Decades of neglect and inadequate or misdirected government and private investment have created enclaves in America where kids continue to fall further behind. The so-called “achievement gap” between the kids of top earners and those from the poorest families has increased by as much as 40 percent in the past few decades, and family incomes have declined by a third for America’s poorest children.
In Baltimore, Cleveland, New York City, and Ferguson, Mo., we have seen the results of this mismanagement and disinvestment. High rates of violence and interactions with the police are only the most visible demonstrations of problems facing communities of concentrated poverty in America, areas where too many young people remain unsafe, undereducated, and disconnected.
What we don’t hear about are the successes—the programs that have been shown to make a difference for America’s most disadvantaged youths. This, too, is a tragedy; it feeds a sense that these problems are hopeless and intractable. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, social-mobility research and results from interventions across the country provide a playbook for successful anti-poverty efforts.
First, we know that place and poverty are tightly linked. Recent studies by the economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren have shown that children growing up in concentrated poverty have significantly worse life outcomes than their peers. In the Moving to Opportunity experiment, children under 13 who moved to a less-poor neighborhood earned 31 percent more as adults than otherwise similar kids who did not move.