Redefining Poverty in the United States
Heidi Selberg, Envision Board member
Earlier this year, the WBUR program “On Point” discussed poverty in the United States. The guests and their key points are outlined below. It’s remarkable that the points made so compellingly by sociologist Mark Robert Rank were outlined in a book published in 2004 and have received so little public discussion since. A key such point is that the majority of adults in the US will experience poverty as defined by the Federal Poverty Level during their lifetimes. This has important implications for any work designed to address poverty or upward mobility, as poverty is not experienced by a fixed group of people who need to work their way out of the situation. Rather, it is experienced widely.
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