typical American with just a bachelor's degree earns $51,094 a year, over $30,000 more than the median earnings for Americans who have not graduated high school.

4. American Indian and Alaska Natives

Native Americans are still dealing with the effects of 400 years of persecution and discrimination. At the time of colonization, the U.S. government forced tribes onto remote reservations that often lacked natural resources or arable soil. Today, American Indians have the highest poverty rate of any major racial group in the United States, with one in four living below the poverty line. Those who live on reservations face obstacles such as food insecurity and associated health problems like diabetes.

3. Americans with a disability

As is the case with many conditions associated with poverty, causality goes both ways. Those who have a disability have a higher risk of becoming poor, and those who are poor have a higher risk of becoming disabled. Those with a disability, physical or otherwise, are much more likely to be unable to work. In 1990, the U.S. government passed the Americans With Disabilities Act, designed to ensure the financial security of people with a debilitating condition or injury. Still, evidence suggests that workplace discrimination continues, and the disabled generally have a harder time finding steady work and earning above-poverty wages. The unemployment gap between the disabled and not disabled has actually widened since the ADA was passed.

2. The unemployed

Many people who live in poverty work full- or part-time, earning poverty level wages, but one of the more obvious contributors of poverty is earning no wages at all. Just 4.9 percent of those who were employed at least 27 weeks in 2016 lived in poverty. More than 30 percent of Americans who were unemployed and actively seeking work lived in poverty. Those who are unemployed are eligible for state unemployment benefits, but these are often not enough to escape poverty, particularly if the unemployed person has dependents to support. Those who live in poverty are also more likely to have difficulty finding employment for many reasons, including the fact that those growing up in poverty are less likely to have high school and higher education.

1. Single recent mothers

A dependent child can be a significant cost burden, especially for single parent, and is often enough to push the parent - often a mother - and child into poverty. Among recent single mothers, an astounding 44.3 percent live in poverty. In comparison, just 11.4 percent of married recent mothers live in poverty. While an unplanned-for pregnancy can occur among people of all social and economic levels, low-income women have far more unwanted pregnancies than higher-income women. A 2011 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that low-income women were five times more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy than high-income women.

CLOSE

Detailed findings

Most people who live above the poverty line are able to do so through their jobs. For this reason, the groups that have higher poverty rates generally are less likely to be steadily employed, or are less likely to have high-salaried positions. The disabled and the poorly-educated, for example, are two of the most likely groups to be in poverty because they either cannot access certain kinds of jobs or are less attractive to potential high-paying jobs.

The importance of not only being employed but also well paid in order to stay out of poverty is evident in the poverty rate among Americans employed in the service industry, which, at 10.7 percent, is about twice the poverty rate for those who have jobs. Even full-time service industry workers, many of whom earn minimum wage, often earn poverty incomes.

"In service industries, many of these jobs don't require the highest level of skill or education or training," Acs said. "They do require a lot of personal responsibility and reliability, but because there's a large competitive pool of folks that can do those jobs, and to the extent that those jobs are gendered and there are gender differences that are baked into the way we value work, those jobs tend to pay less, and hence folks working in those jobs tend to have higher poverty rates."

Many of the groups on this list are racial or ethnic groups, including black, Hispanic, and American Indians. While the poverty rate for white Americans is around 10 percent, it is roughly double for black and Hispanic Americans, and it is 25 percent for American Indians.

Attempting to explain the difficulties in assessing why certain social or economic groups have higher poverty rates, Acs said, "Racial and ethnic differences [in the poverty rate] are really complex." He added that one major reason for the disparity is that these groups appear to have more limited access to opportunities for gainful employment, due in part to, he said "...discrimination, and the long-term structural barriers that affect the circumstance of the neighborhoods in which African Americans grew up, as opposed to neighborhoods where whites grew up."

For many specific groups in poverty, there is the argument that individuals in high-poverty groups did not take actions that could lift them out of poverty, including obtaining an education and leaving their impoverished neighborhood. "But," Acs noted, "the reason they didn't do those things was that their poverty or intergenerational poverty reduced those opportunities factors, and society constrains where people can live and what jobs they get offered."

Having a child is a significant expense on a family, and larger families must earn more to escape poverty. Poor families are therefore more likely to be large, and for this reason, children are more likely than both working-age adults and the elderly to live in poverty.

Single parents, particularly single mothers, are one of the most impoverished groups in America, in part because impoverished Americans are more likely to have unwanted pregnancies, and also because supporting a child with a single source of income is more burdensome on an individual, who cannot rely on a partner for flexibility in childcare or income.
Methodology
Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 24/7 Wall Street identified population groups that are more likely to live in poverty compared to other comparable groups. The share of service workers in poverty is based on the July 2018 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Report "A profile of the working poor, 2016," which identifies the poverty rate for all workers employed in a profession for 27 weeks or more during 2016. The remainder of data on poverty rates came from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) one-year estimates. Average earnings by occupation, sex, and race also came from the 2017 ACS.
24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/10/10/faces-poverty-social-racial-factors/37977173/

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Faces of poverty: What racial, social groups are more likely to experience it?

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The U.S. Census estimates that 13.4 percent of Americans, about 42 million, lived below the poverty line in 2017. Of course, poverty is far from evenly distributed across the United States, and depending on a person's race, gender, occupation, and social status, Americans are far less, or far more, likely to live in poverty.

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Roda Ines

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The top 11 causes of poverty around the world

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Over 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty. But why? From public works to pandemics, we look at the 11 top causes of poverty, updated for 2022.

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Take a look around Moisson Montreal and at first glance, you might think it's some sort of production plant or assembly line.

But the finely-tuned sorting centre is a food bank.

"We do make a significant difference in the lives of people," executive director Richard Daneau told Global News.

READ MORE: West Island Assistance Fund implements new screening for food basket recipients

As the distribution centre for other food banks on the Island, Moisson Montréal distribution centre is in the business of helping out other charity organizations - and the need is enormous.
Last year alone, 16 million kg of food were distributed, to the tune of $86 million.

"We're very fortunate to be in that chain of help," Daneau said. "Community help."
WATCH: Donations needed in Montreal now more than ever

West Island Mission is one of the beneficiaries of Moisson Montreal, which provides free food to those in need in the West Island. There, too, the demand is growing.

"In 2018, we took on 100 new families," operational manager Wendy Gariepy told Global News. A lot of the demand, she says, is coming from newly arrived refugees as they settle into Canada.
But there is also a large number of school children who are going without food.

"That's the saddest part - is that children are going to school not eating," Gariepy said.

In fact, a new study by Food Banks Canada reveals that 35 per cent of children in Quebec are being served by food banks. The growing need for food and other basic provisions is what motivated some city councillors to visit Moisson Montreal's massive warehouse Wednesday afternoon, including Pointe-Claire councillor Cynthia Homan.

"I'm really like a kid in a candy store," Homan said. "I'm so thrilled to see how it all gets done."

READ MORE: New documentary shines light on hidden issue of food insecurity in West Island

There is also a large percentage of senior citizens who live in Pointe-Claire, some of whom struggle to make ends meet as they live on fixed incomes.

"A group of people out there need help," Pointe-Claire mayor John Belvedere told Global News. "Thirty-two percent of our population are seniors."

Sometimes Gariepy wishes there was no need for her to run a food bank. But knowing that her organization is helping out so many who have so little, she says really wouldn't want any other job.

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'People out there need help': Demand growing at West Island food banks

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Take a look around Moisson Montreal and at first glance, you might think it's some sort of production plant or assembly line. But the finely-tuned sorting centre is a food bank. "We do make a significant difference in the lives of people," executive director Richard Daneau told Global News.

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More than a third of babies are living below the poverty line in the UK, a leading social research group has said.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said low-paid families were struggling under a "rising tide of work poverty".

Despite the government saying 300,000 fewer children are living in absolute poverty than in 2010, baby banks said they were seeing an increase in users.

Vicki Miller, who used a baby bank, said: "I didn't know that support was out there."

There are more than 100 baby banks operating across the UK, providing essentials for newborns, including nappies, wipes and cots.

In an analysis of government data for the BBC, the JRF said in 2016-17 there were 302,838 children under the age of one living in families with a household income substantially below the UK average - its definition of poverty.

That represented 35% of all children in that age group with a single parent earning £198 a week or less (after housing costs) rising to £360 a week for a couple with two children.

'Two weeks on baked beans'

Ms Miller, from Castleford, West Yorkshire, went from working full-time to being at home with newborn Charlie, unable to afford basic essentials.

She first went to a food bank when her son was just five weeks old after she "went two weeks just living on baked beans".

She was then referred to the Tiny Hands baby bank in Pontefract when Charlie was 13 weeks old.

"It was absolutely amazing receiving a gift of baby stuff which was going to benefit Charlie, it was the greatest thing ever."

Charlie is now nearly two and Ms Miller works two days a week, so is no longer living below the poverty line.

However, after nursery fees and other bills are paid she is often left with just £30 a week for food and fuel.

Find a baby bank near you (From Little Village HQ)

'We've run out of nappies or milk'

The Tiny Hands baby bank was set up by Jane Robinson two years ago.

The scheme started with four boxes of donations in her front room and sent out two bundles in her first week.

Mrs Robinson says most referrals come via healthcare professionals, including midwives and health visitors.

She now works up to 50 hours a week to keep up with demand and has two volunteer helpers.

"We've had quite a few that are mums fleeing domestic violence, we have young mums living in mother and baby units and we have a lot of working families that need help with the basics.

"They might ring us up and say 'I don't get paid until Friday but we've run out of nappies or milk', or they just need topping up on clothes."

'Left scrabbling day to day'

Helen Barnard, deputy director for policy and partnerships for JRF, said: "What we are seeing is this rising tide of work poverty sweeping across the country.

"Families with children are locked in by low pay, high housing costs and weakening social security and they are really left scrabbling day to day, week to week to make ends meet.

"One of the biggest things that's happened is the government chose a few years ago to freeze the tax credits and benefits for families, and we've all seen prices going up in the shops but a big chunk of people's incomes is just standing still."

How many children live in poverty?

The government says household incomes have never been higher.

Using their measure of absolute poverty, which is calculated against median 2010-11 income, a government spokesman said there were now one million fewer people living in absolute poverty since 2010.

They added: "Since 2010 we've introduced the National Living Wage, doubled free childcare and helped workers keep more of the money they earn by cutting taxes for 32 million people."

Government figures for 2016-17, which are the latest available, show 3.5m children were in absolute poverty - a number down 200,000 from the year before or 300,000 lower over five years.

According to the JRF, the definition of relative poverty for a single parent with a child under the age of two is earnings of £198 a week (after housing costs).

That rises to £360 a week for a couple with two children.

In December, the JRF calculated 4.1 million children were living in poverty in the UK, a rise of 500,000 in five years.
You can see this story in full on BBC Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 19:30 GMT on BBC One on Monday 11 February, or via iPlayer for seven days afterwards.

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More than a third of babies 'in poverty'

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More than a third of babies are living below the poverty line in the UK, a leading social research group has said. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said low-paid families were struggling under a "rising tide of work poverty".

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Crystal Palace football club offers rough sleepers a refuge

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Up to 10 people will be able to sleep at Selhurst Park when temperatures drop below zero

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Leeds is in the midst of a 'national crisis', it has been claimed, as tens of thousands of people in the city are said to be living in in-work poverty.

A Leeds City Council report revealed that over 70,000 people in the city are facing in-work poverty, and this week councillors agreed the Government urgently needs to step in to help.

In-work poverty is described as adults from working households who are living in poverty.

During a full council meeting this week, Cllr Matt Gibson said: "We have been successful at attracting high-quality jobs. We are in the top five cities for private sector employment.

"But it's frustrating that our efforts haven't been enough to reduce poverty in cities. Half a million working adults (nationally) have become impoverished in the last five years.

'This is a national crisis and it requires a national solution'

"It's not being provided by our chaotic and distracted government.

"Poverty has a greater and longer impact. Childhood poverty has life-long implications for heath and wellbeing.

"Children in disadvantaged families are more likely to die in infancy or suffer mental health problems.

"This growth in in-work poverty will have a huge impact on health and services - it's time the government did more to make work pay again."

The council report stated: "The inclusive growth analysis confirms growth of in-work poverty for some people in recent years, estimating that over 71,000 working-age adults across the city are from working households and in poverty.

"Data from the Leeds Food Aid Network suggests that almost 27,000 people accessed a foodbank during the 2016/17 period, an increase of almost seven percent on the previous year."

Summing up, portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, Cllr Rebecca Charlwood, said: "Poverty creates poor health. One of the main drivers is to improve the health of the poorest the fastest.

"Cllr Gibson gave a passionate speech that I really welcome. Runaway high-pay can create a gap between rich and poor and more physical and mental health inequalities around the country."
LeedsLive Local allows you to share news, pictures and video and help shape the biggest talking points. To join the LeedsLive Local team, text LOCAL to 07786313491, and add the number to your phone contacts book as LeedsLive (case sensitive, no space). Simply send us a WhatsApp message, video or pictures of breaking news happening on your doorstep. Leeds: live and local!

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Over 70,000 people in Leeds are living in poverty despite working

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Leeds is in the midst of a 'national crisis', it has been claimed, as tens of thousands of people in the city are said to be living in in-work poverty. A Leeds City Council report revealed that over 70,000 people in the city are facing in-work poverty, and this week councillors agreed the Government urgently needs to step in to help.

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In total there were around 8.8 million people living below the poverty line in France in 2017. In France this means they are living on an income of less than €1,026 a month, and many of them live on considerably less.

Most of those suffering from poverty in France are women.

Women accounted for 56.1 percent of the people helped by the association in 2018, showing that they are still more at risk of falling on hard times than men.

Of the women with French nationality, 40 percent were single mothers while 30 percent were single women without children.

Grigny (pictured above) is a French town emblematic of entrenched urban poverty. Photo: AFP

"The most precarious remain families made up of women and children," director of the charity Bernard Thibaud told AFP. "And at all ages, women are the most vulnerable."

The charity has previously said that their difficulties can be explained in part by the fact that they often have less financial resources than the rest of the population.

In its report, the association highlights the worrying trend of the elderly becoming increasingly poor in France, with the proportion of over-60s living in poverty climbing up to exceed 10 percent.

"We have been witnessing an increasing precariousness of seniors over a few decades," Thibaud said.

"This is the result of long-term unemployment and increasingly intermittent career paths which lead to difficult pension situations. These broken up career paths are becoming more frequent and so the phenomenon is likely to increase," he said.

On top of that, the proportion of adults over the age of 50 who get help from the Secours Catholique is also rising.

This category represented one third of the men and women helped by the charity compared to just over a quarter in 2010.

Photo: AFP

Meanwhile people of working age represented 61 percent of those in poverty, according to the report of whom more than two thirds were unemployed and just under a third were employed (1.4 percent were in training).

"The unemployed remain by far the most vulnerable category of people of working age: the proportion they represented is nearly eight times higher than the rest of the population," said the charity, adding that most of them are senior, low-skilled and have been unemployed for a long time.

In terms of resources, two-thirds of the unemployed live solely on the RSA, France's basic form of job seekers allowance, with an average monthly income of €500 a month.

"We always talk about income, but never what is left to live on, [an amount] which continues to decline," said Thibaud.
A volunteer of the French charitable organisation Les Restos du Coeur. Photo: AFP
"To eradicate extreme poverty, it is estimated that the RSA should be €850", he said, adding that the French government is refusing to conduct a major revaluation of unemployment benefit.

"The poor are still prejudiced, yet they are not claiming the state handouts they are entitled to. A quarter of households eligible for family allowances met by the association do not claim them. And one third of those who could claim RSA don't."

Foreigners without legal status

The average income for households using the services of Secours Catholique was a meagre €540, which represents a drop of €6 in one year.

This standard of living falls well below the poverty line, which is €1,026 per month for a single person.

In 2017, nine out of ten households who presented themselves to the Secours Catholique had an income below the poverty line and almost two out of three were classified as living in extreme poverty, which means they are living on €684 per month or less.

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Revealed: The shocking scale of poverty in France in 2018

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In total there were around 8.8 million people living below the poverty line in France in 2017. In France this means they are living on an income of less than €1,026 a month, and many of them live on considerably less. Most of those suffering from poverty in France are women.

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More than a third of babies are living below the poverty line in the UK, a leading social research group has said.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said low-paid families were struggling under a "rising tide of work poverty".

Despite the government saying 300,000 fewer children are living in absolute poverty than in 2010, baby banks said they were seeing an increase in users.

Vicki Miller, who used a baby bank, said: "I didn't know that support was out there."

There are more than 100 baby banks operating across the UK, providing essentials for newborns, including nappies, wipes and cots.

In an analysis of government data for the BBC, the JRF said in 2016-17 there were 302,838 children under the age of one living in families with a household income substantially below the UK average - its definition of poverty.

That represented 35% of all children in that age group with a single parent earning £198 a week or less (after housing costs) rising to £360 a week for a couple with two children.

'Two weeks on baked beans'

Ms Miller, from Castleford, West Yorkshire, went from working full-time to being at home with newborn Charlie, unable to afford basic essentials.

She first went to a food bank when her son was just five weeks old after she "went two weeks just living on baked beans".

She was then referred to the Tiny Hands baby bank in Pontefract when Charlie was 13 weeks old.

"It was absolutely amazing receiving a gift of baby stuff which was going to benefit Charlie, it was the greatest thing ever."

Charlie is now nearly two and Ms Miller works two days a week, so is no longer living below the poverty line.

However, after nursery fees and other bills are paid she is often left with just £30 a week for food and fuel.

Find a baby bank near you (From Little Village HQ)

'We've run out of nappies or milk'

The Tiny Hands baby bank was set up by Jane Robinson two years ago.

The scheme started with four boxes of donations in her front room and sent out two bundles in her first week.

Mrs Robinson says most referrals come via healthcare professionals, including midwives and health visitors.

She now works up to 50 hours a week to keep up with demand and has two volunteer helpers.

"We've had quite a few that are mums fleeing domestic violence, we have young mums living in mother and baby units and we have a lot of working families that need help with the basics.

"They might ring us up and say 'I don't get paid until Friday but we've run out of nappies or milk', or they just need topping up on clothes."

'Left scrabbling day to day'

Helen Barnard, deputy director for policy and partnerships for JRF, said: "What we are seeing is this rising tide of work poverty sweeping across the country.

"Families with children are locked in by low pay, high housing costs and weakening social security and they are really left scrabbling day to day, week to week to make ends meet.

"One of the biggest things that's happened is the government chose a few years ago to freeze the tax credits and benefits for families, and we've all seen prices going up in the shops but a big chunk of people's incomes is just standing still."

How many children live in poverty?

The government says household incomes have never been higher.

Using their measure of absolute poverty, which is calculated against median 2010-11 income, a government spokesman said there were now one million fewer people living in absolute poverty since 2010.

They added: "Since 2010 we've introduced the National Living Wage, doubled free childcare and helped workers keep more of the money they earn by cutting taxes for 32 million people."

Government figures for 2016-17, which are the latest available, show 3.5m children were in absolute poverty - a number down 200,000 from the year before or 300,000 lower over five years.

According to the JRF, the definition of relative poverty for a single parent with a child under the age of two is earnings of £198 a week (after housing costs).

That rises to £360 a week for a couple with two children.

In December, the JRF calculated 4.1 million children were living in poverty in the UK, a rise of 500,000 in five years.
You can see this story in full on BBC Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 19:30 GMT on BBC One on Monday 11 February, or via iPlayer for seven days afterwards.

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More than a third of babies 'in poverty'

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More than a third of babies are living below the poverty line in the UK, a leading social research group has said. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said low-paid families were struggling under a "rising tide of work poverty".

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The Observer view on the shameful rise in rough sleepers | Observer editorial

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Rising homelessness isn't inevitable, it's a political choice

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Pensioner Katherine Boyi, left, with donated blankets and Agnes Makhubela, with donated maize meal, in Doornkop, Soweto. EPA/Jon Hrusa

Solutions to poverty and social exclusion tend to focus largely on national social and economic policies and the monitoring of national poverty indicators. Often missing from these conversations, but equally important, is the need for a perspective that privileges the knowledge, experience, capacities, aspirations and efforts of citizens and communities to improve their lives.

Innovative solutions that connect with people's real life situations, and that take the voices of the poor into account, are critical in shaping such solutions.

In-depth community based research conducted in Doornkop, Soweto, over a decade by researchers from the Centre for Social Development Africa at the University of Johannesburg, has captured these voices. Doornkop is one of the ten poorest wards in Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city. It is home to 61 000 people, most of whom live in extreme poverty and in stressed circumstances.

The research is published in a newly released book that we co-edited. It provides a vignette of the potential to "learn from below". It also provides insight into the lives of people who continue to struggle daily to build meaningful lives. It prioritises their actual experiences of and responses to a range of social, financial and health challenges.

It also interrogates the effect that policies designed by the government at national level have on their lives.

Difficult choices

Despite enormous challenges, Doornkop's residents are motivated to lead better lives. But they have to make difficult choices and trade-offs and have to work actively to achieve their goals. Interventions at the individual, household and community level can support agency, build people's capabilities and strengthen social networks. But a range of barriers - structural as well as social - can undermine their best efforts.

A range of issues emerged from the participants' stories. One was how socially prescribed notions of gender affect their lives. For example, some women who received welfare grants reported having to navigate their way around negative assumptions. These included accusations that they were undeserving or lazy or that they get free money for having children, known as "imali yeqolo" (colloquially meaning "money for sex"). These labels made them feel devalued and stigmatised.

As elsewhere in South Africa, Doornkop has a high rate of father absenteeism. Some women who got grants reported that some fathers used the child support grant as an excuse not to pay child maintenance. The grant is a means-tested cash transfer benefit paid to the primary caregiver of a child under 18 years who meets the eligibility requirements. It benefits 12 million children.

This illustrates how gender beliefs and practices about parenting and care can reinforce gender inequality and compromise child well-being. Yet, insufficient attention is paid to finding solutions to these challenges.

In tandem with these negative views, respondents also expressed strong support for the grants distributed by government, and their need for them. They said the child grant buys food, clothing and other necessities. Others said it empowers women by increasing their financial independence and decision-making power over how money is used. The grants also have a positive effect on caregiving for children.

Social solidarity and resilience

Interestingly, the interviews also showed that the child grant has some positive unintended consequences too. For example, they build social solidarity and a sense of a shared fate. This in turn served to protect individuals and their families against risks and shocks, such as a death in the family or the loss of a home, and to build mutually beneficial social networks. These are a vital source of social and economic support. As one respondent said:

We are helping one another, when they don't have anything, then they are giving [me], [and] we need to help others, and then your community can be a right place.

This suggests that people who receive grants aren't simply passive recipients of public benefits.

Stories from the ground also highlighted the unmet needs of people who are vulnerable and left behind.

A third of women in the sample were diagnosed with depression, largely associated with the stress of having to cope with poverty. Better mental health screening, treatment and social support is needed in poor communities like Doornkop. In addition, unemployment and struggles to access post-secondary education and training, as well as early motherhood placed young people at risk of long-term poverty.

Despite the challenges, there was also evidence of high levels of resilience. Older women had very good ability to "bounce back" after experiencing adversity. Social and family support, religious faith and participation in burial societies and stokvels mediated depression and built resilience.

The research shows that although social grants make an important contribution in reducing income poverty with positive multiplier effects, other social interventions are needed to build human capabilities, reduce vulnerability and social exclusion. Gender beliefs about care contribute to inequality within and among families. They call for a multidimensional approach to finding accessible community level solutions.

Political significance

Finally, a strong link emerged from the research about the relationship between socio-economic factors and democracy. People know their rights, participate actively in national and local elections and attend ward council meetings to improve their conditions.

In fact, more grant beneficiaries in Doornkop voted or planned to vote in two previous elections than non-beneficiaries. Trust in the party of their choice, and the exercise of their democratic rights, were as important as the ability of a political party to satisfy their needs. This suggests that poor performance in service delivery and social grants are likely to have significant electoral consequences for the incumbent party.

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Why poor people should be involved in designing solutions to poverty

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Solutions to poverty and social exclusion tend to focus largely on national social and economic policies and the monitoring of national poverty indicators. Often missing from these conversations, but equally important, is the need for a perspective that privileges the knowledge, experience, capacities, aspirations and efforts of citizens and communities to improve their lives.

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London boroughs join forces to alleviate homelessness crisis

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Thousands of extra properties for struggling families pledged but campaigners warn of systemic issues

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A million children under the age of 10, in England and Scotland, are facing "Dickensian" levels of poverty as they prepare for Christmas, a charity says.

Action for Children drew on government figures for the number of low-income families with children of that age that are experiencing material deprivation.

The charity also highlights a 30% rise in the demand for financial advice over the past three years.

The government said since 2010, 300,000 fewer children were living in poverty.

The charity will be running unofficial food banks over the Christmas period for families it says lack fresh food, suitable clothes and, in some cases, money to pay for heating.

'Prices going up'

It blames the "double blow" of government austerity and problems with the introduction of universal credit.

Chief executive Julie Bentley said: "While the government tells us austerity is at an end, every day at Action for Children we see first-hand the impossible choices that families living in practically Dickensian levels of poverty have to make."

Parents of four, Paul and Donna Maund, from near Norwich, said the family had to rely on benefits to cover the weekly basics, despite Paul working full time in a sandwich shop.

Donna said: "It won't be long before we'll have to start using food banks, as I've noticed prices going up and up.

"By finding the bargains at discount supermarkets, I've worked hard to get my weekly food bill for the whole family down to £45 - but the only way we can afford Christmas dinner and all the treats for the kids this year is by going to my parents.

"Finding the money for our oil heating is the worst.

'Warm bed'

"I always have to borrow the money from my dad and then pay him back every week.

"I've only just paid for one refill and it looks like at this rate I'm going to run out again just before Christmas."

Ms Bentley said: "Our youngest children should be waking up in a warm bed after a visit from Santa on Christmas morning - but the shocking truth is that in 2018 many will be cold and hungry in the fifth richest country of the world.

"No parent should be forced to face the appalling choice between 'eating or heating' at Christmas - but this is the reality for far too many in the UK today."

'Best chances'

The charity is calling for the chancellor to end the freeze on children's benefits so that rising prices do not push more families into poverty.

A government official said it wanted every child to have the very best chances in life.

"There are now one million fewer people living in absolute poverty since 2010, including 300,000 children.

"With this government's changes, there are fewer children in workless households than ever before, boosting their prospects in life.

"Household incomes have never been higher, income inequality has fallen and taxes are down for families and businesses."

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A million children 'in Dickensian poverty'

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A million children under the age of 10, in England and Scotland, are facing "Dickensian" levels of poverty as they prepare for Christmas, a charity says. Action for Children drew on government figures for the number of low-income families with children of that age that are experiencing material deprivation.

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We've made extraordinary strides, but the hardest part is in front of us.

By Bill Gates and Melinda Gates

The writers are the founders of the Gates Foundation.

Image

A refugee camp outside of Maiduguri, Nigeria. By 2050, more than 40 percent of the world's poorest people are projected to live in just two countries: Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit Credit Newsha Tavakolian/Magnum Photos

Do you think the number of poor people in the world has gone up or down in the past 25 years?

This question is an excellent conversation starter because practically everybody answers it incorrectly. Primed by depressing and shocking headlines, most people assume that poverty has increased. Some people say it has held steady. Almost none are aware that in fact, more than a billion people have overcome poverty just since the turn of the millennium.

This huge drop in the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day is among the most underappreciated and most important developments of our generation.

But it's not guaranteed to continue. In fact, progress against poverty is in jeopardy. According to current projections, the number of people in extreme poverty will stagnate at over 500 million. In the worst-case scenario, it could even start going back up.

Why has the world arrived at this crossroads? The answer is the unfortunate intersection of two demographic trends.

First, as extreme poverty disappears from many places, including China and India and, increasingly, many countries in Africa, it gets more and more concentrated in the most challenging places in the world. Poverty is especially stubborn in a group of about a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa marked by violent conflict, severe climate change, weak governance and broken health and education systems. More and more, extreme poverty will be a feature of life only where people's opportunities to overcome it are brutally limited.

Second, these dozen countries are growing faster than every other place in the world. In the United States, women have an average of two children. In Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, they have an average of seven. Births aren't randomly distributed geographically. Rather, they are concentrated in the places where poverty is concentrated. Based on current trends, a growing proportion of babies will be born in places where adults have to devote most of their resources to survival, leaving very little to invest in their families, their communities and their countries.

Image

Hadjo Haruna, in brown headscarf, with some of her 100 grandchildren in the village of Koy Gorou, Niger, last year. Credit Kristin Palitza/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images

This dual phenomenon of persistent poverty in fast-growing places explains why, by 2050, more than 40 percent of the extremely poor people on the planet are projected to live in just two countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.

The good thing about projections, though, is that they are based on the status quo. We don't believe in the status quo. We believe that people, when given tools and opportunity, can defy the odds. This is especially true of young people, because they are determined to lead a better life than their parents have and eager to follow new ideas and new technologies where they lead.

What will it take to help all these young people change the future of their countries? We can learn from what has worked in the past: investments in people, especially their health and education, and in innovation.

In general, leaders prefer to spend money on things like roads, ports and bridges, because the impact is immediate. When they strengthen health and school systems, the results, from an economic point of view, come decades later. The effect of investments in science and technology is even more delayed.

But these investments pay off. In 1990, the typical Chinese young person received an eighth-grade education. Now, as a result of government investments in the school system, he or she receives some college education. In 1990, one in three Chinese children were chronically malnourished. Now, thanks to increased agricultural productivity and improved health care, it's fewer than one in 10.

In India, innovation is leading to remarkable change. The 1960s best seller "The Population Bomb" predicted that "famine and food riots" would "sweep" across the country. What actually swept across India were new agricultural techniques and technologies, and now Indian farmers get almost four times the amount of wheat from the same piece of land as they got 50 years ago.

The challenge now is for today's poorest, fastest-growing countries to make the same kinds of investments. If they can't, if their futures resemble their recent pasts, then the world will get poorer. But if they can, we could see extreme poverty disappear from the earth.

Even though the projections we're talking about are in the distant future, the time to act is now. Investing in health and education is especially urgent at this precise time in the history of sub-Saharan Africa because of the region's youth boom. The children who can transform the continent have already been - or are about to be - born. It will be up to them to lead the innovation their societies need: to transform subsistence farms into profitable small businesses, to provide a bank account for every adult on their mobile phones, to eradicate malaria and other neglected diseases.

Our foundation's mission is to help all people lead a healthy, productive life. In some ways it is going to be even more difficult to deliver on that promise in the future than it was in the past. Fortunately, recent history shows that progress is possible, even under what experts used to consider impossible circumstances. It also provides a very specific blueprint for how we can work together to create it.

Bill Gates and Melinda Gates are the founders of the Gates Foundation, which recently issued a report on progress and youth demographics in sub-Saharan Africa.
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A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Our Precarious Progress on Poverty. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Opinion | We Were Making Headway on Global Poverty. What's About to Change?

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We've made extraordinary strides, but the hardest part is in front of us. By Bill Gates and Melinda Gates The writers are the founders of the Gates Foundation. Do you think the number of poor people in the world has gone up or down in the past 25 years?

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Beaten, harassed, set alight: rough sleepers tell of the horrific rise in violence

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As new figures reveal the growth of attacks on homeless people, those living on the streets of Cardiff talk of their plight

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Weichelt Laura

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A school has found that a scheme to give girls free menstrual products has helped improve their attendance.

The Red Box project was set up to help solve the problem known as "period poverty".

Castle View Academy in Portsmouth said since the scheme was introduced it had helped increase attendance levels by nearly a third.

It is estimated about 137,000 girls will miss school in the UK each year because of a lack of access to sanitary products.

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A school has found that a scheme to give girls free menstrual products has helped improve their attendance. The Red Box project was set up to help solve the problem known as "period poverty". Castle View Academy in Portsmouth said since the scheme was introduced it had helped increase attendance levels by nearly a third.