Poverty

Editor's note: This post was authored by Jessica Bartholow. She has a Masters in Political Science and is a Legislative Advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty. 

With the year end approaching, it is still uncertain whether the U.S. House of Representatives will call for a floor vote on the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM) of 2012 (H.R. 6083) which makes $16.5 billion in cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), despite statements by leadership earlier in the month that a vote would be called.

Today’s prolonged economic slump is fundamentally different from an ordinary recession. In the aftermath of a severe financial collapse, an economy is at risk of succumbing to a prolonged deflationary undertow. With asset prices reduced, the financial system damaged, unemployment high, consumer demand depressed, and businesses reluctant to invest, the economy gets stuck well below its full employment potential.

Editor's note: This post is the last in a series of three exploring the issue of asset building and single motherhood. Haley Eagon, a current senior at Williams College in Massachusetts, interned with the Asset Building Program this summer and authored these posts. Read part one on data and definitions of single motherhood and part two on policy design in the series.  

In response to growing rates of single motherhood, many have advocated for a return to the “traditional family.” This traditional family is often envisioned as the ideal self-sufficient unit, with a mother and father who share the burdens of earning income and raising children.

Editor's note: This post is the second in a series of three exploring the issue of asset building and single motherhood. Haley Eagon, a current senior at Williams College in Massachusetts, interned with the Asset Building Program this summer and authored these posts. Read part one here. 

Single mothers face unique obstacles in their quest to raise families and live fulfilling lives themselves. According to a as stated in this New York Times piece by Jason DeParle (see an interview with him in our office here), single mothers lack both a second income, and “a second set of parenting hands.” While these challenges are significant for many single mothers, additional systematic disadvantagesin the form of financial instability, lack of access to affordable and quality child care, and obstacles to utilizing public benefits also play a role. When considering the confluence of these factors, we can begin to see single motherhood not as inherently dysfunctional, but instead, a life made more challenging by obvious limitations on capacity and current social policy. Even targeted anti-poverty programs such as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) can actually confound efforts on the part of low-income parents to get out of poverty.

Editor's note: This post is the first in a series of three exploring the issue of asset building and single motherhood. Haley Eagon, a current senior at Williams College in Massachusetts, interned with the Asset Building Program this summer and authored these posts.

Single motherhood has been a subject of interest from the media, policymakers, researchers, and the public in general. Experts disagree on the importance of family structure in determining outcomes for children, but the percentage of births to unmarried mothers has been on the rise. According to Census Bureau figures, in 1990, 26.6% of births were to unmarried mothers; in 2008, over 40% of births were to unmarried mothers. Worrisomely, children with a single mother are substantially more likely to live in poverty than children living in married couple families (47.6% of kids in single mother households were poor in 2011 compared with 10.9% of kids with married parents.) According to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center, more than half of all poor children in 2011 lived in single mother households.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, poverty, financial products, and government assistance programs.

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development brought together experts from a wide array of policy and politics backgrounds to discuss issues of wealth inequality and racial disparities at an event this week titled “Race and Wealth Inequality in the Post-Election Political Environment.” By exploring issues of wealth and income from the perspectives of various racial groups, the commentators were able to shed light on the post-election prospects of important policy areas that were not explicitly raised by either candidate during the campaign season. Yet despite the conspicuous lack of electoral attention to vast racialized wealth disparities, all of the commentators expressed optimism about the possibilities for successful policy initiatives in the post-election landscape.

With Americans still trapped in the fifth year of our Great Recession, and median personal income having been essentially stagnant for forty years, perhaps we should finally admit that decades of economic policies have largely failed.

This blog post is part two in a two-part series on building assets and wealth among Native Americans as a means to advance financial stability in low-income communities around the country. The first part is available here. The blogs describe how and why the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) supports nonprofits in their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable prosperity in eight states across the upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. The blogs are authored by Kevin Walker, CEO and President.

On one of the most storied streets in urban Native America, you can see a dynamic future taking shape. Colorful banners along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis proclaim the only Native American urban business district in the country. Established in 2010, the American Indian Cultural Corridor features five Native-owned businesses, including a tribally owned bank. The Corridor, reminiscent of New York’s Little Italy or San Francisco’s Chinatown, spans a half mile of a previously crime-ridden, poverty-stricken neighborhood. Culturally relevant concepts and programs, rooted in the community, are making it possible for residents to build their assets by opening businesses, developing job skills, and owning a home.

This blog post is part one in a two-part series on building assets and wealth among Native Americans as a means to advance financial stability in low-income communities around the country.  The blogs describe how and why the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) supports nonprofits in their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable prosperity in eight states across the upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. The blogs are authored by Kevin Walker, CEO and President.

When the mainstream media pay attention to Native American communities at all, they most often tell stories of trauma and tragedy. There is truth in many of those stories, of course, but we at Northwest Area Foundation see a different reality that also is true. When we meet with people on reservations and in urban Indian communities, we see energy and vision. We encounter a passion for self-determination in a rising generation of young leaders. And we see innovative Native organizations building assets for the future. We support Native-led asset and wealth building programs that have potential to nurture thriving economies in Indian Country. Job-building programs and wealth-creation models anchored in Native culture have track records of success that should be more widely known and studied. These approaches could help other Native and non-Native communities in their pursuits of lasting prosperity.