- Report: 1/3 of impoverished Utahns spend 1/2 of their income on housing, By Marjorie Cortez, September 29, 2016, Deseret News: ” As the single mother of two young sons and a college student, Isabell Archuleta’s plate is full. Her life may be hectic, but Archuleta has very specific goals in mind: completing her studies at Salt Lake Community College, then transferring to a university to obtain a degree in elementary education. She wants to be a first-grade teacher and to provide for her sons, ages 4 and 6, a childhood that is healthier and more economically secure than her own spent in poverty…”
- Utah kids living in intergenerational poverty could fill 1,611 school buses, By Lee Davidson, September 29, 2016, Salt Lake Tribune: “Isabell Archuleta of Kearns is in the third generation of a family living in poverty. Her sons, Juelz, 4, and Marcelo, 6, are the fourth. But Archuleta is confident she is about to break the cycle for generations to come. ‘I’ve started to go back to school to become a teacher,’ she said. ‘I think my sons seeing me go to college will make them want to do the same thing.’ She said the Next Generation Kids program of the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS) helps her find solutions on everything from nutrition to child care and preschool. ‘It has given me a little bit more support and someone to talk to.’ And after seeing her example, others in her family have entered college, too. A new state report says that while such success stories are increasing, Utah still has far to go…”
Tag: Intergenerational poverty
Welfare Reform and Intergenerational Poverty
The major flaw in President Clinton’s welfare reform that almost no one noticed, By Max Ehrenfreund, August 30, 2016, Washington Post: “Shavonna Rentie’s father raised her on what he earned working at McDonald’s, along with welfare and food stamps. When she was 15, President Clinton signed a law that changed all of that, replacing welfare with a complex new system that fostered vocational training. The new law encouraged Rentie’s father to go to school and become a mechanic. Seeing him get the job he wanted ‘pushed me to go for what I really want to be,’ Rentie said. It was exactly as the writers of the law had planned: Welfare reform would help parents receiving welfare set a better example for their children. The children, in turn, would grow up with broader ambitions, free from the generational cycle of poverty and dependence on government — at least, that’s what policymakers intended…”
Intergenerational Poverty
Can poverty be passed down? A nonprofit tries to break the cycle, By Katie Johnson, July 12, 2016, Boston Globe: “In some households, poverty is passed down from generation to generation, almost like an inherited trait. Teri Williams, president of OneUnited Bank, sees it happen among the lower-income Boston residents the bank serves. Often it boils down to bad decisions: people with bad credit who can’t get a utilities account use their children’s Social Security numbers to get the gas turned on and then can’t pay the bills, saddling their children with bad credit before they hit adulthood. ‘We’ve seen that unfortunately too many times,’ Williams said. New research suggests that these kinds of actions may be tied to the chronic stress of poverty, which can short-circuit brain development in children. This can limit their ability to plan ahead, control impulses, and juggle multiple tasks — skills that are vital to success in school and work…”