Presenting a united front on solutions to poverty and income inequality

While nationally, primary season seems bent on focusing on the politics that divides us, a group of Washington, D.C. academics from both sides of the political spectrum has identified three principles that they feel can unite and motivate people around policy solutions to some of our nation’s most pressing domestic concerns.

“Opportunity, Responsibility and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream,” released in December 2015, concentrates on the three moral values in the title, which the authors suggest bring us together as a nation and can be used as a foundation for seeking and implementing solutions to the pressing national problems of poverty and income inequality.

First, a look at the problems:

• Poverty: The U.S. child poverty rate has remained consistently around 20 percent for over 40 years, and our national poverty rate that remains above 15 percent. The report authors state, “as both conservatives and progressives, we believe these rates are too high.” Especially for vulnerable populations, such as children, these high poverty rates limit safety and security.
• Inequality: Economists note that children born into the bottom fifth of income levels are 43 percent likely to stay there, yet in an equitable society only 20 percent of those children should remain. The likelihood of poor children staying poor and wealthy children staying wealthy represents a situation of income levels economists call “sticky." Moreover, the problem is such that “most scholars believe that the U.S. has lower mobility than other industrialized countries” and “the rungs on the economic ladder are getting father apart." This contrasts with the expectation that the American Dream is founded on equal opportunity.

The report considers these concerns through three lenses: family, work, and education, while also noting that concerns and solutions in these areas are tightly interwoven. From an afterschool perspective, these areas remain closely intertwined. A selection of relevant areas in the report which, the diverse, bi-partisan authors all agreed were important to finding solutions, are listed below:

• Parenting Gap: The authors mentioned that “children in America face a large “parenting gap,” where some children receive significant quality time and attention from their parents, while others receive less."
• Career Training in High School Years: “Rigorous evaluations show that career academies raise earnings over the long term for at-risk young men by nearly 20 percent, while also improving their marriage rates."
• Social and Emotional Learning: The field of education, should support “not just closing a gap in years of schooling, but in cognitive, academic skills and social-emotional skills as well.”
• Schools as Hubs: “The school setting should support a 'two-generation' model that reinforces positive development for parent, as well as their children. Within poorer communities especially, this means seeing the school as a hub for a range of health, social and other services in addition to teaching.”
• Unequal supplemental learning: “More affluent and engaged parents routinely supplement their child’s regular education with a wide range of other activities, from after-school music lessons to summer programs, while private tutors and counselors help deal with weaknesses and give children from well-off families an edge in college admission.”

And the solutions:

The report authors recommended a range of solutions for each of its three categories, including 

• Families: public awareness work on the value of strong families to develop new norms, access to and information on contraception 
• Work: increased work opportunities, enhanced training and workforce development, an increased minimum wage, sustained and enhanced work-based safety nets such as tax credits and child care subsidies;
• Education: data collection systems that tie education with other services such as health to long range outcomes, and public investment in pre-school and post-secondary education.

Afterschool programs were not explicitly mentioned in the report, which seems like an oversight when considering the roles these programs play in family involvement, supporting working parents, and supplementing academic learning with the social and emotional connections that have been proven to help children succeed. We are part of this solution, and we know the work programs accomplish combats poverty while providing students, families and communities with security and opportunity.

We hope that more academics, politicians and community members take note of out-of-school time's role in equalizing opportunity and breaking the cycle of economic immobility. We are working to raise awareness of the benefits of afterschool on the national level. And yes, you can help, too!

Perhaps it’s time to write a letter to an editor to express your opinion, or ask the candidate’s directly about how they plan to support afterschool in their policy proposals!