What other issues intersect with those of Poverty & Wealth?
- The use of prison labor in the U.S.?
- High rates of part-time employment?
- Increasing the use of unpaid internships?
- Short-term and long-term impacts of delaying a generation from entry into the workforce?
The NDN Conversation Kit asks groups to consider similar ideas together. Let’s begin by looking at the many communities that comprise America and a few facts about what it’s like to live in them, move up, over, or out of them during one’s lifetime. In July 2013, the New York Times published a front-page article about economic opportunities and mobility in America. Citing researchers from Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley the article describes how “one’s starting place matters”…
“Where you grow up matters,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty. … All else being equal, upward mobility tended to be higher in metropolitan areas where poor families were more dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods.”
Look up statistics for your own city with the interactive version created by the New York Times. Use their map to explore how place impacts poverty & wealth in your life, community, or region. Lighter colors represent areas where children from low-income families are more likely to move up in income distribution.
What effect will the Affordable Care Act have on the percent of people who will work full time? Benefits were started as a way for employers to compete for employees. With the availability of individual insurance, not only will people feel freer to switch jobs, but they will be able to be insured and work part time. Will this result in more employment opportunities?