During the last few weeks, I’ve been following as different people and organizations reflected on the 50th Anniversary of the War on Poverty and observed the 85th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I listened to two panel discussions, Legacies of the War on Poverty, Lessons for the Future, and Causes, consequences & potential solutions to the problem of educational disparities in the US. I’ve also read a number of reports that have emerged as many organizations use this time as an opportunity to highlight, and in some cases recast, their work and their commitment to the principles of increasing economic opportunity and prosperity for all.
These materials serve as a reminder of the importance of the work we’re doing, especially the work in communities where we’re determining how best to be a catalyst and support for local and regional efforts related to addressing long-term unemployment, literacy and basic skill gaps, and poverty.
While I appreciate the need to focus on the demand side of the labor market and what businesses need/want from the workforce, we also need to consider what’s happening for people and ensure their needs/challenges are being factored into the systems and solutions we’re trying to create. As Ed and Nina know well from all of the human service system related work they’ve been doing, too many of our systems are not people-centered enough to make the differences that both Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King envisioned five decades ago.
We’ll see what President Obama says about all of this in his State of the Union address. There are clearly short-term actions, like extending long-term unemployment benefits and increasing the minimum wage, which could go a long way to ensuring basic needs are met and creating the platform for people to reach the economic and educational attainment goals they have for themselves and their families.
We also know through our work and that of millions of others, it often takes decades to see the needle move on major, entrenched issues. One of the speakers on educational disparities made this very clear as he talked about the historical trends in closing the skills gaps between different racial/ethnic groups, the stagnation during the last decade in gap closure, and the projections for the future if business as usual continues. His research and others’ concludes it could take another 5-10 decades to close the gaps we’re seeing currently starting around the third grade and persisting for too many kids and adults.
A couple of the links below speak more to this issue of the long-term nature of our work, and what’s needed to break out of the box and be bold in our convictions and commitments to action that keep the long-term vision in the front of our hearts and minds, while we take steps in the short-term to create new solutions that could actually accelerate the change and close more of these gaps in our lifetimes.
Increasing wages and access to education (note emphasis on early education):
- 50 Years Later War on Poverty is Still a Mixed Bag: “Going forward, the biggest potential gains that could be made on poverty would be in raising market incomes,” said Jason Furman, the chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “In the short run, that means things like the minimum wage, and in the long run, things like early education.”
Increasing access to and completion of higher education:
- One of the policy briefs from the Legacies of the War on Poverty, reminded me that the War on Poverty launched an unprecedented effort to help student pay for college and many of the panelists spoke about the relationship between poverty and insufficient access to education and jobs for too many people.
- The Center for American Progress also released a report, that highlights the critical issues related to poverty and the lack of education and jobs, and suggests we need to do more as a country toward: creating jobs and offering fair wages; treating diversity as an opportunity; understanding the critical role of education; and learning from local initiatives.
- An article from Bridge Magazine notes that “Michigan has one of the highest college-enrollment rates among low-income students (in the U.S.),” Johnson said. “Bu they’re not completing college. It’s net positive. But we can’t use that as an excuse. We need to get them through (to a degree). We need to build the plane while we’re flying it.”
Public opinion about poverty and policies:
- Pew Research highlights the partisan divide over “how” we address inequality.
- Center for American progress poll on priorities and policies for reducing poverty.
New geography of poverty:
- Brookings is highlighting the increase in suburban poverty and looking at ways to align regional anti-poverty strategies and investments.
Reinventing prosperity network and roundtables:
- PolicyLink has organized an “on-line” group of innovators to share electronically their ideas for reinventing prosperity.
Role of employers and workplaces in reducing poverty:
- An article emphasizing what we can do in our workplace policies and practices to reduce poverty.
- Research on mobility and opportunity from the last 7 years.
New roles/work for the non-profit sector in addressing social issues:
- SSIR article on the case for the non-profit sector needing to shift it attention from modest goals that provide short-term relief to bold goals that, while harder to achieve, provide long-term solutions by tackling the root of social problems.
- SSIR article on addressing wicked problems.
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