Economy
Moving Americans Out of Poverty Will Take More Than Money
A who’s-who of poverty experts outline an ambitious blueprint for “changing the narrative” about being poor in America.
As they worked on assembling a new report on American poverty, a consortium of researchers fanned out across the U.S. to talk to people living in pockets of concentrated need—from rural Maine and the Lummi Nation of the Pacific Northwest to major cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Detroit. One of these site visits took the team to a neighborhood in San Jose, California, where Mexican immigrants struggle with tech-boom-fueled housing costs: Think $600 a month for a couch to sleep on, or $1,000 for a rented garage in the shadow of the riches of Silicon Valley.
The researchers asked one woman about the stark inequality gap that defined the area. “What is this ‘Silicon Valley’ you keep talking about?” she responded.