Obama, here's how to help the poor: Educate both parents and their children

How expensive is it to get these kinds of results? Jeremiah Program’s cost per family is approximately $25,000 annually. That may sound like a lot, until one considers the alternatives. This same population – without a comprehensive, two-generation approach – is typically served piecemeal and at considerable cost to the public.

A poor, single mother and her child are often likely to utilize, for example, out-of-home placement (foster care, temporary guardianships) and chemical dependency treatment. They are also often likely to have encounters with the criminal justice system, require emergency room service, and need ongoing welfare support. In addition to being punitive and largely unsuccessful in breaking cycles of poverty, this kind of scatter shot government intervention is estimated to cost as much as $98,000 per family annually. That means that taxpayers save $6 for every one invested in Jeremiah families.

Similar success stories and program costs are demonstrated by organizations like Keys to Degrees in Beverly, Mass., and Career Advance in Tulsa, Okla.

Ascend, the family economic security program at the Aspen Institute, recently commissioned a study by Lake Research Partners to find out what single parents, again mostly mothers, themselves want and need. Parents surveyed in five different cities attested that they knew education was the key to uplift – both for their children and for themselves – and they liked the idea of programs that addressed their entire family. Though some did express ambivalence about residential approaches, which might feel isolating, there was an overall sense that single mothers, especially, want opportunities that educate multiple generations.

Though much hay has been made about the fact that Americans are facing the first time in history when the majority of parents are not confident that their kids will be “better off” than they are, there is one beautiful exception. Single mothers, when surveyed by Lake Research Partners, still believed that their kids had a chance at something better. One African American single mother in Detroit described her simple dream for her family: “A secure life, like for my children to have something that they can start with, but I think a lot of times we don’t have anything to start with.”

Programs that operate with an enlightened two-generation approach to eradicating poverty – educating parents and their children in a coordinated, supportive program – are just that: something to start with. As the presidential election season revs up, let’s remind the candidates that it is interventions like these – proven and profound – that will really make a difference in the quality of our citizens’ lives.

Courtney E. Martin is the author of “Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists,” in addition to four other books, and a speaker. Learn more about her at www.courtneyemartin.com.

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