“Rath, now 38, was the third generation in her family to endure a traumatized childhood that led to poverty, and now she is a single mom with six children of her own who might also be at risk.”
Lady Bracknell would say that to have one unplanned pregnancy may be regarded as misfortune, but that having six unplanned pregnancies looks like carelessness.
195
Question: if this program "helps families move to neighborhoods with a proven record of helping kids do better", who is left living in the neighborhoods with a proven record of not helping kids? Are those neighborhoods abandoned and then bulldozed?
96
Interesting - but not surprising - that Mr. Kristof fails to mention what other benefits Ms. Rath is receiving from the government. There is no mention of Ms. Rath having a job or receiving child support from any of the fathers of her children so I assume they are all on Medicaid, the SNAP program (food stamps), the WIC program, Section 8 housing payments to pay her rent, etc. etc. Judging by the photograph it seems one would need a car to live in Renton. Who is paying for that? Here's wishing Ms. Rath well in this social engineering experiment but as a taxpayer footing her bill it would be nice to know how much that bill is annually.
110
For those with an academic background, you might notice that this is a classic post hoc analysis study. They didn't predict on the front end, i.e., put forth a hypothesis, that moving to better neighborhoods would provide an advantage to children under 13 but not older siblings or adults. They simply milked the data until they found something that looked good. In science, that's really not playing by the rules. Not that the data isn't somewhat interesting, but this research needs to be replicated.
The problem with post hoc analysis, is that given enough variables, you are bound just by chance to find something that attains statistical significance. So if they hadn't found an effect for kids who were 13 or younger when they moved, they could have kept slicing and dicing the data -- ok it didn't work for 13 and younger kids, how about did it work for those whose family lived closer to the schools, and if that doesn't give us publishable results, how about those who joined the scouts versus playing soccer. How about those who picked musical instruments?
In short, in science you need to state very specifically what your hypothesis is (or are) then design a study that can falsify that hypothesis. I don't that happened here.
81
Nine out of 10 comments here are negative, fixating on this woman's 6 children. That's terribly sad to me. I rejoice that there's some indication that some people are getting a better chance at life, even if it's only a few. Why do you all begrudge these people their better prospects, preferring to condemn? Maybe if Ms. Rath had grown up in a better neighborhood and had had a better education, her "outcome" would have been more acceptable to you. The article says kids who have grown up in these better neighborhoods are less likely to have children when they are teenagers. Don't you think people with more choices are more likely to choose those other choices? I don't know this woman, but I fear that women in poverty-stricken areas latch onto a man as the answer, but those men feel just as hopeless and rudderless as the women. It's poverty and hopelessness, not moral turpitude, that lead to bad choices. The legacy of slavery and institutionalized racism has a lot to do with this conundrum, too. But you folks would never acknowledge that, would you?
I'm sorry, Mr. Kristof, that so many people read your columns just to cavil at a little good news. I thank you for making me hopeful for a few minutes (until I read all of these ungenerous comments).
136
I tried bargaining with a fireplace once. I told it if it would give me heat I would then go out and find some wood for it. Didn't work. To get something you have to give something otherwise it doesn't mean anything, it has no value, it's expendable. We are the product of our choices and live their consequences. Educated parents realize the value of a good education and attempt to pass that onto their children. It doesn't always work. The under educated find it more difficult to find opportunity to make good choices but it's not impossible. I'm all for giving a fireplace or wood, but not both.
27
Nicholas - Great article. Ties totally to recommendations in "The Color of Law" (2017) by Richard Rothstein. An eye-opening book on the history of racism in the USA. Rothstein documents how Federal law (from Social Security to the GI Bill to the (Un-)Fair Housing Act, to Tax Law on deductions for single family homes etc.) has unconstitutionally favored whites (like me) and hugely disadvantaged minorities over the generations. And, how our history textbooks skip over it.
America has a blindspot on this. That helps a bigot like Trump motivate voters (likely unaware of this history), disparage communities like Baltimore, that have suffered under it, as he stifles ideas that could ameliorate the situation. Trump's father profited greatly from racism in real estate and taught Donald how to keep it going. Too poorly-read and too selfish to know it, Trump is day by day perpetuating the harm Seattle's Experiment is trying to undo.
Let's hope the Seattle Experiment prevails.
47
Yes, and so can better parents.
23
The impoverished woman chose to have eight children and is then rewarded with an uptown address for herself and her brood. This is about stupidity more than anything else. It does not consider the brutal nuisance of having them section 8-ed next door. I sound like a Republican monster, but I’m left of Bernie. So why does this story bother me so?
90
Is it social engineering when people use seat belts to avoid deadly injuries?
Is it social engineering when men get PSA tests at 40 if familial history indicates a higher incident?
Is it social engineering when women have radical mastectomies if breast cancer is a strong possibility?
I do not understand why a block to pregnancy (and at a very low cost) is even debated.5
Sexual intercourse (the pre-cursor to pregnancy) has many triggers...intoxication...needing to feel loved...,etc.
No fault (99.8%) birth control remove the chance of pregnancy.
No doubt...issues of sex while intoxicated...feelings of low self worth, etc. still remain BUT the woman is not pregnant.
48
A quality neighborhood or community does matter. So, then why do we permit tens of millions of our citizens live in impoverished areas, rife with crime and drugs. What's more, 50% of childbirths are Medicaid funded or out of wedlock. What does that say about the responsibility of the future home life? I'm for a radical solution. If someone expects to have a child, one without thought or consideration as to how they plan to support them expect a dole, they should apply for it. Noteworthy is the pattern of behavior of many children in these families, often double digits, the welfare stipends, government debt. When it comes to society, flowcharts, critical scientific processes and analysis apply only to upper management, computer science and finance. This is no irrational thought, alt right bigotry, it is a dose of reality.
24
In my time, I have seen many beautiful theories killed by ugly facts, so before we rush into another ill-thought-out solution, let's hold the hallelujahs!
It all sounds so obvious. "Congress should move poor families to healthy neighborhoods." Why didn't I think of that?
But neighborhoods are not just physical structures -- homes, schools and hospitals and so on. Neighborhoods are people. So when poor families move to "healthy" neighborhoods, effectively poor neighborhoods are moving to healthy neighborhoods. Success depends on the poor families assimilating to the "healthy" neighborhoods' "white" middle class values. For that to happen, presumably the number of poor must families must be limited, or the newcomers will simply recreate the the dysfunctional neighborhoods they came from, resulting in "white flight" and the decline of healthy neighborhoods.
So even if the results hold up, there are likely to be limits to scaling up the experiments. We may run out of healthy neighborhoods to effect this transformation.
Even if there are some gains, there will never be enough. Expect complaints about the lack of diversity in the "healthy" neighborhood, lack of teachers who "look like" the children of the poor families, and so on. The cycle of racial name-calling will begin all over again. It will be even shriller if the strategy proves to be a failure. Count on Kristof to tell us that the failures are more evidence that whites just don't get it.
98
The idea this social engineering scheme could succeed in any shape or form is what separates progressives from conservatives.
21
David
Conservatives believe in social engineering, but it comes in a different form
1. Religion, cruel Christianity
2. Greed and unregulated selfishness
3. Patriarchy
4. Fear and rejection of evolution and science
5. Tribalism
6. 'free-market' healthcare nihilism
As opposed to sharing the wealth a little, altruism, noblesse oblige, plurality, science, evolution, modernity and basic affordable healthcare for all.
39
@David Yes, it's the fantasy element that repels people.
5
I am shocked and outraged at the judgement here. A woman chose to have 6 children, and many of you supposed liberals are outraged? I lean very progressive, and to me choice means CHOICE! You want to limit women’s reproduction based on income? How is this in any way different from telling a woman she should not have an abortion. Choice is Choice. This woman seems to honestly want her children to succeed. As a trauma survivor and single parent myself, I know this road and it isn’t easy. Shame on you anti-choice people.
26
@Christine Feinholz
Talking about choice, and especially CHOICE, did Jackie Rath ask her neighbors if they CHOSE to pay to bring up her children?
Let's not abuse the word.
68
@Christine Feinholz Your outrage is utterly misplaced. Choice also means living with the consequences of the choice. I have refrained from doing things countless times, things that may have benefited me immediately, because the longer term consequences would have been harmful. In the 1960s and 1970s we proclaimed night and day that a person should be able to do whatever he or she wanted, always with the justification that what I do to myself does not affect you. We liberals repeated this mantra 24/7. Well, it was nothing but a big lie repeated millions of times, as I found out over the succeeding years. When you now make a horrible choice, the welfare state will solve your problems with taxpayer money and blame your resulting problems on "systemic oppression" or some other convenient nonsensical excuse. I disagree.
63
These types of articles envision nice little poor people who never make a racket, have fistfights, steal from their neighbors and/or shoot up the neighborhood.
Raise wages so people aren't as poor.
37
Better sex education and planned parenthood would make a huge difference.
58
So maybe get the address before you have the kids?
That would take planning.
61
Perhaps I missed something reading the article, but its celebratory and optimistic points were devoid of the concrete facts about the program that would help readers learn how to support such a thing. A nice story but not hard-hitting journalism.
19
Six children? Why? Where are the fathers and why are the men not paying for the children they produce?
Humans have demonstrated that they are incapable of controlling their reproduction. We need to set up spay/neuter clinics for humans like we do for dogs and cats.
69
@June I think we will, eventually.
15
The author might have mentioned the work of William Julius Wilson on how neighborhoods become toxic in the first place.
15
So, families who left for the burbs were justified in doing so. Got it.
34
Single mother with six kids and no money. The new neighbors must be overjoyed. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
132
“You can take the people out of the slum, but you can’t take the slum out of the people.”
Remember that one?
48
Perhaps interviews with the neighbors should have been included?
75
Dang it! How depressing: It all comes down, most basically, to money.
I wanted love or intelligence or education to be mankind's saving grace, but it's pictures of dead presidents on green paper.
John Locke says, somewhere I can no longer find, that lack of money is man's greatest enemy, or words to that effect. Poverty is the new Satan.
Thus, we idealists must dine on materialist crow, it seems. (Marx is taunting me from the grave.)
8
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has analyzed the data and shows clear evidence that your zip code predicts your health and educational status (among other outcomes).
If relocating where we provide the social safety net improves the odds for successful outcomes, why not do it?
There but for the grace of god go you.
12
@Sandy Walter, correlation is not causation. Zip codes simply correlate with the kind of people that live in them. You can’t run away from the kind of person you are intrinsically; smart people do well in school and make healthy choices. The result of doing well is that they tend to make more money and live in better neighborhoods. Their children inherit their parents genes for intelligence and conscientiousness and repeat the cycle.
43
@Sandy Walter
It's got nothing to do with the zip code. It is who lives in the zip code whose values and behavior accounts for their better health and educational outcomes.
The whole point of Chetty's study is that young kids have a better chance of success if they absorb (predominantly white) middle class values. That is why older kids don't benefit as much as kids who spend their entire childhood in the middle class neighborhood.
37
Just wow! Get on board, little children, there's room for plenty more! Madame Warren, put this in your Policy Train and bring it to Washington.
12
So Jackie Rath is "determined to break the cycle of poverty" of which she is the third generation? Really?
Even though she has no less than six children with apparently no father around? Really?
Despite the fact that she had the last child at age 35-36, Mr. Kristof expects me to believe Ms. Rath sincerely desires to make life better for herself and her children.
Mr. Kristof is a warm and compassionate soul who need not be taken seriously.
89
Is transferring troubled families from one zip code to another the magic bullet for improving their lives? Ms Rath, the subject of this article, believes that her move with her six children to a better community gives her children a better chance to succeed. Perhaps so, but don't personal decisions like Ms. Rath's to have so many children by probably multiple fathers more seriously affect her children's prospects?
Black immigrants to his country come from dirt-poor countries like Haiti, Jamaica, West Indies, Nigeria and Ghana. They transcend these initial experiences and have group incomes far higher than native African Americans. The last three groups mentioned have incomes above the national average. Why not study the success of these black immigrants and see how their experience is relevant to improving the success of native African Americans. Maybe that's where the real magic bullet is.
72
It's beginning to look like the better address for children in the US is somewhere outside the US.
19
What obvious data. There is nothing new here, and Kristoff is just speaking platitudes.
We knew all of this fifty years ago. What has happened since then sort of kicked in around 1980. When upward mobility was cut off for this country.
You can pull out all the good neighborhoods you want in Seattle or elsewhere.
I cannot believe the United States refuses to budge beyond this...
5
"blighted neighborhoods...areas rife with crime, teenage pregnancy and educational failure."
In agriculture, a blight is a fungal disease that destroys crops. Is that the idea, that in certain neighborhoods crime, teenage pregnancy, and educational failure just waft up out of the soil and strike the unsuspecting residents? I guess it's just bad luck that some people's neighborhoods have bad dirt.
24
Poverty has got almost nothing to do with academic achievement in el-hi aged school children.
Race has absolutely nothing to do with academic achievement in el-hi aged school children.
97% of the "achievement gap" is directly attributable to one singe factor that no Democrats and certainly not the NYT are willing to acknowledge.
The presence of 1 parent in a home vs. 2 parents is THE MOST IMPORTANT factor that tells us whether a child will succeed or fail in school.
Period. End of Sentence.
Minnesota did a study on this a decade or so ago, yet that study and anything related to it (it was done by the Dept. of Education) has since been scrubbed because it doesn't fit the progressive narrative that zip code means everything to a kid, whereas two parents in the home means absolutely nothing.
59
@Erica Smyth
Unless that single parent is someone like Ann Dunham, the mother of Barack Obama. Of course she brought in two stable, engaged and involved grandparents for little Barry.
For a study to be reliably meaningful it must prove replicable, so the one you quote looks pretty thin for the absoluteness of the evidence you claim from it. There might be a different reason why it was shelved than the one you suggest. I'm inclined to expect a beneficial correlation with future income, sure, but this to declare this one environment factor to be 97% responsible reeks after dogmatically religiously willing this effect to be Divine Retribution Truth, no?
11
The wages and welfare programs might be adequate if one doesn’t put themselves in the situation of single mother with 6 kids.
44
Poverty strikes along racial lines, gender lines, education lines, and adaptation lines. In the adaptation department the strongest factor causing poverty is reluctance to step in line with the corporatist rat race powered by pay-for-play science pushing blind consumerism from whatever Big Producers (see a perspective to) reap giant profits. Their artificial produce is always far more profitable than a natural, environmentally friendly alternative, so they'll marginalize or outlaw the latter, while pushing the toxins that turn a profit. Contrary to the myth that is malevolently or stupidly pushed, focusing on a few star authors, bloggers, manufacturers or traders, money in back-to-nature and back-to-spirit-and-soul lifestyles is extremely scarce.
Of course it helps where you live. "Location, location, location" is all that counts, even co-shaping education, education, and education. But discrimination and segregation by racial, gender, education, and adaptation lines are still striking, even as we live in the same neighborhood. And it just recently struck me how strong a driving force of such segregation along adaptation lines you, Nicholas Kristof, are. One of the worst to be met. Completely unwilling to give those who made a detour around the dominant demands and exclusions and consequently made careers outside the dominant career spectrum any path back in, any path toward reconciliation, any space or breath.
Accordingly you gave Marianne a 1 for her debate performance.
2
@Buonista Gutmensch
To clarify for those who did not read the debate grading reports, which of course vacillate between a serious thing and a gag, I get that: as motivation for the lowest possible grade Kristoff added that Marianne Williamson didn't belong on the debate stage (in the first place). If only the already career rich can move into the ultimate neighborhood, Washington, you put a full stop on the most important neighborhood mobility. That's ethically unacceptable from a social justice standpoint. I hereby salute, laud, applaud the DNC for having arbitrated differently.
6
I think it’s incumbent on the receiving neighborhood to welcome their new neighbors and include them in community functions. Judging from some of these comments, the relocated families will most likely be feared and isolated.
15
The answer is quite simple: Environment influences behavior.
10
@Jackyee' You're right. And if your environment has 2 parents, you've got the same odds of succeeding or failing no matter your skin color of the size of your parent(s) W-2.
Ask a teacher if they're rather have a class full of rich white and black and brown kids with only one parent at home or a class full of poor white, black and brown kids who have 2 parents at home involved in their schooling.
They'll choose the latter every single time.
24
The woman mentioned here has six children. Six! Who can afford to raise and educate six children these days? No one but those very, very well to do. But here people bring children into this world without being able to take care of them. To expect society to pay for the care of these children. Mind you, children remember how they were brought up. It has become part of their live, one that they will always remember.
Yes, you can put people into a better area but unless they are willing to change things themselves, a better address alone won't be the answer.
83
So, you’re saying the women is dumb and had six kids so essentially she and her kids should say in their neighborhood and be more likely to experience trauma and poor outcomes? Do I have that right?
The entire point of this program is exposing lower income, at risk kids to better possibilities. Guess what, the mother clearly didn’t have that luxury. Hopefully there can be improvement for both her life, and the lives of her children, so their generation doesn’t continue to experience poor outcomes, which factually lead to higher crime rates, healthcare costs, and other negative impacts to society.
Giving as many kids as much stability and opportunity as financially plausible can only improve outcomes for the society as a whole.
19
It's really hard to believe that there could be so much complaining about a program that seems to be having positive outcomes for the next generation. Success breeds success. Let's see more of it !
18
don't pop the champagne corks yet. Lot of unanswered questions. First, from a brief perusal of the 2015 it appears that while there is an income difference between controls and those who move as kids to better neighborhoods, the incomes are still small. Second, we're talking about kids in their 20's still so it would be important to know if income differences persist.
Third, it's not clear to me that these people were actually randomly selected. There was a group selected and some won the lottery to get to move, others didn't, but it's not clear what the criteria were to be in the group that got the lottery chance to begin with. Were people deemed more likely to take advantage of a better environment selected?
Fourth, I would imagine that those who got the vouchers to move were aware fo what was going on and were aware they were getting special treatment. That might create in and of itself higher expectations.
Fifth, we don't know what about the better neighborhoods led to better outcomes.
Sixth, assuming this really works, we don't know if it's scalable.
Seventh -- do we know how the kids who moved to the better neighborhoods are doing relative to the kids in their age cohort who already lived there?
Finally, intrinsic ability is important in determining who does well economically. I didn't see any controls for that.
21
@Ralphie
We assume, in answer to all of your concerns, that faculty of Harvard's economics department, know how to conduct a valid study.
6
@D. Smith, please explain why on earth you'd make that assumption? Few if any studies of this kind are conclusive. It is the job of any thinking person to try to find the weaknesses in order to arrive a little close to the truth AND to be able to design a better follow-on study.
19
@D. Smith I have a doctorate and work in social science research and while I am not at Harvard, I publish in the same journals. I can tell you that blindly assuming that any social science research provides a final answer makes as much sense as believing a single medical study does. How many times in the past decade has this or that diet been linked to weight loss? The same is true here. The concerns raised by Ralphie are all legitimate.
I'll focus on one (#4), something that can be referred to as the "Hawthorne effect." In the 1920s a number of studies were conducted in IL at the "Hawthorne Works." In the studies various elements of the work environment were modified (e.g., lighting) but no matter what they did productivity increased. Later it was suggested the productivity increases were due to the employees knowing they were part of a study, and working harder because of that.
In this case it's quite likely that those selected to move to new neighborhoods simply took advantage of the chance given to them. The question is whether it was something specific to them, or if in fact simply moving to a better neighborhood had the desired effect. If the latter, wouldn't it make more sense to find a way to make the neighborhoods they are in better? Furthermore, can everyone in a "bad" neighborhood be relocated to a "good" one? And if you do that, what density of relocation can occur before the "good" neighborhoods decline?
It's not as simple as zip code.
28
Why is it all about children? What about their parents? Aren’t they human beings? Don’t they deserve a second chance? Some of these women burdened by numerous children are pretty young. They can still get education, have a job, find joy and meaning in life - if they stop popping out kids. But such measures have the perverse effect of incentivizing reckless breeding rather than helping young people from impoverished backgrounds to get education and jobs. The greatest predictor of poverty is being a young single mother. So what is the logic of offering better chances to those who have already fallen into this trap? I would rather my tax money went to supporting young single adults who are getting education or perhaps have a great entrepreneurial idea but are hampered by lack of funding and mentoring. As for these children - the best you can do for them and their parents is to prevent them from being born.
34
@Mor -- "women burdened by numerous children". Excuse me, but there is birth prevention. Not long ago a 30 year old mother was killed. She had eight children. Eight children at the tender age of 30? Something is wrong.
People need to not bring children into this world unless they can care for them. It is wrong to have so many children which society has to take care of.
40
@Don Juan please read my comment before replying. What you argue is exactly what I said. "Burdened" is a figure of speech.
10
As long as there is a shortage of decent jobs, there will be poor neighborhoods. Right now, they are filled to a great extent with people who have been stuck there for generations. People not born in these neighborhoods generally avoid winding up there, but more often find that their neighborhoods and neighbors become poor when the decent jobs go away.
If these programs work, poor neighborhoods will be filled largely with real losers whose ancestors and family once did better. Politically speaking, it is unlikely that many of these programs will be able to work.
A more workable solution is to work to make all jobs decent, although this would interfere with the businesses that depend on offering jobs that are not decent and also with businesses that just want to compete within their sector and not have more extensive societal agendas imposed on them.
As long as our game of musical chairs does not include seats for everyone (some more comfortable than others), some will be left standing when the music stops. We dream that if we all work hard enough, seats for all will appear and we will all be better than average. This is the American illusion passing itself off as the American dream.
8
@sdavidc9, if you want seats for all in our rapidly automating economy, we need to stop tolerating illegal immigration.
23
School funding is a big driver here, but ALSO as someone who grew up in a middle-upper class neighborhood while my parents made middle-lower class income, I think a big part of this is that We can only be motivated to strive for outcomes when we know others who live those outcomes. If you’re not exposed to stability and prosperity than its quite difficult to imagine this up on your own, and therefore as a youth makes it quite difficult to really care about school/saving $, etc.
29
This is one important reason to stop single family zoning in many suburbs. Build small apartment units that are affordable so that there is an income mixture in neighborhoods allowing less privileged children to attend good schools.
12
It seems every Kristof column starts with an anecdote and wishful thinking.
Given that this is an experiment, is there funding to make it widespread and neighborhoods that welcome Section 8 vouchers?
If $2600 is 2.2% of the cost of a voucher, then math indicates the voucher costs taxpayers over $118,000. Quite a generous benefit if Kristof's math is to be believed.
25
The first step to a more financially secure and overall successful life for yourself and your children is to start by having fewer children.
Regardless of the neighborhood a person lives in, practicing responsible family planning will be the major factor in the quality of life for you and your children.
Having 6 children as a single parent or even as a married parent in this day and age is not responsible- even if you could afford to have so many children.
In future, I would opine that government programs for welfare and better housing need to be coupled with a limit to the number of children and free birth control.
You can have as many children as you want to- but don't expect the taxpayers to subsidize them.
109
@marian -- This is the elephant in the room but it's not cool to point it out. Have only the child/children you can afford. Don't expect society to be responsible for their upbringing. All you do is provide a bad example which your off-spring will follow, to once again end up in the same trap. How many generations of this behavior we have now? With no end in sight and no prospect of doing better? Society can only do so much. Individuals have to bear responsibility. Government: stop supporting people who have child after child they cannot afford to raise and educate. This is not cruel. Working people, even in the middle class, cannot afford more than 2 children but the poor have more? We have a disconnect here.
65
The vast majority of taxes we pay go to pay for wars and destruction for the profits of very few, yet undereducated individuals that have experienced trauma and do not “family plan” are the real economic problem tax payers face?!
12
@marian
This person was chosen by Kristoff to illustrate the program. That isn't typical at all.
3
public schools in better neighborhoods are better. Public schools and charter schools in better neighborhoods get more. The money those well-off parents send to those public schools should be distributed throughout the district so all can rise. Wealthy parents who don't pay tuition should contribute to the greater good. There was a time when public schools could not accept gifts and influence from the private sector at all. Corporate interests have spoiled this.
3
@x teacher, in your neck of the woods, schools in better neighborhoods may get more $, but in most of the country, that’s not true. Urban school districts with high poverty levels get more funding per student than most middle class+ suburbs. Within districts, high poverty schools usually get more money than lower poverty ones.
We have spent the past 50 years spending extra money on the education of low income minority children, with little to show for it. The score gap stopped closing in the mid-seventies, marking the end of easy and obvious targets for improvement. Even smartboards and classroom sets of iPads haven’t helped. (Incidentally, gifts from the private sector pay for all kinds of extra goodies in inner city schools, not suburban ones.)
39
This is a tried and true program that should happen in every major city. There is no excuse, in the richest country in the world for children to be condemned to the deadly cycle of generational poverty, the school to prison pipeline system in poor neighborhoods needs to be eradicated now.
11
sounds good but in many communities, cities and states there is a shortage of housing of any kind, including "affordable." Need to work on expanding the housing stock to make this program a reality for more families.
12
@Carol O -- well, people have to live in areas that they can afford. It affects all of us. We'd love to live in the best part of town but frankly, can't afford it.
15
@Carol O
Seattle is one of the most expensive cities in USA for housing. I know, because nearly all my relatives live there.
6
This is a great answer to exclusion to success by zip code. Here lies the answer. Slowly but surely a movement of families into better caring and successful school districts without upsetting large imbalances in the schools themselves. That and better paying jobs through better unionization will end a lot of inequalities. It will be a slow process but if this democracy is going to flourish it is the only way.
5
Isn’t the real goal to eradicate poverty? Not sure cherry picking a few individuals will solve the overall problem. How much money has been spent since Johnson’s war on poverty campaign started? And what do we still have? Poverty.
We can start with guaranteed basic income and stop welfare. We wouldn’t have to worry about the jobs for welfare workers since they would also receive a monthly GBI check.
7
@Prudence Spencer -- basic income for every person would not stop irresponsible people to have a lot of children just for the sake of collecting.
Basic salary, explored in Europe than decided it wouldn't work. Provide jobs for people, not handouts. Handouts is what got us in this welfare mess in the first place.
17
Makes sense.
I'd hypothesize it's a consequence of socializing children into "upwardly mobile" norms like staying in school, not having kids out of wedlock, staying married, deferring the short term and climbing that career ladder.
Why else would living in a neighborhood with more dads around (regardless if your particular dad is around) itself be a significant predictor in life outcomes?
The only concern I'd have is the community tipping point where the anti-social norms become the default. I know many studies have shown that school integration doesn't harm white kids (i.e., no change in test scores), but I don't think I've seen a study that shows a significant *benefit* to white kids earnings or educational attainment (most of these seem to only cite "soft" benefits like having more diverse friends or an open mind).
What we really need is an anti-poverty model that unambiguously helps both white and black kids (not helping one class at the expense of another). A reason to explain to white families why it is materially better for them to go to a diverse school. So for instance, maybe we could subsidize diverse school in particular so class sizes are materially smaller than all-white schools?
13
This whole experiment overlooks the glaring lack of will to improve poor neighborhoods. These poor people don’t need to be moved to better off ones, their’s need improving. Let’s first realize how poor neighborhoods become poor: the vacating of a tax base means the disappearance of basic services and other infrastructure tied to capital. Also let’s see what happens when dozens of families move into particular zip codes... the cycle begins again.
30
@Scott, poor neighborhoods become poor when rising crime, especially shoplifting and the occasional riot, drives businesses out of the area. Basic services are funded citywide, so as long as the whole city doesn’t do the Detroit thing, poor neighborhoods have the same level of support for schools, utilities, fire, ambulance, and police as everyone else does.
14
@Scott -- we saw once nice neighborhoods change to ghetto. How did this happen? People who moved into these areas didn't care. Trash everywhere (even when you are poor you can be tidy) along with extreme violence. It's a self-made misery that only those that have created this mess can solve.
30
This appears to indicate that Seattle City Council and King County Council have "given up" on whole neighborhoods within their confines - explicitly by embracing this policy. The County and City is simply saying its cheaper to just move people to the burbs that to work to resolve the structural problems within the more urban environs.
24
The better neighborhood idea is great. thanks Mr Kristof. But while we are waiting to sort this out a far easier way for a disadvantaged woman to move ahead is already here. Education about and access to effective birth control, and if necessary abortion. 6 children!
51
@Honeybluestar
Condoms are neither expensive to buy nor complicated to use. I’ll bet you can get them for free at your local Planned Parenthood, and if necessary somebody at Planned Parenthood will explain the intricacies of using them.
16
This is right on. The test program that led to Section 8 housing vouchers was incredibly successful. They carefully selected the families for the voucher program, and they ensured that the families used the assistance to move to a better neighborhood. Finally, most importantly, the recipient families were spread out into different neighborhoods and school systems. But the Section 8 housing program that succeeded the pilot project lacked the same important controls. As a result, the program destabilized additional neighborhoods, spread poverty and crime, and didn’t have much positive effect for the families who were supposed to benefit.
A program that focuses on families with very young children, ensures that the family moves to an objectively better (but not wealthy) neighborhood, strictly limits the number of voucher families in any particular neighborhood or school system, provides follow-up services, and is selective about the families (preferencing families most likely to succeed) can almost certainly do much good and change the life trajectory for many children. If the criticism is “what about those left behind?” I’d suggest that saving some people from generational poverty is better than saving none. And if the program goes on long enough...
We should be thinking about resolving problems that took generations to develop over the course of generations, not election cycles.
13
This whole experiment overlooks the glaring lack of will to improve poor neighborhoods. These poor people don’t need to be moved to better off ones, their’s need improving. Let’s first realize how poor neighborhoods become poor: the vacating of a tax base means the disappearance of basic services and other infrastructure tied to capital. Also let’s see what happens when dozens of families move into particular zip codes... the cycle begins again.
8
If "all those who think that poverty is hopeless" looked beyond the U.S. of A., they might conclude that it's only hopeless here, and for a reason: low wages, a system which ensures workers are powerless and social welfare programs which are laughably wanting. compared to the rest of the rich industrialized world.
Of course, there is a neo-liberal solution: ship a few kids to a nicer neighborhood...
And best of all that's a "low cost experiment", quite unlike our constant wars, corporate welfare, government bailouts and tax cuts.
15
So, basically, children from bad homes who are raised in good neighborhoods do better than children from bad homes who are raised in bad neighborhoods. That probably does work, but it can’t be scaled up. It is only effective if the surrounding neighborhood is overwhelmingly composed of stable, well-behaved families. Bring in more than a handful of dysfunctional families and the positive results will evaporate.
73
@Z97. Why do you assume living in a bad neighborhood means the home is bad??? Poverty does not mean the people are dysfunctional nor does economic level insure function! Many people working very hard at multiple jobs live on poor neighborhoods. Systemic poverty is caused by the system, that’s what needs to change. Addressing economic inequality, health and educational disparity, and lack of opportunity is where the US needs to do a lot of work if this country is to survive.
12
@JMC, I agree, not all families in bad neighborhoods are dysfunctional. There are many people who work hard at low-wage jobs and really try to do right by their children. The problem is that the neighborhoods they can afford are also filled with a high percentage of bad actors.
One change that would help children in these neighborhoods would be to institute tracking in elementary school. That way there would be a reward for behaving well and paying attention in school. Those children who could would be placed in a class with their higher performing peers and be able to focus on learning without disruption from the bad apples. The bad apples would be given the remedial help they need, both academic and behavioral, with the ultimate reward of being able to be in a good class, with field trips and other goodies. Sounds harsh, but it would teach children that success brings benefits, and that you only succeed if you put effort into your work and obey the rules reasonably well.
Currently, we are not allowed to give grades lower than a C, even if a student completely refuses to do the work. No one is ever held back, so there is no external motivation to put in any effort. Also, consequences, like sitting in from recess, are forbidden as being “punative”. The only thing we are allowed to do is bribe kids with treats paid for out of their own pockets.
In short, we need to start actually holding children accountable if we want them to become successful adults.
40
@JMC -- systematic poverty is caused the people who bring children into this poverty without sufficient or any means to care for these children properly, make sure they'll get a good education, etc.
This "systemic poverty" is not caused by society but by those who don't care what happens to a child they bring into the world.
23
Better neighborhoods have better schools. Education is one of the keys to changing the cycle of poverty for most children and their families.
8
@penney albany, better neighborhoods have better students, not better schools. I live in an area that experienced white flight in the 60’s. The buildings, teachers, and district stayed the same, but the student population went from partly to almost entirely black within less than a decade. Schools went from high achieving, peaceful places to learn to fight-filled buildings with few students able to do grade level work.
Whether we accept it or not, success or failure depends most on the intrinsic qualities of the individuals involved: primarily intelligence and conscientiousness. Not everyone has the same levels of those traits, and those who are less smart and well-behaved end up in lower socioeconomic positions than those whose natural endowments are higher. Unfortunately for the egalitarian dream, those traits are highly heritable.
52
@Z97. Look at the funding disparity for public schools. The amount spent in suburbs school districts is sometime double what is spent in inner city districts. Funding is tied to property taxes and therefore the resources are not equitably distributed. NYC many years ago sued NYS for the disparity and won a settlement that was never paid. Years of neglect can it be blamed on the students in the schools.
1
@JMC, actually, there is no funding disparity. Some of the best funded schools in the country are those in violent, poor, minority neighborhoods.
Also, as I pointed out above, the student population is what matters, not the dollars spent or even the quality of the teachers.
22
When you move a large family like Amina's from a zip code where there is higher than average exposure to carcinogens, violence, lack of access to clean water and/or healthy food, and so on, to a zip code where these problems are less prevalent we still need to deal with the physiological changes in their brains and bodies that have already occurred in the older children due to the previous exposure. The damage that has been done doesn't stay in the old zip code.
I'm excited to hear about the results of this work but it is also discouraging when you are looking at this program as being statistically meaningful to only the youngest of Rath's six children.
Absorbing a family of six into a new school system requires a significant and long-term investment of money and commitments from different agencies for each child. Just because kids are in school all day shouldn't lead people to think that mental health services should be part of the curriculum - it isn't. Teachers go into education because they want to teach. Period. When all of these other expectations are thrown on teachers we can understand why most people who become teachers leave the profession within the first four years of service.
And, Heck yes - it will very expensive but worth every penny.
7
Parents are responsible for the kind of life they can offer the kids they have and they often size their family according; a 'better neighborhood' usually has more financial and other resources because of higher property taxes. I don't see why those neighborhoods should be responsible for the uplifting other people's kids.
67
@George eliot Because as a nation we have a shared responsibility. Every bad neighborhood with high unemployment is a drag on our economy, taking prime working age men out of the workforce and into jail which we pay for, costing us in social services which we pay for in state and federal taxes.
32
@george eliot
Your comment is chilling. Everyone needs some kind of help sometime in their life. Especially children.
21
@Ken, nonsense! We don’t just TAKE working age men into jail based on their address; those men commit serious crimes, crimes which harm the neighborhood, and are locked up in an attempt to reduce further damage to society.
Ironically, the intervention most likely to improve the situation in such neighborhoods would be to stop tolerating illegal immigration. I have watched over the past thirty years as hispanic immigrants, many illegal, have taken over all the employment areas that used to be filled by the descendents of African slaves.
14
I skimmed this. Isn't this like saying that if kids were born rich they wouldn't be born poor? I feel like the article is saying everybody should be born in the top 30% financially. Perhaps neighborhoods are brought down by overbreeding parents who have too many kids to look after. It's always the rich who are the criminals and the poor who are the victims. What if the rich are the victims of the poor? Most NYC parents I know feel like they MUST earn enough to buy property in a good area (TriBeCa, New Canaan, Rye, Armonk, Westport) or forever be bad parents. Most upper middle class parents are terrified of raising their kids in bad places with bad schools.
34
@Anti-Marx. Over breeding parents? What an appalling choice of phrase.
1
@Rennie Carter
We have population issues. I use the term "biological greed." People say I'm greedy, if I want to own three homes or three cars. I think other people are (biologically) greedy, if they want to have five children. I'm an atheist (I don't believe in any divine mandate to multiply).
21
This article re-hashes earlier research—and earlier NYT articles—from 2015 and 2016, all of which confuse correlation with causation.
Indeed, this article admits as much: “It’s still unclear what the secret sauce [causation] is, although apparently it has something to do with decent schools, less poverty, lots of dads present in families, and positive social norms.” That is, a number of factors may be involved here, but we don’t really know what it is about moving kids to “better” addresses that improves their outcomes.
Further, the article (and the underlying research) does not address the well known social phenomenon of “tipping,” when white residents become outnumbered by non-whites and flee to further suburbs, a process that has led to most large US cities to have majority-minority populations.
For example, in this article, the receiving suburb, Renton, is about 49% non-Hispanic white; is there a point, as with so many other communities, when too many non-whites will lead white families to move from Renton to less-minority communities? The article does not address this issue. (Also, Renton ranks 67th out of 72 Washington State communities in crime rates, which makes one wonder just how good a Renton address is.)
It is not feasible to move all minority families and kids into better neighborhoods; besides, isn’t that giving up on the families and kids who are left behind?
Isn’t the real answer to improve all communities and all kids’ prospects?
26
I am really disappointed by the lack of depth of this article. Why do immigrants come to the US? The answer is in the title of the article. Why do some parents give up their children for adoption? Same answer. Why did white people leave cities for suburbs?
It is unfortunate that so many responses to the article are negative towards the actors in the content. Negativity should be towards this writer who is shallow here. Dig deeper. I disagree with this experiment because it deals with problems of poverty and violence indirectly. Those problems can be dealt with directly just as efficiently. School needs to be rethought and so does zoning.
6
@jhb. And how long should we think about this? We've thought long enough. But, sure, let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
1
In this case Jackie does not “need a footstool” - she needs to learn how to use contraceptives. Six kids and how many fathers? Children learn from their parents and it appears Jackie has extremely low self esteem issues, No change of address will alter these fundamental issues.
55
@Maureen
I suspect Jackie knew the mechanics of using a condom.
Condom use can fail, though, and I’m sure there are some women who became single mothers in spite of using a condom.
But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a single condom failure may be regarded as misfortune, while six condom failures looks like carelessness.
17
You ignored the results of the study. Jackie's children stand a better chance in life.
Six kids.
I am all for helping people but can we ask them to stop having so many kids? Children are expensive. They require thoughtful care. When I hear about people with six kids needing help what it tells me is that five kids were abused, for years, and nothing happened.
Beyond the societal costs created by irresponsible breeding there are the costs on the individual children. Parents have always been, and will always be, the primary cause of a child's success or failure.
51
Yes a better neighborhood will give a child a better chance but what people have to remember is that all children should be looked at as the future and who knows what they may become if given the opportunity, maybe the doctor that finds the cure for cancer or the diplomat that brings world peace, who knows.
1
"For all those who think that poverty is hopeless, that nothing can change — read on!" .... Well meaning Mr. Kristof writes. For most of us emigrants who came to USA with nothing, if we read this we would be in the pits! But no, according to my personal experience and according to NYT articles, we, poor emigrants, perform really well! So, it must be something else! Not poverty! I bet it is the state of your mind, willingness to work extremely hard, willingness to be extremely frugal.
20
Generational poverty is a unique problem. Immigrants who arrive in this country poor are a) a self-selecting group of people who are more audacious, helpful, and/or ambitious than average; b) not necessarily sufferers of generational poverty, and if they are, the act of immigration creates the radical change in environment that American-born generationally poor people also need in order to improve their circumstances.
5
This is the KEY reality that is needed----"lots of dads present in families"!! It makes a HUGE change in outcomes. It has been shown that the "poor" family doesn't have to have a father present but that surrounding families having fathers present makes a big difference.
How important are fathers? Here is some real, scary and stunning data. The last URL says that 26 of 27 mass shootings were made by perpetrators (males) who were fatherless. I'm willing to bet $1,000 to $10 that the shooter in El Paso will be found to be fatherless, or mostly so. We need to pay strong attention to the real costs of fatherlessness. The inner rage stemming from that fact must be recognized and addressed. Seattle's experiment may be part of the answer.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/06/18/the-fatherless-epidemic-in-america-why-dont-have-daddy/
http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequences-of-fatherlessness/
https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/the-real-root-causes-violent-crime-the-breakdown-marriage-family-and
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/02/27/of_27_deadliest_mass_shooters_26_of_them_were_fatherless_435596.html?fbclid=IwAR2T0ruM9S858cjdsHUslLg5Z6fDt_54qJ010tUJryUK82SW-1C600foBeY
Thank you, Nicholas, for bringing this to our attention.
5
Fathers and mothers are important. Of course two caring parents is ideal, but this is not the majority pattern today. Perhaps your analysis needs to extend to why so many marriages fail or why fewer people are opting for marriage? Not all children raised by a single parent turn into mass killers. There are multiple determinants at work, important not to reduce everything to a single factor lest we miss something important.
2
There is this famous Chinese story of Mencius's mother moving three times called Meng Mu San Qian (孟母三迁). Mencius is one of the most important Chinese philosophers, second in importance after Confucius. The story goes that his father died young and his mother had to raise him alone. At first they lived near a cemetery, and young Mencius would watch and imitate the mourning and weeping adults. His mother decided that won't do. She moved next to a marketplace. Soon enough, young and precocious Mencius started to copy the hawkers' behavior. He would pretend to slaughter pigs and hawk the parts. Again, this will not do and Mencius' mother moved again in search of a better environment. This time, they ended up near a school. Mencius started to watch the students and scholars and modeled his behavior accordingly. I had to memorize these Chinese stories when I was a child (and where my parents encouraged me to hang out with children whose grades were better than mine so that I can learn from them). I think it is only after I became a parent that I realized its truth and also how it shaped my thinking. It would be wonderful if this program works and can be implemented more broadly.
18
Jackie Rath deserves our support. First for acting to improve her children’s futures, and second for allowing her story to be told.
However, Mr. Kristof is using Ms. Rath’s story to advance an argument on social policy, and this has to be answered in kind.
If the government moves too many low-opportunity people into high-opportunity areas, these areas cease to be high-opportunity. It’s like placing a disruptive child into an orderly schoolroom. It can be done once, and maybe more if the school can pay for behavioral aides, but it cannot be done indefinitely. This has to be fairly acknowledged at the start, not wished away with some vague talk about inclusion or diversity.
The second problem is more subtle. It can be solved in part by birth control, but only in the sense that obesity can be solved by eating less food. A single mother with six children has already been coached multiple times on using birth control.
Why does her daughter Amina even exist? Why do most of her other children exist? Was it a desire to bring a man into her life? An act of defiance against the social workers that were trying to “control” her? Personal religious belief? Unwillingness to have an abortion?
These are individual problems, and outside the scope of Mr. Kristof’s article. But they’re not beyond the reach of social policy, and I think that Ms. Rath could have given us some answers from her own experience. These would have been more useful than Raj Chetty’s magical thinking.
28
From your pen to our leaders in this republic. What could be better than individualizing the federal support for housing? It almost sounds Republican. The result of this program would put economic burden in education and health care in communities who accept the voucher. Well then let those federal funds follow the housing. Maybe couple this also with targeting areas for relocation that are searching for workers but cannot find them. Wow, federal support for businesses. Hmm add in infrastructure and renewable energy programs and I smell opportunities for bipartisanship.
My husband works for a low income, urban school district.
a) all of these districts - at least in Connecticut - ALREADY get the majority of their funding from the state, NOT property taxes. It is not lack of funding that is hurting these schools. It is that they are full of students who don't want to, or in many cases can't, learn or fully function behaviorally in a classroom.
b) what makes neighborhoods and schools "good" or "bad" is the people living in them.
My husband grew up in a "ghetto" with immigrant parents who spoke no English and had almost no formal education. Within 10 years they had a house in the suburbs, purely from the fruit of their hard work at multiple jobs and savings. His parents stayed married. They were frugal and hardworking. They used birth control to only have two kids, both who grew up to earn graduate degrees and become professionals.
No matter where you live, if you make smart choices, you can find your way up. And no matter where you live, if you make bad choices - unwed parenthood, wasting money, not showing up regularly to work, cursing out your teachers, breaking the law - you are going to fail.
Putting people from bad neighborhoods in good ones does nothing to address the conditions that created the "bad" neighborhood to begin with.
We will not come close to dealing with poverty in this country until we can honestly acknowledge that there are serious cultural problems in many low income communities, both black and white.
140
What do you believe leads people to make the good vs bad choices you’ve laid out?
From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly driven by childhood experiences and the environment they grow up in. This includes experiences with family, experiences in school, experiences with friends, experiences with other adults. Maybe the first cannot be changed by this (though up for debate) but, to me, it feels that the others will be changed.
Of course, if we can’t find / agree on the the data supporting what makes babies grow up to make good vs bad decisions, there’s really no point in discussing anything else.
5
It will only work if the families who receive assistance behave in a way that will help a child be successful. Choosing a conscientious, non-violent man who doesn’t drink to excess or use drugs to father her children would be a good start for a mother who wants successful kids. She can also help by not bringing home a bunch of temporary boyfriends for her kids to become attached to and then lose. She should promote stability and a predictable schedule, make sure the apartment is clean and well kept, avoid having too many guests who take up parking spots in the neighborhood. She should teach the kids to follow neighborhood norms. If they are good neighbors and the kids act like the other kids, they will be better accepted. Unfortunately, I am aware of too many families in Section 8 housing where the mother had a drug dealer boyfriend or there have been constant domestic violence calls.
28
Sure, where a child grows-up, i.e., neighboorhood and schools, can positively impact a child's future, but how a child grows-up, i.e., with a caring family, including a father, discipline and guidance, can have a much more lssting positive impact.
Being raised by loving and caring sane positive drug-free parents makes all the difference in the world to a child's future.
It is a given that a child's chance to succeed in life is greatly influenced by parental conduct and decisions.
9
I read heartbreaking accounts of single mothers struggling to provide for their children with little/no support system.
I always wonder to myself......is there no paternal support at all? My child's father was forced to pay through a wage garnishment by a court. When he died, thank God there were SS survivor benefits.
I still needed help from relatives/church/neighbors. Without a support network, even a small one; it is my opinion that a single mother will be crushed by the responsibilities.
I realize many men will never support their kids or work in order to have a Social Security record. It would be so helpful if other paternal family members would step up and help.
13
@Cynthia Lewis, in an informal way, paternal family members do help. The problem is that they don’t tend to be any better off financially or socially than the young mothers.
Well, I will probably be roundly attacked for this, but (and I am a life long liberal and Democrat), why does a poor woman of 38 years have 6 children? Too often when I read a story about poverty in the US, one (in my opinion) too frequent fact that shows up is women - sometimes still in the early or mid-20's, with many children. Is it because they do not have access to good contraceptives or is it something else? I don't know the answer, but I do know that especially in the child-unfriendly US, having lots of kids when you don't also have lots of money is a fast track into poverty.
117
@Vicki
I too am a life long liberal Dem. I agree that question must be asked. Thank you for having the courage to say so.
Many of us are fully into whatever help and support we can give, but lets get a sense of responsibility going on all sides of that effort. A sense of responsibility also leads to a sense of self worth!
32
As a homeschool mother for three in an affluent area of California, I have come to believe one truth - the greatest gift you can give a child to ensure their success is simply a stable home life. Children need solid parents. I don't care where they come from, how much they make, what they look like, what religion they practice or don't, they just need stability, safety at home, and ideally, an emphasis on education. 'Opportunity and guidance' are the key to a child's success. You can talk about education reform but I'm no longer a believer. We have excellent and mediocre teachers in all zip codes in America - so what makes some schools more successful? Affluence - where opportunity and guidance are available for the majority of kids. I wish we could stop talking about Education Reform and really get to the meat of the issue - it's Family Reform we need.
34
Moving people to "better" neighborhoods is not a substitute for making all neighborhoods safe and flourishing. Yes, it would mean spending a lot of money. And, unfortunately, yes, there are a lot of well off people who don't think that many of their fellow citizens are worth it. What's fascinating is how much money some of them are willing to spend to make sure that they don't have to spend money helping others. Many prejudices are involved, but above all it's an issue of some people's obsession with control.
6
@Stephen Merritt, neighborhoods don’t exist separate from the people who live in them. Good neighborhoods are good because most of their inhabitants are well-behaved individuals who make good life choices. Even if you wholesale swapped the homes, schools, personal property, and jobs (or lack thereof) between a nice suburban community and a crime ridden inner-city one, within months, the suburban area’s crime rate would have risen dramatically and the urban area would have been cleaned up, with safe, high achieving schools and low crime.
Bottom line: low functioning people create bad neighborhoods wherever they go. No amount of money can change that. Look at the outcomes for lottery winners for an extreme example.
23
A tiny eddy swirling in a fast-flowing river. Suburbs were created post WWII largely on the same principals, and although declining in popularity today, the embrace of living in a place that not only spends a great deal ($30k/student/year in my town!) on schools and, even here is highly segregated, persists. When my own family fled the violent Bronx in the early 50s, we were distinctly unwelcome by those who had managed the same exodus just a few years before. Human nature.
My modest proposal, based on theory and limited fact, is that, since address is an indicator of: acceptance to better colleges, entry into better jobs, less economic redlining, and access to beaches, pools, the very low cost remedy may simply be dispensing home addresses in so-called better communities. No move required, no busing, no credit redlining, no nasty social interactions.
In Manhattan, extreme localization of address is a million-dollar commodity. In fact, many dubious business buy mail drops in fancy locations just to look reputable. Why not just simply make home address portable, and free?
Should anyone think this cynical: you’re right.
1
@Marat1784
"As GM goes so goes the nation." Suburbs happened post WWII... initially there was not sufficient housing for the newly returned GIs.. but then unfortunate fact many blacks moved to northern cities -- white flight, and the Interstate Highway system was begun... paving over acres of land, eventually making rail travel a thing of the past.. then came the plane. Kristoff does not mention the degree of racial/cultural integration in these nabes in Seattle -- a rather conscious city an d with escalating housing costs.
What is the difference between this program and Section 8 vouchers that have been around since 1937? The additional counseling about neighborhoods? But one issue that isn’t addressed is what has afflicted Section 8 programs: resistance from white suburban neighbors.
5
When a ship is sinking, it's nice that there are a few working lifeboats. Not nearly enough of them though. Trying to stop a sinking ship is a much more daunting problem
7
Family wealth matters; and income, education, and family values are the necessary ingredients that go into the blend. Home Economics needs to be taught in as an advanced course.
Wealth comes from a lifetime of good decisions. Many public school teachers have no clue what that is about. Earn a dollar, waste a dollar, or invest a dollar. Public schools need to let students learn the natural consequences of their choices. Learning to scam the legal, sexual, political, and religious norms is counterproductive. Some communities play by the rules and others don't.
Perhaps the Seattle experiment reflects little more than the suburbs (and the nation) becoming fully accepting of minorities that are "clean cut" as Joe Biden has described.
3
While this may be a good idea, it is good only if funded by private, philanthropic groups. To do this with public funds is the sort of things that drives the white working class (read "Trump voters") crazy. Spending tax dollars to give somebody poorer than themselves something that they themselves cannot afford. What is for them to like about a government that does that?
13
@Jim S.
Considering what huge homeless populations exist in Seattle and other West Coast cities, it makes sense to try to head off that problem by helping a few households benefit this way.
I k ow the Gates Foundation, headquartered in Seattle, has done some of the research and funding for similar education and neighborhood improvements among the most severely impoverished in Seattle region.
2
And what about the families left behind?
And there’s you go again, blaming the schools!
You can easily use that money to lower class sizes in these neighborhoods and provide more social services.
And if it weren’t for pols and big business making ed policy, imagine if a school decided on what programs works best for students to meet not only their academic needs, but social and behavioral needs as well. There are so many methodologies that work for students with different needs, yet we are all pigeonholed to use one over others. We ignore a students level over age. If we are o eradicate poverty, let schools and their teachers decide policy. Teachers are the most creative yet their voices are stifled when it comes to actual teaching and educating the whole child.
10
“We ignore a students level over age.” — bingo! Problem identified! Right now, all children are pushed along at a pace designed for the average white child from a middle class home. Rather than allow children to repeat kindergarten or first grade if they haven’t caught on to the basics of beginning reading (decoding + basic sight words), we push them on to higher grade levels AND forbid meaningful remediation (like brief phonics lessons) in the name of “ensuring equitable access to grade level content”.
The further they go in school without solid basic reading skills, the less able they are to learn the grade level curriculum and the more likely they are to act out since actually doing the work is no longer even a possible option.
To make up for students’ academic deficits, we are to “scaffold”, which means, in many cases, doing most pf the work for them.
It’s like working in a Soviet factory, with impossible quotas you must lie about meeting.
7
This is indeed promising for the families that get to move, but you still have the issue of those left behind - unless you move everyone out and leave a crumbling mess in the middle of the city. Tax credits to encourage renovations? But then you just get the whole gentrification mess that dislocates people with lower income. There are no easy solutions.
7
This is classic Kristof. Moving a few families into better neighborhoods in an under the radar way will result in greater opportunity for those children.
Unfortunately, you can't move every poor family into a wealthy neighborhood --if nothing else, there are far more poor families than wealthy ones.
And let's be real: once the denizens of those wealthy neighborhoods realize that this program is anything more than a few drips and drops, when it turns into a trickle--they are not going to like it and they will do everything in their power to stop it. Which will create exactly the opposite outcome desired.
Not all that different than forced busing and we have recently revisited how well that turned out.
25
@ALW515
Renton is NOT a wealthy town. It is a factory town: specifically a Boeing factory with 1.1 million square feet of factory floor and 12,000 workers.
It is a realistic middle class environment for such families with a solid school district. My sister worked for that school system until she retired.
14
@Jean Comment still holds though--if people in Renton feel that the government is moving more than a few poor people into town, they will not be happy. People are rarely as noble in reality as they should be in theory.
19
@ALW515
The third largest Cambodia refugee population in USA was in Renton and other nearby regions. My sister said those people were the poorest she has ever seen, with almost zero possessions even after several months.
Renton has a history of massively embracing poverty stricken people who needed lots of socialization training to thrive in the future.
So please don’t be so quick to jump to cliche conclusions. Especially when you lack knowledge about the community support.
3
I know that there are many single parents who want the best for their children. I was a divorced mother and even with a very fancy education it was economically difficult at times. But I had one child and a middle class culture. A single mother with many children and a history of trauma will have insurmountable problems. Her chances of success are slim and it is unlikely that she will be viewed favorably in any neighborhood of any color.
47
Economic Nobel Prize winner James Heckman has a different strategy for fighting inter generational poverty.
Heckman says “disadvantaged” children do much better when they spend most of their waking hours, starting from birth, in high-quality daycare than when they’re raised by their own families. High-quality daycare costs a ton of money, but Heckman says the kids end up so much better that it’s worth it.
Heckman has a project called the Heckman Equation promoting this idea. Google will find many Heckman Equation web pages.
Many of our immigrants are, as far as Heckman is concerned, “disadvantaged”, but I don’t think he has ever addressed this issue.
13
I am sure her neighbors are thrilled to have this single mother on welfare with six children from different fathers move into their neighborhood. Did Dr. Chetty study what outcomes this move had on her formerly upwardly mobile neighbors children? Maybe they figured why spend all this energy studying and working if you can get to the same place as their parents by taking the easy route the neighbor did. Have the taxpayer and state raise your 6 children and watch talk shows all day, the good life is within reach! Let the taxpayer worry about the 1 or 2 children they managed to have and are struggling to raise. Mr. Nicholas Kristoff does not have to worry because he raised three genius children who all managed to graduate Harvard via the good old boys network. The neighbors would have all moved to a better neighborhood, except their property values tanked and they are stuck living where they are!
38
This successful "experiment" and the range of comments reveal the common desire for simplicity in: assigning causality to problems, and how we measure and interpret results are anything but simple. The success itself depended on going past the initial assessment of failure to look more long term and at results on the next generation. It did not look at other impacts on the new neighborhoods, such as on interracial attitudes, as well as presumably show openness to uncovering other surprises, both good and bad. So measurement itself, often promoted as just basic matter-of-fact assessment, has to be carefully thought through. Further, commenters, while happy about the results, bring up a range of factors they see that caused the underlying problems, both those seen as under the control of those in poverty and those systemic. As some point out, even a successful idea like this one will have limits to their scalability. So while I'm not sure that social science and associated measurements can better grapple with true causes or assign proportions to them, as opposed to relying on correlations or anecdotes, it has to try. At the least, social scientists can help us better understand and interpret correlations and how these play against the anecdotes that may have molded our views. An appropriate level of humility should be shown. Since even more holistic measurements probably won't be enough, well-done stories, if not meant to propagandize one view or the other, could be useful.
2
I live in a town, outside of Boston, that now has several new apt complexes. Yes, the are somewhat expensive, but not unaffordable for a single mother who has a decent job. I can not understand why these apartments are not being rented by people who would otherwise pay for living in the city. We have great schools, safe neighborhoods and fantastic rec departments. Everything a kid needs and wants. Yet, they don’t come. Go figure.
6
@Sean Because landlords have a choice in accepting section 8 vouchers. Once a landlord starts accepting Section 8, all the residents who are paying from their paychecks will flee. Over a few years, that complex will turn into another ghetto. Most new apartment complexes have a policy on not accepting Section 8. Section 8 is only accepted in older complexes in older run down areas where landlords have little choice. All these stories about plucking people from poverty and placing them in a (relatively) affluent neighborhood work because you are trying to do it without changing the character of the new neighborhood. Once you start doing this on a mass scale as Nicholas Kristoff suggests, all the new neighborhoods will start looking like the old ones. It is the people who make the neighborhood not the addresses.
29
@Sean
Which city? I’m In Somerville with a ton of new complexes being built. I wonder if these will be made affordable.
Because it means leaving the familiar and venturing out into the unknown which isn’t easy to do. The prospective tenant has a support system in her lousy neighborhood, she knows people and is known by them in turn. What all these programs have in common is the tacit admission that the culture has broken down and kids need to be raised with better values to have a fighting chance for success. Ask any teacher - it all starts at home
3
I am unsure why it should be surprising that growing up in a good environment will lead to a better life than growing up in a hopeless environment. Environment matters significantly, and it should no surprise.
We, as a society, have deliberately created the blighted environments. So the blame of outcome should clearly be pointed at the mirror.
2
This is also a much better way to end school segregation than busing. Integrate neighborhoods not just schools.
7
This seems like a storyline destined to end badly. The secret sauce will not help those still in bad neighborhoods. And 8% less likely to be a pregnant teen sounds almost statistically insignificant. $260,000 over a lifetime is not that impressive either.
The fact is that these bad neighborhoods do not really constitute communities despite the efforts of "community activists".They have not demonstrated any real success at self generated improvement and that is endemic. Until our entire nation embraces these neighborhoods as our community, nothing will change.
9
As a community activist in my own high income community of Arlington VA, I have been urging our local government for a number of years to fund more housing rental grants that low income persons can use to move out of our low income areas rather than just build more new subsidized low income housing in those same areas. This research Kristoff cites is a good reason for families with children to do so, but my main argument based on academic studies is that rental vouchers cost about a third of the cost of a new subsidized apartment.
Residents in wealthier neighborhoods oppose construction of new subsidized housing so the default location for such new units are poor neighborhoods. A renter with a housing grant can rent in a higher income neighborhood easily with no great fan fare.
Building of new subsidized housing under HUD's tax credit program is a good financial deal for the builder, the developer, the nonprofit promoting the deal, and the friends of the local city council/and or mayor. But it does not actually lower the rent much and all the benefits go to a single lucky household who in some cases also has to have "pull" to get that unit.
Far better to give rental vouchers and help the lower income person find a market rate unit as in Seattle. In my area two-thirds of local housing grants go to disabled and seniors, and one third go to families with a child.
13
The real problem is bad parenting. These parents obviously are committed to helping their children succeed. Not all parents do that. I'm sure better neighborhoods help, but toxic parenting is responsible for most bad outcomes. It's time to stop blaming the neighborhoods and the schools and the teachers and look at the parents and the values that they instill in their children.
23
Rather than look at the parents, ALL schools should teach child care child developmental and parenting, beginning in the 7th grade. Raising kids is certainly rewarding but it is also the hardest job any of us even as two parent households have had.
4
@Linda. Both my sisters had children or stepchildren to raise mostly on their own. Had it not been for the benefit of uninterrupted education through graduate school, a stable work history, and emotional, physical and/or financial assistance of friends and family either one of them could have made choices that would have classified them as bad parents. I have not children and that is likely due to a lifetime of having options and easily attainable goals that made no having sex with every loser who paid attention to me a no-brainer. Oh, yeah, and I could always, always afford birth control even when my prescription was $75 a month. Being a good parent or just a responsible adult doesn't just happen. In undergraduate school, I spent a year teaching art once a week at a state prison. The most important and life changing lesson that I learned is that we all are pretty much want the same basic things in life; some of us have the road paved for us on the one end, while others must overcome one obstruction or barrier to our path after the other.
11
@Karen, I understand the gist of your message but must respectfully disagree. First, just a short story of my own life (thus, you and I speak from a sample of 1 that is hardly generalizable).
Neither of my parents finished high school, but they wanted the best for me. Both came from single parent homes caused by the death of one parent and neither had the necessary skills to parent. I was fortunate and joined the Air Force during Vietnam and found myself there and used the GI Bill that allowed me to break the cycle. Not everyone does this, but many do. I then met a wonderful woman in the AF and we were both officers and we raised a son who is a successful and compassionate doctor. His wife is also a doctor and our 3 grandchildren have been well nurtured and set with expectations for success.
IMHO it is vital that the parent either sacrifice themselves to move the child toward success or the parent(s) need to succeed in order to understand the keys to succeeding in life that includes a stable marriage and employment, viewing education as important, hard work, teaching and modeling correct social skills, and possessing an ability to dream with the child(ren), among many. Too many parents are dysfunctional and model behavior that leads to the child(ren) following their parents' footsteps into poverty, unstable relationships, and dysfunctional lives. As my Son says: "the apple does not fall far from the tree!"
9
Part of the 'secret sauce' is funding schools. My district is funded as well as any high acheiving Westchester district on a per pupil basis...trouble is the greater transportation need, the greater special ed need, the greater ELL need, the greater security need, and the greater remediation need here because the population shift to high needs students is not funded. The tax on a home is the same whether 2.1 or 6.3 children live there, so of course what the school can do is decreased when needier students move in. There is no relief until the population of the district becomes Title 1. On the way down, the older residents see their younger children sitting in study hall while the teacher is busy with remedial, and realize their children aren't going to make it. They move out, the district cuts all nonrequired classes (you know AP, honors...) then the neighborhood becomes Title 1 and AP/honors/orchestra is restored. Cycle continues.
Bottom line is unfunded mandates at both fed and state level need funded or the neighborhood and school destabilizes.
14
This result surprises me not at all, but the problem is we can’t move all the poor folks to rich places with good schools. Maybe we need forced migration of rich folks to poor neighborhoods instead...?
3
@Dr if Great comment.
Left unsaid is the inescapable fact that some cultures may be toxic. And that to do well in this world people need to escape, and not embrace, those cultures.
For as is also unsaid, nobody from those "high-opportunity" neighborhoods wants to move to Rath's old neighborhood.
These experiments are a good use of public funds. But they have a fatal flaw: at what point, with how many families moving to "high opportunity" neighborhoods, does the toxic culture muscle out the effective one?
These programs can also be accused of being racist, because also left unsaid in this article is that Rath moved from a black neighborhood to a white one.
But unless we can acknowledge these "unsaid" things, we will continually be dancing around the problem instead of confronting it and giving all children, black and white, the best start. Some cultures do that. Some don't.
72
@Travelers - Agree. In the past these experiments invariably led to increased crime and decreased QOL in the newer neigborhood. The decision needs to be new neighborhood, new lifestyle, new friends, etc.
10
We had this back in the 70’s. It was the 235 Program--part of Section 8? Not sure of that--it’s been a long time. At any rate, it was regular housing in regular neighborhoods in Seattle Metro Area. A certain number of homes in new developments were set aside (a small number) for this program and single Moms were able to get into these homes with various types of assistance, including payment reduction. I think it was a purchase program--even better than a rental program for long term stability. I knew several women who raised their children in these homes with great results. They were able to work at whatever jobs they could find and still afford decent housing. The kids tended to go to college at a time when not so many kids did. Moms were single more because of divorce in those days, but otherwise, much was the same.
THEN...what do you think was one of the evil “govenment programs” that Ronald Regan got rid of post haste was?
29
Mr Kristof tells us; "It’s still unclear what the secret sauce is, although it apparently has something to do with decent schools, less poverty, lots of dads present in families and positive social norms."
Indeed.
All lives matter. But not all cultures (or behaviors) are equal (or lead to equal outcomes).
41
The problem is a result of socio-economic redlining by real estate agents based on prosperity of K-12 school districts. I live in the Washington DC suburbs and economic status of K-12 districts here are used by agents to steer clients, the effect being that school districts and their residents over time have segregated nicely into their socio-economic strata, Gini Coeffecient and all. The disparities are further reinforced as wealthy residents augment their districts staff time and budgets to improve programs and opportunities. As David Rusk (Nixon Administration) and Heather Schwartz (RAND Corporation) would say: "Housing Policy is School Policy.”
Housing Policy is School Policy. income
8
It's happened in my county already. The problems followed the housing boom. It allowed more people to buy houses they could not afford. They moved in defaulted and then came the new buyers, investors. They rent out or Section 8 houses in once middle class neighborhoods that were destroyed by the housing bust. The new people don't own a lawn mower or are to lazy to keep up the property. Everyone's property values drop. Their kids don't care about education and the schools start to fail. If they don't have a car they can't get to a job. The costs of insurance and maintenance is overwhelming to a minimum wage worker. AS more and more minorities move to the area; the whites flee. The cycle of blight has started and I'm caught in it. I would move, but I would lose money. I only have a few more years until I retire and don't want a 2 hour commute.
51
This is undoubtedly a laudable program. But you know what would help children in poverty the most? If their parents made decent wages. This piece doesn't say what, if anything, Rath does for a living but if she's a member of the American working class it's quite likely that she does not earn enough to support herself, much less a family, even if she works full-time.
America really is rigged against workers. Our tax policy is rigged to benefit those who "earn" their money not by working for it but by profiting from the labor of others. Our federal minimum wage hasn't been raised in a decade and, given the political climate, there's not much hope for improvement. One political party has not done nearly enough to help the working class and the other actively seeks to harm workers on a pretty much daily basis. No other developed nation is as hostile to its own workers as the United States. See Steven Greenhouse's piece today. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/sunday/labor-unions.html
Even Oren Cass, despite his affiliation with the Manhattan Institute and his "conservative" bent, sees the writing on the wall. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/opinion/sunday/workers-conservatives.html
You want to get children out of poverty and improve their chances of thriving? Raise their parents' wages.
44
@'Pedigrees', an apt name for this column by Mr. Kristof, where an attempt has been made to break the poverty-cycle by the offering of a better address.
For some reason, it reminded this reader of the nursery rhyme of a woman in the shoe in possession of many children, with the writings of Sillitoe in his short stories, 'The Loneliness of The Long-Distance Runner'.
There are few rich cats to be found in the above, and the author was the son of a tannery worker, leaving school at age fourteen to work in a factory.
When I was age fourteen, my parent told me that school might no longer be affordable, let alone the mention of an address. The future was heading toward selling flowers in the street until a rich friend of my parent came into the picture, and to this day I remain indebted to the above, who never heard of 'neither a borrower, nor lender be'.
Simple-minded anecdotes aside, Mr. Kristof is trying and not crying to Change a Child's Future for the Better. By Dickens, one solution is for our society to work hard at the restoration of 'The Middle-Class'.
Our politicians, clocking each other on the heads, seldom mention this growing divide between the have-nots and high-uppers, and while 'Racism' is an ugly reality in our country, so is economic inequity which led to The French Revolution.
A low-cost experiment to banish poverty is a beginning for those of us who care, but a solid foundation in better job creation and higher wages are late in being addressed.
5
You say parents. It’s almost always parent. A stable, two parent family will make it. Look at the data, it’s been proven over and over. Single mothers and absent fathers is the cause.
17
@pedigrees
There’s this idea in economics they call “supply and demand”.
If we let America be flooded with low-skill immigrants, then low-skill Americans will get lower wages, if they get jobs at all.
9
Decent schools? Of course decent schools are the hub of a community. The fact that every community does not have "decent" schools is a huge part of the perpetuating poverty. This is obvious. So why isn't that the first thing solved? If all the philanthropists would just make sure that those public schools in those communities have the same class size and resources as Scarsdale--instead of coming up with new ways to test to tell us what we already know--I'm sure that would be a good start to changing children's lives. (Especially since the school would teach a positive message about family planning.)
15
@tom mikulka
Whether a school is “decent” depends a lot more on the students in that school than on class size and “resources”.
15
Too bad the term "voucher" is used because it is associated with Milton Friedman and Betsy DeVos. But the concept of providing poverty stricken families with access to affluent zip codes makes sense and doing it on a case-by-case basis is far more feasible politically than trying to change the zoning laws in those wealthy enclaves to allow affordable housing. This is an instance where the idea of vouchers makes a lot of sense.
6
‘And she thinks her move to a new neighborhood with a history of good outcomes will make all the difference for Amina and her other children.’
If her children’s fathers don’t show up and make trouble.
If she doesn’t go onto to more boyfriends and more babies.
If she assimilates the values of the high opportunity community.
If there is not a critical mass of people from similar backgrounds and circumstances who make staying in that culture comfortable in the high opportunity area.
And of course why would we ever talk about how these programs effect the people in high opportunity areas?
I wish her well but I don’t see how this is scalable even if it works on a limited basis. And that’s a big if.
84
I am on a Habitat for Humanity build site just about every Saturday of the year and sometimes during the week. Many of the neighborhoods where we build have been engulfed by blight. Others have seen better days, but the residents are still fighting the fight.
It is easy to argue that Habitat's philosophy of changing a neighborhood one house at a time is little more than a pipe dream. Some of the neighborhoods I've worked in look like war zones. But doing nothing is not the answer.
Change for good or ill doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and encouragement. If we are going to encourage anything, that ought to be measures that stand of chance of effecting positive change.
14
@redweather
I ahave worked on Habitat projects, and the stability of the Habitat mini neighborhoods has become an anchor that helped blight recede and no longer spread in two carefully selected neighbors.
4
@Jean I've worked in one mini neighborhood of about 50 homes. It's impressive. The lion's share of the work we do in Atlanta, however, is one house at a time in extremely depressed areas for the most part. If more affluent people could see how some people live it might prompt them to open their wallets, or better yet, volunteer.
4
Can you see trump, or his self centered, "I got mine, get lost" supporters backing a program like this? The idea that one of "them" might move in next door alone, never mind someones tax dollars going to helping people in need, will put the trump cultist off. I wish the program well. It will be interesting to see the results in 10 years after it has been tried elsewhere. It certainly seems to be better thought out and offer a better chance to escape poverty than a lot of other ideas we've tried.
10
@jeff Unfortunately, it isn't only Trump supporters we have to worry about. These days it seems our country is overrun with people who have given up on the idea of positive change. All they see are obstacles, never solutions.
7
This sort of program has the potential to deal positively with the posited systemic racism and de facto segregation in the United States. That it costs so little should get the attentions of the political masters throughout the nation.
But let me suggest that a thirty-eight-year-old single mother is one lookingfor assistace offers a window into another problem...
The consequences of not using birth control, the absence of the father's, and the breakdown of the family structures are serious problems that continue to grow unaddressed.
Since over population has a direct effect on the human contribution to climate change, why aren't"those in charge" addressing this pressing problem?
If this woman has valued quality of life for her children, her problems today would be a great deal less complicated, and the lives of her children would be less likely to fall into the "at risk" category.
I applause the politicians that have found this potentially game-changing approach. But ignoring the elephant, or is it a rabbit, in the room, the likelihood of perpetuating these problem remain unchanged.
38
@The Owl Excellent point about birth control. It is very very difficult to raise 2 or 3 children when you are married and have even a middle income.
As a country, we should offer free forms of long-acting birth control.
27
@Chris I agree, but keep in mind that there is one method of birth control that has failed only once in the last 2000 years :-)) A society that believes that every woman is entitled to as much sex as she wants but can ignore the consequences cannot solve the problem of single motherhood induced poverty. Feminism has laudably brought us closer to sexual equality, especially in the bedroom. Unfortunately however, only women get pregnant and always bear the costs of their enjoyable engagements.
6
@Dr B - it takes two to tango. Birth control is available to both partners and is (or SHOULD BE) a shared responsibility. Self control should also be encouraged.
3
It is actually refreshing to read these comments- I would characterize myself as a moderate voter and to the right of most NYT readers. People are growing increasingly skeptical of these types of studies. Not so much their accuracy, but utility.
So this professor finds a minor improvement in student performance among students with an address in a more desirable area? Ok, I buy that, but I am not sure why Seattle is the sample location. It’s a comparatively homogeneous area with few African Americans and Latinos, the students who most often struggle.
I feel that readers are likewise skeptical of Mr. Kristof, who while intelligent and well-intentioned seems to incessantly focus on what society (or White people) can do to help the less fortunate. More so than geography, a two parent household deeply impacts a child’s academic performance. So, when half of American children are born out of wedlock, this does not bode well for future academic achievement.
I would love to read a balanced article in this wonderful publication about what an individual family can do to ensure their child attains the education she deserves.
58
@Mark
One seventh of the population in Seattle is African American or Latino. Add in poor Asians, often immigrants, and you are up to a fifth or quarter of the population.
I would expect the home of the Gates Foundation—with emphasis on education and turning around housing situations of poverty—to be a region receptive to running some of these test programs. If they succeed, maybe, just maybe, more communities will test out the programs.
2
I long bought into the idea that geography was destiny. Then I moved from the US to London and witnessed geographical social engineering failing spectacularly and completely changed my mind. Council homes (government housing) are not confined to siloed projects - there are also many peppered throughout each borough, including “posh” and upmarket areas. What I saw was poverty and its ills continue to replicate itself in spite of being next door to “better” or more well-to-do neighbours. Teenage pregnancy, smoking, obesity, joblessness, antisocial behaviour, drug use (and dealing), littering, and bringing way too many children into the world was what I saw, next door to the lawyers and other professionals who made their way to work each day as we passed some in social housing order their McDonald’s breakfast via Deliveroo. It was shocking, appalling, and above all depressing. I had to let go of every idea I had ever had about how to deal with poverty, and admit that I had been wrong about it all. Bad culture, bad values, and bad behaviour replicate poverty. In spite of what these studies say, success does not rub off to neighbours or transmit itself through the ether. Change must come from within. I would challenge anyone who disagrees with me to spend a few years in central London and get back to me then. I hate that this is what I now think, but I cannot unsee or go back to how I saw the world before.
157
@Beatrix England is not America. They have a very strict class structure that is much harder to break out of than in the US. I know people from "working" or lower-class backgrounds in London that have moved to the USA specifically because their background, people knowing their background, in London hurt their chances of rising no matter what. In the USA, they did very well-- and people couldn't tell that their accents meant they weren't "posh." Also, I grew up in England, so I know some stuff about it.
16
@Beatrix Intergenerational poverty is mostly created by intergenerational trauma. Research shows that. And treating intergenerational trauma is expensive -- psychotherapy for every family member, possible psychiatric medical treatment across the family, special educational and job training opportunities for multiple family generations. So until the federal, state, and local governments are ready to tackle intergenerational trauma (it's all over our nation, just Google the "adverse childhood experiences" or "ACEs" study), then intergenerational poverty will continue. I have a graduate background in public health, so I have some familiarity with this topic and the research behind it.
8
The kind of conscious and unconscious bias that permeates our society shows up even in the comments made in response to this column. I suspect that many of the commenters here never had to deal with one — let alone many — of the problems that are faced daily by those in our society who are routinely paid less and dealt with unfairly by banks, schools and employers as well as family members.
We are a product of our environment and our family, but it also includes all the economic and social connections that sustain us. Was it not the Bible that said if you save but one life it is as if you had saved all mankind? How hard hearted we are that even this limited exercise brings forth pinched and soured responses and a lack of belief. We are a heard hearted culture.
27
I am skeptical that most high opportunity areas are not more expensive than poor low opportunity areas. This implies that there are really few economic barriers to where one lives. Also, people would not be so unhappy when their neighborhoods undergo gentrification, which could make them higher opportunity without (theoretically) added costs. Of course there may be a few cases for some especially fortunate voucher recipients, but does this really scale? And if it does, what happens to the old neighborhoods?
22
A better address can change someone's future so why not just move everyone out? And then close the old neighborhood and its bad address.
Or perhaps why not try and fix the neighborhood?
Is that not possible? That might help even more people.
It has been done.
26
@Joshua Schwartz Fixing a bad neighborhood is almost impossible, because you basically have a mass of people with little economic opportunity reinforcing each others negative behavior. If wealthier people move it, it gentrifies and original residents, now priced out, just shift to new centers of poverty. And with large public housing projects, they can't really be fixed because any new residents by definition will be poor. It is the blind leading the blind, there are hardly any educated, successful role models, much less a critical mass of them.
Better to sprinkle people from the bad neighborhood around to better ones where they will be surrounded by better role models and social norms and people won't tolerate stupid behavior, where their kids won't get beat up for not joining a gang.
4
@Ken I beg to disagree. The upper West Side of Manhattan from low income crime area to upper class area. It happens all the time for many reasons.
2
This is wonderful.
The section 8 portable housing voucher program has opposition in the form of landlords who won’t take it and many locations have that problem. The “small barriers”. I wonder what programs Seattle is using and how they incentivize the landlords because they are clearly getting results.
Also, the income limits for section 8 are quite low.
9
If the move to the high opportunity area was not much more expensive why didn't the woman select it for herself in the first place?
Breaking the cycle of poverty is fairly often a matter of educating the impoverished about ways they can help themselves, rather than just a handout.
8
@As-I-Seeit It’s possible that “much” is defined not in poverty terms but in middle class terms in which $200 a month more isn’t “much.” Or the landlords are strict about requiring income to be three times rent. That one is very effective. Or they require as much as legally allowable for a security deposit, payable before the family gets their security deposit back from the last place. A navigator and deposit assistance could be key.
Plus I would love to know how they get landlords on board. I think city of Seattle has some tough ordinances about section 8 discrimination.
18
@As-I-Seeit The article answers your question - the Seattle program ". . . provides a “housing navigator” who helps low-income families receiving vouchers find homes in better neighborhoods, while also negotiating with landlords and helping to pay security deposits."
1
I have been reading the comments and wondering how these could be coming from NYT readers. Responses like no one should have more than 2 children; moving these people into functioning neighborhoods will destroy these neighborhoods; the mothers of these children won’t change fo the better; the mothers need better birth control and they should graduate from high school and college. Where have those of you making such comments been for the last 50 years? What we have been doing... or not doing... doesn’t work. We need to stop having rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods. We need mixed neighborhoods all with equal access to good schools and good grocery stores. We have economic segregation that leads to racial segregation and a worldview that believes everyone should be like us and can turn their family histories around if they just want to. At least the woman in this story wants to try and has been given one small thing that might make a difference
119
@susan I used to be amazed at those comments. I'm not anymore.
I have been reading and posting comments on the NYT's articles for about 10 years.
The sorts of comments you mention used to be rare. There were some posters who had a thoughtful take from the right, and they usually sparked good discussions. I know that one of them died.
There were many literate posters in the past who had thoughtful comments from a variety of positions but aren't here anymore.
I think they got discouraged. As I have.
I have cancelled my subscription to the NYT's. It ends on Aug. 31. I will miss what used to be.
I am Canadian. There were many international readers, but I see fewer of them now on this board.
Your country has become more insular, and even the NYT's readers seem less diverse.
I am 70, and for decades used to buy the paper weekend edition when it was available in my city. I was amazed. I considered it to be the sine qua non of journalism. I am only sad now.
I will give the money I used to spend on my subscription to the NYT's and the Washington Post (I cancelled that too), to the The Guardian in the UK, and The Nation. There are other outlets that I think I will support as well.
Best wishes from your Canadian neighbour.
23
@susan - I had the exact same thought as I read through the comments. We are where we are and we need to do better.
Raj Chetty's study tells us there is a relatively simple and cheap way to help some of the children caught in a terrible cycle of poverty. Why would anyone argue with that? Who cares why these kids are stuck in poverty? Don't we have an obligation as a nation to try to help them?
19
@susan
Sure, the one small thing “ might make a difference “. But, it’s MUCH more likely to make a difference without SIX kids. Are we humans, or indiscriminately breeding animals? Are where ARE the Fathers ? That’s an unanswered question, as usual. I’m a raging feminist, and part of that is expecting ALL Women to display responsibility and ownership of THEIR choices and actions. To do otherwise is to act as a helpless child. Enough.
34
"Then in 2015, a follow-up study shook the policy world. While the moves hadn’t helped the adults, those who moved as toddlers were more likely to go to college, to marry, to earn more money and to pay more taxes — enough to pay for the program with interest."
What a refreshing column by Nicolas Kristof on a day when we sorely needed it. Thank you so much for sharing the details of this program, its study results, and the examples of how it's currently benefiting families plagued by long-term poverty.
It 's also heartening to hear how sometimes study results need time for full results to manifest, but once they do, a good program can spread like wildfire, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling its findings and benefits all over the country.
41
I am amazed at the number of comments critical about this study. Frankly, one doesn’t have to be a genius and one doesn’t need a study to know that a kid brought in a better neighborhood will do better in the long run. There is so much criticism of teens from poor neighborhoods who get in trouble. Of course kids with no social support will not do well. The deck is stacked against them.
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@Sally Coffee Cup I think that some concern about the families, especially the children, left behind in the old neighbourhood is legitimate. There is still the bigger picture of income disparity, particularly along racial lines, that need to be addressed as well.
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@Sandy Regarding income disparity, that is so true. I live in NYC and often take the subway. Everyday, I see hard working people, exhausted from work, trying to make ends meet and provide for their families. Visit any McDonald's and one sees the same thing. It is heartbreaking. Why can't these workers be paid living wages - money enough to pay for decent housing, health care, food on the table and, goodness forbid, funds left over for entertainment and leisure. Where is the "pursuit of happiness" promised by the Declaration of Independence?
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Thank you for continuing to educate all of us on what is possible in the most positive ways, especially during theses times that often feel hopeless! Your work teaches and inspires!
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I have worked as a nurse for years in various fields but obstetrics got my attention. My patients ranged in age from 11 to 53, one not planned, one planned. I strongly supported and recommended birth control for both. Despite the conservatives having locked this up, if a woman has to take responsibility for the product of that fun roll-in-the-hay, there might be fewer single mothers and/or absent fathers, all living in the cloud of poverty. Your example of the single Mom with 6 children proves my point. But I do wish her luck.
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@Judy Fern I don't understand your comment. "if a woman has to take responsibility for the product of that fun roll-in-the-hay, there might be fewer single mothers and/or absent fathers, all living in the cloud of poverty." Women already take responsibility as they bear & raise their children. And how does "a woman having to take responsibility (for)... that fun roll-in-the-hay (seriously??)" result in fewer absent fathers?
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I'm proud to be part of Habitat for Humanity which builds decent low-cost housing for working poor people. An hand-up, not a hand-out, means the world to people who build, in effect, their own neighborhoods. Because each family is motivated to improve their station in life, they end up with a supportive neighborhood of decent homes. My point is that there is more than one way to improve lives.
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Life is what you make it to some degree especially choosing to have children. I’m appalled by women who can barely take care of themselves financially and then have several children. I find it very irresponsible. Society needs to foster prevention of poverty by educating women against this kind of lifestyle instead of “feel good” programs in aftermath.
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@Margie Goetz it’s interesting you only mention the mother, who surely stuck her neck out by allowing her life to be spotlighted in this article despite her history, and for wanting what is best for her family. Are you equally appalled at the father(s) of those children? It’s so very easy to shame a woman, especially one who has endured trauma and whose actions or choices you don’t understand.
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@Margie Goetz You may be right, perhaps Jackie Rath was irresponsible and made mistakes in her life. But this seems like a positive program that just might have a positive impact on her children's lives at little to no cost to taxpayers.
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@Margie Goetz Hi Margie. @Phyliss Dalmation above said almost the same thing as you. This was my reply to her:
I'm a public health professional, I have an MPH (just to clarify my expertise). Research shows that most young mothers come from poverty-stricken areas, and the main reason they have children is because they don't have or see other opportunities. They don't grow up seeing young women go to college, or start well-paying jobs out of high school. Many of the young women they observe around them drop out of high school to work low-income jobs to support their families (maybe their mom is a single mom or one of their parents is disabled), or young women who have one or multiple pregnancies. These young women see motherhood as their only option. Also, teen girls from low income communities are more likely to be sexually coerced or assaulted than teen girls in more affluent communities. So a lot of those teen pregnancies are not a choice, but rather a symptom of sexual oppression. So choosing your family size and the planning of when and where to have children is a privilege of the privileged. Please walk a mile in another woman's moccasins before you make such judgments.
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Sounds great! More immediately when people have more money they are less poor. Like $25 minimum wage money.
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@somsai Thank you for this important insight. Our current economic system requires that there be poor people.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for anyone who is able to find a way out of poverty for themselves but the fact remains, we — the wealthiest nation in the world — are not going to solve poverty one family at a time. Feel-good pieces like this one distract us from this hard truth. Mrs. Davif
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My first reaction when reading about subtle improvements like "8% less likely to have a baby as a teenager" was, so? The more I read, the more my reaction was, meh - why even bother?
Then it hit me: this type of thinking is exactly what's wrong with our culture today. We want the slam dunk, the grand gesture, the one step fix of everything that's wrong with our culture. And so we vote for some psychopathic buffoon who promises exactly that - and, of course, suffer the consequences.
No, social changes like these, though incremental, are exactly what we need. What we see here is an extremely cost-effective solution to cycles of poverty - so hey, what's the problem? If Amina has a better life as a result of this program, where is the down side? For Ms. Rath, I'm guessing the degree of excitement and hope is enormous - along with her gratitude for being given this chance to improve her daughter's life.
We need to get back to the traditional notion that one doesn't acquire a 20 year pin in 6 months - it takes a lot of accumulated days of going to work and slogging through one day after another. Then one day you look around and see how different life has become.
Instant gratification seldom happens in the real world; we celebrate it precisely because it is so rare. I'm delighted to learn about a program that helps families to overcome hopelessness and despair - let's see how many more such programs we can come up with, shall we?
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This article provides an excellent insight into one of the factors that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Another piece of the "silver buckshot" that would help break this cycle is to address the issue of family and domestic violence. This urgent issue is still far too hidden under layers of shame and denial. The environment of a child's upbringing, both within the family and in the surrounding neighbourhood is key to a better future of all of us.
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I’m from Seattle. Not sure where the subject of this article moved from in the area, but her children are unlikely to escape much by moving to Renton.
Having six fatherless children presents a difficult to move to a better life no matter where you go. I hope the mother is being encouraged to concentrate on her current children and not more go nowhere relationships and more children.
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@Margaret Layman
This article re-hashes earlier research—and earlier NYT articles—from 2015 and 2016, all of which confuse correlation with causation.
Indeed, this article admits as much: “It’s still unclear what the secret sauce [causation] is, although apparently it has something to do with decent schools, less poverty, lots of dads present in families, and positive social norms.” That is, a number of factors may be involved here, but we don’t really know what it is about moving kids to “better” addresses that improves their outcomes.
Further, the article (and the underlying research) does not address the well known social phenomenon of “tipping,” when white residents become outnumbered by non-whites and flee to further suburbs, a process that has led to most large US cities to have majority-minority populations.
For example, in this article, the receiving suburb, Renton, is about 49% non-Hispanic white; is there a point, as with so many other communities, when too many non-whites will lead white families to move from Renton to less-minority communities? The article does not address this issue. (Also, Renton ranks 67th out of 72 Washington State communities in crime rates, which makes one wonder just how good a Renton address is.)
It is not feasible to move all minority families and kids into better neighborhoods; besides, isn’t that giving up on the families and kids who are left behind?
Isn’t the real answer to improve all communities and all kids’ prospects?
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Moving to a neighborhood 'with a future' in mind seems an excellent move. In some cities, developers do get a break, or deal, provided they allocate 30% of the building for poor people; why not make it universal?
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Yes, this sounds promising. But here’s the first step: Stop having so many Children that you can’t afford or support. There is absolutely no GOOD reason to have more than two children. This is not the 1800’s or even the 1950’s. The more kids, the less each individual one will get, and the less their chances for success. Success as defined by avoiding early pregnancy, attending and graduation from College, and fairly stable employment. For the record : We had one child. Only.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian Consider yourself lucky to have grown up in a world where you learned to have your own choices. But, life isn't so black and white for everyone. I grew up in a home where both of my parents were severely damaged by their childhoods. They didn't have the tools to raise kids. Luckily, I am white, have a half way decent brain, and Pell Grants were available for low income students like myself. Many of my siblings didn't do as well as myself.
The only way to change the craziness is for all of us to get in and make a difference and to change the political policies in our government.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
Oh Phyliss, I usually enjoy your comments, but this one is so unlike you. It is so judgemental and compares apples and oranges. It misses the whole point that only by improving outcomes can we change things. Amina is likely to have fewer children and better prospects because of this program--that is the point. Your personal choices really are not relevant. For the record, I have four children. They are all productive citizens who vote.
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@Pundette
Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg ? Without accepting at least some responsibility for their situation or life, we are treating people like helpless children that will never mature or be productive. Yes, I’m being judgmental. I have seen this up close and personal, in my own extended family. Professional victims and Moochers that never change, just use and abuse.
I’m just tired and frustrated with it all. I do wish her the best, and undoubtedly this will be better for her children.
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This sounds like a great program. All change is incremental. Instant results should not be the criteria by which government programs should be judged. As an analogy, think about the civil rights movement, particularly Title IX which required equal funding for women's sports. It has taken almost 50 years, but the Gold Cup for the US women's soccer team is the result.
Those of us who grew up in small towns in the 50's and 60's had exactly the kind of community which Seattle is trying to create. Most of us had decent schools and housing plus a community of adults who took responsibility for helping others. That kind of environment is hard to recreate, but it can only benefit the next generation. Kudos to Seattle!
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First, let me say that I am ALL for everyone and anyone getting more opportunities for themselves and their families.
However, we cannot JUST keep moving people around to whatever neighborhood so that they may get those opportunities. What if that poorer neighborhood needed people that wanted to make a difference, but were not at a tipping point to do so? Should we not move people INTO those neighborhoods to affect the change we want for all ?
Any neighborhood that is limited in opportunities, safe and clean places to live, good schools, amenities and infrastructure is ultimately supported only by the population that inhabit them. Those people that want to support all of the above are the ones that are going to make the difference.
It is a chicken and egg thing, as to what comes first ? Do the people come first, or does the money and infrastructure?
Why can't we do both ? (or all of the above)
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Moving from a "low opportunity neighborhood" to a "high opportunity neighborhood" may benefit children who move, but it does not increase total positive outcomes for either neighborhood. It merely allocates outcomes to different people. What is required for progress as a whole is that there be fewer low opportunity neighborhoods and more high oppotunity neighborhoods. Moving people around does not increase total positive outcome
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@FunkyIrishman Moving into a neighborhood to effect change... let me think. Some would call that “gentrification” because the people with the resources and capital and know-how to “improve” things sometimes have resources themselves. Neighborhood organizing and building takes years and is sometimes hardly possible under conditions of violence and lack of opportunity.
I think Mr. Kristof left out a few details of Seattle’s programs which might have made it make more sense. https://www.kcha.org/landlords
Kings County housing authority plus link to the web page for this program.
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@FunkyIrishman You know, one of the reasons why most low income neighborhoods are poor is because they are in terrible locations. In polluted industrial zones, highways, airports, ect. In short, they are inherently undesirable.
One of the few exceptions is Harlem, which is now rapidly gentrifying because it is in fact in a prime location. Any poor area that is in a good spot will eventually gentrify.
Better to move the residents out of failing neighborhoods, spread them into good ones and build a park.
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This is an experiment, and the results appear to show some benefit. We know the costs. The fact that the results "shouldn't work" or "there are other variables" is always said when an experiment shows something unexpected. It's called science, and the greatest scientists, aside from those who ask the best questions or have the best experimental designs, are those who put aside their biases and follow the data.
I have a medical background; I could go on at great length about treatments that shouldn't have worked that did.
Sadly, I could go on a lot longer about treatments that didn't work but were continued anyway....
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Being poor is hard. Poor neighborhoods reflect that. But probably the schools will be better and if the children are able to take advantage (and survive some possible social conflicts), great. The families will be less likely to endure crime, also great.
There are no easy answers, but people who try hard, work hard and study hard, should have the right to access good jobs and safe homes and schools. Problem is there's very limited access from within impoverished places to access success as a ticket out or to chose to stay and make a place better. It's a big problem in our big country, while it's also hard to hop a rail car or hitchhike to a better place to "make it" these days. Part of many layers of great divide.
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I have a friend who's worked against this trend ....I guess.
He used to live in a neighborhood with many non-working poor.
He got training.... leading to a good job.
So now he's moving into a lower middle class neighborhood.
I guess he should have stayed in his poor neighborhood to serve as a good example to the neighborhood kids.....right?
Or am I missing something here?
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I am a little tired of miracle studies by professors, so I admit I am cynical. But something here doesn't make much sense to me. Adults don't benefit from the vouchers. Yet, the children benefit from lots of dads present in families. Presumably, we're talking about other kids' families since their own mothers don't change for the better. So I am to believe that a child from a fatherless family of six with all kinds of abuse and even murder is going to benefit from other kids having fathers. Prove it, professor.
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@michjas I’m not a professor but here goes. “Fathers” means families in which there is enough stability that adults solve problems with each other and cooperate. Seeing cooperating adults is like getting hit by lightning if you are coming from an environment with very few. Kids pick up the vibes. Have you ever seen how excited little boys get who don’t have dads at home, when they get around dads? It’s golden. And I am sure it helps all the kids. They see people getting up and going to work and then they see people coming home and they learn that pattern. There are other ones they could be learning. From what I have seen in areas with a lot of low income there are fewer people going to work and less income stability and less positive routine. When few of the adults you know are holding jobs, how do you learn the personal habits to hold a job? Personal chaos will expand to fill the time available. It all sounds obvious until you realize it is not. Kids become friends with the neighborhood kids and what they see in those lives shapes them as well as what they see at home.
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@michjas My husband's father went to prison and died there when my husband was young so he grew up without a father. However, he grew up in a neighborhood and was friends with kids who had dads. Those dads stepped up and did things for him like taking him to sports games, took him to prison to visit his dad (when his dad was still alive) and included him in family vacations.
They also pushed for him to go to a better school district (along with their kids) where he was surrounded by people much wealthier and where all kids were just expected to go to college and be successful.
He was the first in his family to go to college and get a professional job and he and I have built a much better life than his parents built.
Kids are not only influenced by their own parents but also other people's parents and also the kids they go to school with. Communities with more dads mean more opportunities to interact with caring adults (especially for young men who don't have a father figure in their lives). Maybe not every kid ends up as lucky as my husband but don't they deserve the chance?
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@Virginia
"Have you ever seen how excited little boys get who don’t have dads at home, when they get around dads? "
Your comment brings back a sad childhood memory. My parents had taken the family on a trip to Israel.My father was a supporter of an orphanage in Israel. My parents took us to the orphanage to visit the orphans. Those poor little children jumped onto and clung onto my father.
It was heartbreaking.
My father was a major donor to that orphanage, as and took us to visit them when we went to Israel, but that didn't give them fathers, or parents.
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While I agree without a doubt that this could work, but I would need to be convinced of the screening process. I have first hand experience that bad choices can wreak havoc on a peaceful neighborhood.
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How can there be "decent schools" and "less poverty" but the neighborhood doesn't cost more? I can see it if you move from San Francisco or NY to Iowa or Nebraska, but how do you do that while staying in NY or SF? In addition to which, as a commenter has shrewdly noted, moving a couple of families when you can is fine, but doesn't touch the problem. Decent schools are needed in all neighborhoods.
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Sounds like a good idea, but it suffers from the same problem as the idea behind charter schools: Help the younger generation by allowing a few of them to "escape" their surroundings.
There shouldn't BE neighborhoods with bad schools, few jobs, blighted housing, no parks, few community resources, and bad policing (too much, too little or just based on the wrong policies and hiring practices).
Decouple public schools and other public services from property taxes and other local taxes. The state and federal governments need to pick up the cost of supporting schools and neighborhoods. Don't just fund neighborhoods equally--invest more resources and do pilot programs in areas that are struggling.
There are countries where all public schools are good schools. Why don't we aim for that?
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@Rita Rousseau. Who do you think is paying for the state and federal government?
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@Jackson
The point is that Rita's plan distributes resources more evenly, yes? No one suggests schools are free.
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@Jackson
It’s in everyone’s interest to turn poor children into taxpayers.
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Even granting the accuracy of the statistics, the gains seem so meagre balanced against the slow-but-sure destruction of a previously functioning neighborhood full of blameless people.
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@David Can you think of a plan that would be more rewarding?
Serious question.
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