Poverty in America

Across the rural U.S., poverty may seem mostly invisible. But it is just as bad in America as it is in developing countries. World Vision's Ruston Seaman and other voices in the struggle to help Americans living in poverty discuss the issues that work against American families in need.

Oregon State University Professor Emeritus Bruce Weber discusses recent research on poverty and economic mobility in Rural America.

Northern New York is inching dangerously close to having 50% of its families struggling to afford their basic needs.

In this video, legal scholar Lisa Pruitt describes how rural poverty can compound challenges for those who live far away from jobs and services that are more accessible in urban areas. She says that programs that lift people out of poverty can help every individual to achieve their economic potential.

Rural areas are underappreciated for their diversity, cultural vitality, and economic innovation and resiliency, and persistent poverty is holding back about one out of seven rural counties. Shaped by histories of slavery, oppression, displacement, and resource extraction, rural and Native communities face multiple forms of exclusion from wealth, education, and health, leaving them without capital, quality jobs, housing, infrastructure, and services that would meet community needs and drive opportunity.

As a global community, we all want to end poverty. Mia Birdsong suggests a great place to start: Let's honor the skills, drive and initiative that poor people bring to the struggle every day. She asks us to look again at people in poverty: They may be broke — but they're not broken.

Jacqueline Novogratz tells a moving story of an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute, whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way.

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

The documentary, "Growing Up Poor in America", follows three children and their families in the battleground state of Ohio as the COVID-19 pandemic amplifies their struggle to stay afloat.

Why should a good education be exclusive to rich kids? Schools in low-income neighborhoods across the US, specifically in communities of color, lack resources that are standard at wealthier schools -- things like musical instruments, new books, healthy school lunches and soccer fields -- and this has a real impact on the potential of students. Kandice Sumner sees the disparity every day in her classroom in Boston. In this inspiring talk, she asks us to face facts -- and change them.

Education may be the key to solving broader American inequality, but we have to solve educational inequality first. Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, says there is progress being made, there are encouraging examples to emulate, that an early start is critical, and that a lot of hard work lies ahead. But he also says, “There’s nothing more important we can do.”

What's it like to be the first one in your family to go to college?
Millions of first-generation college students arrive on college campuses across the nation every day. With them, they bring their pasts, their cultures, their hopes, their fears, and their dreams. This inspirational documentary delves into the lives of eight first-generation college students, five preservice teachers and three successful educators, who chose a profession dedicated to a concept they are all committed to: changing lives.

(Un)Privileged is a documentary that explores the social and personal issues faced by many low-income and first-generation undergraduate students across wealthy private colleges and universities in the United States. The film includes a cast of diverse first-generation and low-income students from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and Columbia University in the heart of New York City. Angel Perez, Trinity’s Vice President of Admissions and Student Success, also offers expert and personal insight into these struggles.

What do you think would happen if you invited an individual with mental health issues who had been homeless for many years to move directly from the street into housing? Loyd Pendleton shares how he went from skeptic to believer in the Housing First approach to homelessness -- providing the displaced with short-term assistance to find permanent housing quickly and without conditions -- and how it led to a 91 percent reduction in chronic homelessness over a ten-year period in Utah.

When Richard J. Berry, the mayor of Albuquerque, saw a man on a street corner holding a cardboard sign that read "Want a job," he decided to take him (and others in his situation) up on it. He and his staff started a citywide initiative to help the homeless by giving them day jobs and a place to sleep -- and the results were incredible. Find out how your city can replicate Albuquerque's model with this frank and optimistic talk.

A safe, affordable, and stable home is often the very foundation for economic stability. Yet housing insecurity affects almost every community in the nation. Find out what's considered affordable housing, why we don't have more affordable housing, and why we should all care. Learn more about the leading affordable housing research from Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan at poverty.umich.edu.

Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Program, talks about why, in a world with enough food for everyone, people still go hungry, still die of starvation, still use food as a weapon of war. Her vision: "Food is one issue that cannot be solved person by person. We have to stand together."

Co-creator of the philanthropic FEED bags, Ellen Gustafson says hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. In her talk, she launches The 30 Project -- a way to change how we farm and eat in the next 30 years, and solve the global food inequalities behind both epidemics.

Learn about, share and discuss the intersections of food insecurity and health. This illustrative video was developed as a tool to be viewed with communities, advocates, partners, policymakers, volunteers and others so as to illuminate the cycle of food insecurity and health, and how we can each be part of the solution.

Extensive biological and developmental research shows significant neglect—the ongoing disruption or significant absence of caregiver responsiveness—can cause more lasting harm to a young child's development than overt physical abuse, including subsequent cognitive delays, impairments in executive functioning, and disruptions of the body's stress response. This edition of the InBrief series explains why significant deprivation is so harmful in the earliest years of life and why effective interventions are likely to pay significant dividends in better long-term outcomes in learning, health, and parenting of the next generation.

The economic situation of families that children are born into too often predetermines the opportunities they will have to lead productive lives. This is particularly troubling for children who are born into poverty. Indeed, about half of poor newborns will spend at least half of their childhood living below the poverty line. The effects can reproduce themselves generation after generation, leaving many American families caught in a vicious circle of poverty.

In this video, psychologist Ross Thompson explains the impact that poverty can have on children and their families. Programs that both improve economic wellbeing for families and provide support for parents, he says, can have beneficial outcomes for children.