Comment by RickJWagner
1 day ago
A few years back, a politician outlined some simple steps to avoid poverty:
Graduate high school
Have a full time job
Marry before having children
The politician was heavily criticized for his comments. The advice seems timeless, but people don’t want to hear it.
Speaking only for myself, I have zero interest in hearing this from you, because it's clear you were eager to drop this anecdote in a thread with even minimal relevance to the topic. This is not a story about poverty.
Makeda, the subject of the piece, clearly has a high school education because was a legal assistant for the city before she was incarcerated. She educated herself further during her sentence, and after. While working.
The article clearly states she dropped out of high school. ( Although she later went back to get a GED. )
Of the three steps to avoid poverty, she clearly followed one ( the full time job ).
Virtue signalling does not help people. Making clear the guidelines to building a good life IS useful.
I think the article voices many concerns about poverty. Here’s one example: “ The first year out of prison is critical for ex-inmates. They’re often leaving prison with little money, uncertain housing, fractured relationships with family, and no job, not to mention the psychological toll of incarceration. “They’ve got to construct a whole life for themselves: Where am I going to live? How am I going to have money in my pocket to eat, clothe myself, get across town?” says Ann Jacobs, executive director of the Institute for Justice and Opportunity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.”
I wasn't going to dignify your third piece of advice with further comment and I see you haven't either. For the rest I'd refer you to my other comment regarding cause/effect.
You and the politician are making a strange yet unsurprising assumption about the direction of the causal relationships between poverty and these other socioeconomic factors.
What's the rate of high school graduation from families living in poverty?
What's the full-time employment rate for people without a high school diploma?
Was the politician suggesting everyone should do those things or just observing one way to do things?
I believe he was suggesting the three steps as a guideline to be followed if at all possible.
You’d have to think that if everybody clearly understood the steps ( and their relationship to success or failure ) that poverty rates would go down. That’s the goal.