“I grew up in a very modest house. We were poor-we lived on the poverty level. We all got jobs as young kids.” KidsJobsYoungHousePoorLevelsPovertyGrewGrew UpModest Author:Chely Wright
“Nearly one billion women and men, a third of the world's workforce, are either unemployed or unable to earn enough to keep themselves out of extreme poverty. There are 100 million new entrants into the labour market each year. Up to 90 percent in some regions are in the informal economy. 180 million kids are engaged in the worst forms of child labour. Put it all together and it is not only morally unacceptable, but politically dangerous” MenWorldYearsChildrenEnoughKidsTogetherFormPovertyMillionsEconomyWorstDangerousPercentMen And WomenLaborThirdsExtremesBillionsEngagedLabourRegionsUnemployedWorkforceExtreme PovertyChild LabourDecent Work Author:Juan Somavia
“As a kid who failed out of high school as a freshman, I know firsthand and personally that sense of hopelessness and just being - drifting in the wrong direction, having really no hope. And being able to harness that frustration was incredibly valuable in my life. That's one of the reasons I focus so consistently on the foundation of education, because it helps to eviscerate those things that - unemployment, high jobless rates, poverty.” KnowsReasonHelpingKidsAbleSchoolPovertyFocusHigh SchoolFoundationRateValuableFrustrationJoblessConsistentlyJust BeingUnemploymentHopelessnessNo HopeDriftingHarnessFreshmanWrong Direction Author:Tim Scott
“In Blue Crush , we meet three Hawaiian surfers who work as hotel maids, live in a grotty rental, and are raising the kid sister of one of them. Despite this near-poverty, they look great; there is nothing like a tan and a bikini to overcome class distinctions.” LooksKidsThreeClassPovertyOvercomingBlueDespiteCrushDistinctionHotelMaidsBikinisSurferHawaiiansClass Distinction Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005 Source: Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005
“Poor kids are much more likely to become sick than their richer counterparts, but much less likely to have health insurance. Talk about a double whammy.” CareKidsPoorPovertySickHealth CareCounterparts Author:Anna Quindlen
“For most Americans, their primary aspiration is to achieve a better life... To earn a livable wage in a good job. To have the time to spend with family and do the things they enjoy. To be able to retire with security. And to give their own kids a chance to do as well or better than themselves.” GivingWellsKidsAbleJobsEnjoyChancePovertyAchieveSecurityPrimariesAspirationRetiringGood JobBetter Life Author:Marco Rubio
“Bobby Kennedy is so concerned with poverty because he didn't have any as a kid.” KidsPovertyConcernedAmerican PoliticsBobby Kennedy Author:Ronald Reagan
“Half of all kids in public education are below the poverty line. Two-thirds of the achievement gap comes from factors outside of school. Teachers influence about seven to ten percent of what happens in kids' lives. When you think about those statistics, you have to think about how to re-envision education so it's holistic and so we share responsibility.” ThinkingTwoHappensKidsSchoolLinesHalfResponsibilityPovertyTeacherShareInfluenceTenAchievementPercentThirdsSevenFactorsStatisticsGapsHolisticPublic EducationSchool TeachersAchievement Gap Author:Randi Weingarten
“I cant solve the poverty problem, but there are things you can do to mitigate its effects on kids.” ProblemKidsCan DoPovertyEffectsSolveCant Author:Sal Albanese
“If we wanted a program to help the majority of the population, we'd offer loan guarantees to help poor people get access to reliable cars so that they could have a better shot at getting - and keeping - a well-paying job...A small amount of capital could make a much bigger difference in their lives than extra student loan relief for middle-class college kids would.” PeopleIfsWellsHelpingRealityKidsWantedJobsPoliticsCommunityDifferencesWorkPoorMoneyEducationClassPovertyMiddleCarPolicyStudentsCollegeAmountOffersShotsProgramBiggerMajorityStrategyPropertyPopulationAccessExtrasGuaranteesReliefMiddle ClassPoor PeopleLoanSmall AmountsHelp The PoorStudent LoanHelp Poor People Author:Megan McArdle
“There's tens of millions of families with single mothers who are living at 100 to 200 percent below the poverty level and these are not women that are on welfare, these are working women. How different would there life be if they're making an extra 40 to 60 cents to the dollar. We can't do this to our kids anymore.” IfsLifeDifferentKidsLife IsMotherLevelsPovertyMillionsPercentDollarsWelfareExtrasCentsSingle MotherWorking Women Author:Patricia Arquette
“I am going to do my best to try to create a country in which children are not living in poverty, in which kids can go to college, in which old people have health care. Will I succeed? I can't guarantee you that, but I can tell you that from a human point of view it is better to show up than to give up.” PeopleGivingTryingHumansChildrenI CanCountryShowsCareKidsViewsPovertyCollegeSucceedGiving UpPoint Of ViewHealth CareGuaranteesOld PeopleGiving Up Is Not An Option Author:Bernie Sanders
“If I were president, I would want to spend a lot of time going to the legislatures and telling them about best practices, whether it's about fighting poverty, whether it's about educating kids. The states are the laboratories where we can see what works. And I think presidents can have a much better relationship with legislatures.” IfsThinkingWantStatesKidsFightingPresidentPovertyPracticeLaboratoryLegislatureBest Practices Author:John Kasich
“When the kids see the poverty in their neighborhood, but they see these successful kids who come from the countries they come from, come from Mexico, come from Korea, come from the Philippines, come from Salvador, and were doing really well, it motivates them to do better. The former students give them a vision of what's possible.” GivingWellsCountryKidsVisionPovertySuccessfulStudentsFormerNeighborhoodMexicoKoreaPhilippinesFormer Students Author:Rafe Esquith
“Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.” WorldKidsDifficultPovertyTrack Author:Anna Deavere Smith
“As a kid, I really wanted to have my own show. But when you grow up in poverty, people tell you nothing is possible. So I kind of gave up on that dream.” PeopleKindShowsDreamKidsWantedGrowsMy OwnPovertyGrowing UpGave Up Author:Cristela Alonzo
“There's an awful lot of white British kids who have never really gone hungry, always had a roof to live under but at the same time are desperately unhappy. It's not total poverty, just a poverty of ideas.” IdeasKidsWhitePovertyGoneBritishHungryUnhappyAwfulRoof Author:Richey Edwards
“I grew up in a mobile home, but it wasn't like white trash - it was a beautiful mobile home park, I had a loving mother, there were kids everywhere, there was a playground in the center, I just grew up in poverty.” HomeKidsBeautifulMotherWhitePovertyGrewGrew UpParksTrashMobilePlaygroundsWhite TrashLoving Mother Author:Taryn Manning
“Childbearing, I mean, if there's no place to go to deliver your baby, then you're the one that's delivering in those unhealthy circumstances. Or if you can't get access to family planning, your chances of surviving and being able to bring your kids up if they come one right after the other, that locks you into a cycle of poverty.” IfsMeanKidsAbleChancePovertyBabyCircumstancesAccessPlanningCyclesLocksSurvivingUnhealthyDeliveringPlaces To GoFamily PlanningChildbearingCycle Of Poverty Author:Melinda Gates
“I do the meatball recipe a lot. I think the army stew probably too. It's the most useful dish because it was born out of necessity and poverty and any idiot can make it in 20 minutes on a hot plate. It's cheap and uses readily available commercial ingredients. And it's delicious. It should be the great American dish - perfect late-night stoner dorm food for college kids on a budget.” ThinkingShouldUseKidsNightBornPerfectPovertyMinutesCollegeLateArmyHotAvailableIdiotBudgetsIngredientsPlatesDishesDeliciousRecipesGreat AmericanLate NightStewDormsStonersMeatballs Author:Anthony Bourdain
“If you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids.” PeopleIfsWantDoeImportantWholeKidsWealthPoorClassPovertyAchievementImportant ThingsIncomeAfrican AmericanGapsWorking ClassBetter LifeAchievement GapAmerican Poverty Author:Barack Obama
“The number-one reason women say they returned to their abuser is financial insecurity. Often they have kids with them. They say half of the 66 million women and kids living in poverty in the US wouldn't be if women were just paid their full dollar. That's an enormous impact we could make on child hunger.” IfsChildrenReasonKidsNumbersHalfPovertyMillionsPaidImpactDollarsFinancialHungerEnormousInsecurityAbusers Author:Patricia Arquette
“It is important to remember when reading Adam Smith or even when just thinking about Smith that the era that he lived in, we're not talking about poverty in a day when it meant not enough bedrooms for the kids, an old car, a black and white television. We're talking about a whole world where poverty meant not enough to eat.” ThinkingWorldImportantEnoughWholeKidsRememberReadingBlackWhiteTalkingPovertyCarTelevisionWhole WorldErasAdamBlack And WhiteBedroomRemember WhenNot TalkingOld Car Author:P. J. O'Rourke
“Sometimes, when you grow up in one of these poverty-stricken neighborhoods where the educational system isn't the best, you don't realize that you have any choices. Often, kids don't appreciate the choices available, as if it's either the street or nothing. I want them to understand that reality is what's relative to you, and that you can make choices that allow you to create a new reality for yourself.” IfsWantSometimesRealityKidsChoicesGrowsRealizingPovertyGrowing UpStreetsAppreciateAvailableEducationalNeighborhoodRelativeEducational System Author:Keke Palmer
“I think people have to remember where we were in 2009. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. We had an unemployment rate in double digits. We had poverty rates soaring. We had kids who were food insecure. Today in 2016, we have a lot less unemployment, a lot less poverty, and a lot fewer kids who are food insecure.” PeopleThinkingKidsTodayRememberPovertyLosingRateInsecureSoar Author:Tom Vilsack
“Kids who are middle class, socioeconomically, are surrounded by mentors. They have coaches, teachers, they have family friends, their parents have friends. They might have opportunities, they might have jobs that allow them to experience things that kids in poverty often don't have. Sometimes they come from dysfunctional families. And when you come from a family where money's a real challenge, then it might not be a priority to get you into a summer internship.” RealSometimesKidsOpportunityParentChallengesPovertyTeacherSummerCoachesPrioritiesMiddle ClassMentorFamily FriendsDysfunctional Family Author:Soledad O'Brien
“There are many cases in which gifted children have done great things without special school programs. There are also gifted kids who have been to special schools and achieved nothing that has benefited the world as a whole. Without solid evidence, I have no confidence that funding school programs for the intellectually gifted would do more good than the most cost-effective programs to help people in extreme poverty.” PeopleWorldChildrenDoneHelpingKidsSchoolPovertySpecialEvidenceProgramGreat ThingsNo Confidence Author:Peter Singer
“The solution for rising up kids in the income distributionlies is in creating better childhood environments for kids growing up, especially in low income families. And so what means such things like schools, the quality of neighborhoods. If you think about what's gone on in Baltimore, it's a place of tremendous concentrated poverty. People aren't really seeing a path forward and I think revitalizing places like that can have a huge impact, even in the face of globalization and changes in technology.” PeopleThinkingMeanKidsSchoolQualityPovertyTechnologyGrowing UpPathEnvironmentChildhoodSolutionsNeighborhoodGlobalization Author:Raj Chetty
“There's an evidence from a number of studies which show that where you grow up and the age at which you move to the suburbs or to a neighborhood that in general seems to have better conditions can really affect a child's outcomes. The kids who moved at young ages are dramatically better as adults. They're earning 30 percent more, they're 27 percent more likely to go to college, relative to the kids who stayed in the high poverty public housing projects. And so there's clear scientific evidence that you can change kids' outcomes just based on where they grow up.” KidsAgeMovingPovertyGrowing UpStudyCollegeEvidenceMovedNeighborhoodRelative Author:Raj Chetty
“One of the most durable successes of the war on poverty was to dramatically reduce the number of elderly poor in America. That's still true today. But, by contrast, child poverty has shot up over the last few years: A decade ago, about 16 percent of children in America were poor - which is a shockingly high percentage. But it's not as shocking as today, when we see that 22 percent of kids live in poverty.” ChildrenWarKidsTodayPoorPovertyContrastWar On Poverty Author:Sasha Abramsky
“Free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty, to help build a strong middle class, to help educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all the programs of government combined.” PeopleDoneHelpingGovernmentKidsStrongClassPovertyOur LivesMiddleProgramLiftsEnterpriseMiddle ClassEducateFree Enterprise Author:Mitt Romney
“I grew up in the midst of poverty but every black kid that I knew could read and write. We have to talk about the fact that we cannot educate for critical consciousness if we have a group of people who cannot access Fanon, Cabral, or Audre Lorde because they can’t read or write. How did Malcolm X radicalize his consciousness? He did it through books. If you deprive working-class and poor black people of access to reading and writing, you are making them that much farther removed from being a class that can engage in revolutionary resistance.” PeopleIfsWritingBookFactsKidsReadingBlackPoorConsciousnessClassPovertyGroupsGrewGrew UpCriticalAccessResistanceRevolutionaryMidstBlack PeopleEducateWorking ClassReading And Writing Author:Bell Hooks
“There’s no way that Michael Jackson or whoever Jackson should have a million thousand droople billion dollars and then there’s people starving. There’s no way! There’s no way that these people should own planes and there people don’t have houses. Apartments. Shacks. Drawers. Pants! I know you’re rich. I know you got 40 billion dollars, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need ONE house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean why have 52 rooms and you know there’s somebody with no room?! It just don’t make sense to me. It don’t.” PeopleIfsKnowsWayLifeNeedsShouldMeanTwoKidsHouseRoomsPovertyMillionsRichThousandShould HaveDollarsBillionsHungryMake SensePlanesPantsApartmentStarvingDrawersShack Author:Tupac Shakur