These numbers suggest trends at a high level, but they don’t reflect the biggest poverty-related issue, both for the nation and for Ģ����Ƶ: the concentration of poverty in specific neighborhoods. Instead of affecting only certain individuals and families, poverty is enveloping entire communities. This is leading to significant geographic and societal separations among Ģ����Ƶns—not only financially, but also in terms of opportunities for education, work, and family formation.

Randy Hicks, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity’s President and CEO, also shared that:

“The national numbers don’t tell us much about poverty from the perspective of the person or community experiencing it. They fail to convey that poverty is much more than a material issue for those who are struggling. Research has shown that people living in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty lack the essential local network of supportive relationships that’s crucial for helping them thrive and rise out of poverty.”

At a glance: facts on concentrated poverty in Ģ����Ƶ

• Ģ����Ƶ’s poverty rate: 13.5%—2.9% above the national average, ranking 38th.��
• Poverty exceeds the national rate in 133 of Ģ����Ƶ’s 159 counties.��
• Atlanta’s poverty rate: 18.1% overall; 27.2% among children.
• Lawrenceville’s poverty rate: 17.2%, compared with Gwinnett County’s 10.5%.
• Southern and central Ģ����Ƶ show especially high concentrations of poverty.

Breaking down Ģ����Ƶ’s poverty landscape

Ģ����Ƶ’s average poverty rate was 13.5% in 2023, per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or 2.9% higher than the national rate. 

This difference may seem slight, but it puts Ģ����Ƶ 38th in the country when it comes to poverty. Poverty rates in 133 of Ģ����Ƶ’s 159 counties also exceed the national rate. 

Within counties, concentrations of poverty exist in particular cities. For example, Atlanta, the county seat of Fulton County, has a poverty rate of 18.1%. Poverty is even more concentrated among the city’s children, with 27.2% living in poverty. These numbers are significantly higher than the county’s average poverty rate of 12.6%.

Lawrenceville, in Gwinnett County, also struggles with concentrated poverty at a rate of 17.2%. The county’s average poverty rate is just 10.5%. 

In many cases, poverty rates are higher than the state average in central and southern Ģ����Ƶ, suggesting concentrations of poverty in communities in those regions.

Impacts of increasing concentrations of poverty

In neighborhoods with higher poverty levels, residents experience many negative impacts, including limited access to quality education, healthcare, and employment opportunities. They also struggle with increased crime and inadequate housing and living conditions. These factors significantly hinder social and economic mobility and contribute to cycles of poverty that are difficult to escape.

Eric Cochling, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity’s Chief Program Officer and General Counsel, noted:

“Poverty has an especially big impact at the local level. It’s a crisis of human well-being. These neighborhoods are often missing the vital community connections and social institutions that help people navigate life’s challenges. As social isolation and disengagement from work increase, people suffer from the loss of purpose and belonging that work and relationships provide.”

Ģ����Ƶ the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity

The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity is a nonprofit organization that works to remove barriers to ensure that every person—no matter their race, past mistakes, or the circumstances of their birth—has access to safe communities, a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life. Learn more at foropportunity.org.

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Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) is independent, non-partisan, and solutions-focused. Our team is dedicated to creating opportunities for a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Ģ����Ƶns. To achieve our mission, we research ways to help remove barriers to opportunity in each of these pathways, promote our solutions to policymakers and the public, and help effective and innovative social enterprises deliver results in their communities.

Send media inquiries to:

Rebecca Primis
Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity
rebeccap@foropportunity.org

The post National Poverty Rate Fails to Capture the Problem of Poverty Concentration in Ģ����Ƶ and Beyond appeared first on For Opportunity.

It’s important to remember, however, that there’s more to the American dream than money, promotions, or a nice house.

It’s what those things make possible. The economic markers associated with the American dream — income, upward mobility, homeownership — are not the ends in themselves. They’re tools. A good job and a house in a safe neighborhood matter not just because they are desirable, but because they create the space for something deeper: family, friendships, and community.

As humans, we are wired to connect with family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. This Fourth of July, it’s worth noting that meaningful relationships and a strong sense of community are as much a part of the American dream as any economic measure.

Unfortunately, our belief in that dream is dwindling. Just 53% of Americans think the American dream is still possible.

Clearly, something is amiss, and it’s more than the rising cost of owning a home. Our sense of community, once a defining feature of America, is also slipping away.

Despite being more technologically connected than ever, there is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Deaths from suicide, alcohol-related illness, or drug overdoses — “deaths of despair” — have more than  since the 1990s.

Meanwhile, very few Americans attend religious services, and a growing number of men have no close friends. Participation in traditional civic groups and community organizations continues to fall. Family formation is also on the decline. Americans aren’t getting married and aren’t having kids.

There are many reasons behind these cultural shifts. But what’s rarely discussed is how systemic obstacles are driving some of these troubling trends.

There are federal and state policies in place that make it harder to achieve what the American dream is all about: the freedom to shape your own future, build a family, and contribute to your community.

America’s safety net system, in particular, prevents people and families, especially from poorer backgrounds, from achieving the American dream.

Congress is thankfully considering reforms to this system for the first time in decades, including adding work requirements to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It’s promising that we’re finally discussing the importance of connecting work to welfare. But work requirements will do little to fix the larger structural problems with the safety net system.

If lawmakers dug deeper, they’d find baked into these programs a phenomenon where beneficiaries are often discouraged from getting a job or a raise. They’d notice that our tax code penalizes welfare recipients for getting married and forming a family. And they’d discover that even if we implement work requirements, welfare agencies are not set up to help recipients find jobs. Welfare and workforce programs oddly  in silos, making it difficult for people to access the support they need to secure employment.

These are policy failures that push people in the opposite direction of the American dream, into a life of dependency instead of self-determination —a life that makes it difficult not only to get ahead but to build meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose.

If the U.S. is going to continue to thrive, we need institutions and policies that don’t stand in the way of achieving the full extent of the American dream. That means a safety net that no longer discourages work, penalizes marriage, or traps people in a cycle of dependency.

Randy Hicks is the president and chief executive officer of the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity and founding member of the Alliance for Opportunity.

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PEACHTREE CORNERS, GA—Today, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) applauded Gov. Brian Kemp and the Ģ����Ƶ legislature for ushering into law the Promise Scholarships bill that will bring much-needed relief to the over half-a-million low- and middle-income kids stuck in low-performing schools.

“We are thankful to Gov. Kemp and the many House and Senate lawmakers who recognized the urgency of the moment and advanced a bill to provide much-needed opportunity to bolster academic options,” said Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vice president of public policy. “Passing Promise Scholarships is a momentous milestone for tens of thousands of Ģ����Ƶ kids struggling in a system that doesn’t work for them. It recognizes that Ģ����Ƶ is a diverse state with a diverse set of needs for education. After years of work, this bill is a positive step toward shaping an education system that honors every child’s unique situation and prevents a lack of quality education from locking children and communities into poverty.”

Senate Bill 233 will make students from the lowest performing 25% of public schools eligible to receive $6,500 a year set aside in an account. Parents can then use the funds to cover approved educational expenses, including private school tuition, books, uniforms, and even transportation.

SB 233 also gives first priority to students from families below 400% of the federal poverty level — around $120,000 a year for a family of four. Students above that threshold will be allowed to participate if funds are left over after the lower-income students are served.

Promise Scholarships will serve an estimated 21,500 kids when the program goes live for the 2025-2026 school year.

Ģ����Ƶ now joins a growing list of states offering educational options for all students. In the Southeast, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina have recently enacted universal Education Savings Account programs, while South Carolina is in the process of creating a universal program in the coming years.

“The urgency to create an education lifeline for kids can’t be overstated. Education is a basic need. Lack of access to quality options is a major cause of many of the ills in our society, including putting a cap on upward mobility. A lack of quality education locks children into poverty and prevents communities from thriving,” said Brockway.

Although GCO praised passage of Promise Scholarships, Randy Hicks, GCO’s president and CEO, cautioned that the bill is just a first step.

“Unfortunately, the final compromise bill was watered down in a number of ways that will limit its reach,” said Hicks. “Funding for Promise Scholarships is capped to 1% of public school funding and there is a 10-year sunset on the entire program. It’s a positive step that over 20,000 students will be eligible for educational freedom, that number is a drop in the bucket compared to the need. We will continue building on this foundation for the future so that all of Ģ����Ƶ’s schoolchildren have options.”

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Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) is independent, non-partisan, and solutions-focused. Our team is dedicated to creating opportunities for a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Ģ����Ƶns. To achieve our mission, we research ways to help remove barriers to opportunity in each of these pathways, promote our solutions to policymakers and the public, and help effective and innovative social enterprises deliver results in their communities.

Learn More about SB233

Schedule An Interview

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PEACHTREE CORNERS, GA—Yesterday, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House passed ​, which establishes a crucial demonstration waiver for a handful of states to implement safety-net reforms similar to Utah’s “One Door” policy. As a member of the coalition group the Alliance for Opportunity, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity has played an important role in educating lawmakers on the perils of the current social safety net that creates barriers to work and upward mobility.

H.R. 6655 revises the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act for the first time since 2014. The bill would give four states leeway to explore a “One Door” safety-net reform strategy similar to Utah’s model enacted in the 1990s. Utah consolidated federal workforce development and social safety-net programs into a single state entity and fully integrated the safety-net system into workforce development programs.

“This is an important first step toward improving the social safety-net in all 50 states and breaking down barriers to work and a flourishing life,” said Randy Hicks, president and CEO of the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity. “The next step is to broaden the scope to allow every state to explore ways to integrate workforce and safety-net programs. These reforms are badly needed. There are 8.9 million open jobs across the U.S., and the workforce participation rate hasn’t fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. We must create a safety-net system that doesn’t trap people in generational poverty but provides a pathway to a better life.”

Under H.R. 6655, the five-year innovation waiver is only available to states with populations of less than six million and a labor force participation rate below 60%. According to the Alliance for Opportunity, currently only nine states fit the bill: Louisiana, West Virginia, Missouri, South Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Maine, Kentucky, and New Mexico.

Under the current version of WIOA, states are barred from implementing such reforms. Utah was grandfathered in and is the only exception.

The bill contains another potential pathway toward a One Door model as well. Three years after enactment of the law, any state’s governor can consolidate workforce programs into one entity, but doing so would require the approval of half of the chairpersons of local workforce boards.

“These reforms would advance the end goal for every work-capable individual in a safety-net program to participate in effective employment and training programs,” added Hicks. “Numerous studies show that the benefits of work extend well beyond finances, encompassing overall wellbeing and a host of other benefits. One Door reforms will help ensure we have a system that encourages people to find work and improve their lives.”

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Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) is independent, non-partisan, and solutions-focused. Our team is dedicated to creating opportunities for a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Ģ����Ƶns. To achieve our mission, we research ways to help remove barriers to opportunity in each of these pathways, promote our solutions to policymakers and the public, and help effective and innovative social enterprises deliver results in their communities.

Schedule An Interview

The post U.S. House Passes a Bill That’s a Step Toward ‘One Door’ Social Safety-Net Reforms appeared first on For Opportunity.

U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, has previously introduced a “One Door” bill in the House, a version of which passed out of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in December.

Despite a historically low unemployment rate across the country, states are still facing a workforce crisis with millions of able-bodied Americans on the economic sidelines. Our nation’s workforce participation rate has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of 2023, 41 million Americans relied on food stamps to make ends meet and nearly 90 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid.

Many of these Americans remain stuck in a safety-net system that simply doesn’t work. , introduced by Sen. Romney on Feb. 28, would allow states the flexibility to implement Utah’s consolidation of federal workforce development and social safety-net programs into a single state entity. The end goal is to help work-capable recipients reintegrate more quickly into the workforce, empowering them to achieve the independence, stability, and purpose that are crucial to human well-being.

“Every state should have the flexibility to design an integrated workforce and safety-net model that enables people to succeed,” said Randy Hicks, president and CEO of the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity. “Every hour a safety-net recipient spends finding their way through the system is an hour they can’t spend working their way into opportunity. The One Door to Work Act allows states to create a system that works for people.”

The dozens of programs that make up the system have different and, at times, competing goals, inconsistent rules, and overlapping groups of recipients. Often, recipients must resubmit the same information multiple times for multiple programs with the aid of multiple caseworkers. This disconnect fosters despair and keeps recipients in a cycle of poverty—as every hour spent navigating the system is an hour not spent pursuing a path out of it.

What’s more, there is often a disconnect between safety-net programs and welfare-to-work initiatives. The end result is that people stay mired in generational poverty rather than receiving a helping hand to live a better life. The One Door to Work Act would free up state governments to explore ways to create a safety net that works for all citizens and doesn’t cause generational poverty.

“There are 8.7 million open jobs in this country, and the workforce participation rate has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. States need the flexibility in the One Door to Work Act to use our workforce dollars to move our people off the sidelines,” said Greg Sindelar, executive director and chief operating officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is a member of the Alliance for Opportunity.

 “A robust workforce is not only integral to a thriving state economy, but also to its social fabric,” added Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, also a member of the Alliance. “When a person is unemployed for longer than six months, it is associated with decreased well-being, even measurably affecting mortality. The One Door to Work Act gives workers, employers, and taxpayers the system that they deserve.”

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Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) is independent, non-partisan, and solutions-focused. Our team is dedicated to creating opportunities for a quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Ģ����Ƶns. To achieve our mission, we research ways to help remove barriers to opportunity in each of these pathways, promote our solutions to policymakers and the public, and help effective and innovative social enterprises deliver results in their communities.

The post U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney’s ‘One Door’ Bill Would Allow States to Integrate Social Safety Net With Workforce Development appeared first on For Opportunity.

Curious about our projects. progress, and achievements over the past year? The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity 2022 Annual Report is now available online. This year-in-review consolidates the most crucial information about where we’ve been and where we’re headed, all in one place.

We’re incredibly proud of the strides we’ve made for Ģ����Ƶ families in 2022. The GCO team stepped into 2022 on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, ready to lead the charge toward helping our neighbors thrive in education, work, and at home. In today’s climate, the need to alleviate suffering in our communities has never been more urgent.

Here at GCO, we believe that change at the community level is the most important of all. While state and federal policies can drive positive results, nothing is as personally impactful as change close to home. When our friends, families, and neighbors build better lives for themselves, those stories don’t just impact the individuals involved. They reverberate into the greater community.��

Throughout 2022, we remained laser focused on local change. Here’s how we made an impact:��

• We supported 715 families across the state.
• Our team hosted 13 workshops and trainings, with 234 in-person attendees and 266 virtual attendees.
• Through the BETTER WORK program, we continued to help Ģ����Ƶ’s most vulnerable individuals find self-supporting, meaningful work.
• Our Gwinnett County and Columbus BETTER WORK chapters expanded to 400 new job-seekers, 95 workplace partners, and 42 mentors.
• GCO added Missouri and Utah to the BenefitsCliffs.org program, fueling our ongoing goal to encourage employment by overhauling the social safety net—bringing the overall initiative to 12 states (one-third of the nation’s population).
• Our team successfully advocated for a bill during the Ģ����Ƶ General Assembly’s 2022 session that expands the state’s tuition tax credit scholarship by $20 million—giving over 4,000 additional students access to the program.
• We attracted over 500 individuals to be a part of our relationship enrichment program, offering the classes across seven nonprofit partner agencies and seven schools.
• Through assessments administered by the University of Ģ����Ƶ, we showed that our programs improve behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge, which are all top indicators of future relational wellbeing.
• GCO’s Promise Scholarship campaign drove 1,050 messages and 7,573 calls to lawmakers across 10 districts.��

In addition to our impact, we garnered some notable achievements:

• Randy Hicks, GCO president and CEO, was named the 2022 recipient of State Policy Network’s Thomas A. Roe Award.
• The GCO team received the State Policy Network’s Bob Williams Award for Outstanding Policy Achievement.
• GCO was included in Atlas Network’s “Top 10 to Watch in 2022”��

“While state and federal policies can drive positive results, nothing is as personally impactful as change close to home.”

“While state and federal policies can drive positive results, nothing is as personally impactful as change close to home.”

Throughout our report, we share stories of triumph: marriages revitalized, able-bodied workers gainfully employed, benefits cliffs overcome, and educational opportunities that honor students’ individual needs. You’ll get a glimpse of not only our state and local impact, but of some of the individual lives GCO’s work touched over the past year. These are just a few of our successes, and we’re thrilled to drive more transformation in Ģ����Ƶ over the coming year.

We’re proud of the legacy we’re helping to build for families and individuals in Ģ����Ƶ. Through stronger jobs, educational opportunities, and families, we’re bringing hope and positive charge to the most vulnerable people in our state. Most importantly, we wouldn’t be here without your support.��

Here’s to an impactful 2023.

Read our 2022 annual report here.

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We are excited to announce Randy Hicks is the winner of the given by the State Policy Network.

The award was created 30 years ago to pay tribute to leaders who embody innovation, conviction, courage, and solutions in public policy and whose achievements have advanced free-market philosophy. The award was named for the State Policy Network’s founder, who spent much of his life encouraging states to grow organizations who preserve American liberties.��

Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity has been one of the host organizations for the State Policy Network’s Annual Meeting which is being held this week in Atlanta, GA. This is a gathering of organizations working on a state-level to promote realistic solutions to policy. It’s also a time for our team to collaborate with like-minded people and be inspired by new ideas and tactics.

Randy Hicks is the winner of the Thomas A. Roe Award!

Randy Hicks is the winner of the Thomas A. Roe Award.

The post Randy Hicks is the winner of the Thomas A. Roe Award appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Points

• Mr. Rowe has emerged as a dynamic voice on education, upward economic mobility, family formation, the Success Sequence, and adoption.
• The family Breakthrough event will focus on the importance of people of all ages knowing their ABCs — Attitude, Behavior, and Choices.
• The event is on Thursday, August 25, from 10:30am to 12:30pm at Sonesta Gwinnett Place Atlanta in Duluth, Ģ����Ƶ. Lunch is included.

There is a close link between the quality of your relationships and the quality of your work life. To further explore and explain this link, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity team is honored to welcome — senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute — to our upcoming family Breakthrough event focused on family and relational health.

The event is on Thursday, August 25, from 10:30am to 12:30pm at Sonesta Gwinnett Place Atlanta in Duluth, Ģ����Ƶ. Lunch is included.

The family Breakthrough event will focus on the importance of people of all ages knowing their ABCs — Attitude, Behavior, and Choices. Martin Seligman, the father of human flourishing, says that to flourish is to find fulfillment in our lives, to accomplish meaningful and worthwhile tasks, and to connect with others at a deeper level. In essence, to live “the good life.” But “the good life” is impossible if your relationships are broken and you’re living in poverty.

Ian Rowe will address the link for us. Mr. Rowe has emerged as a dynamic voice on education, upward economic mobility, family formation, the Success Sequence, and adoption. The Success Sequence is the basic idea that those who follow a three-step process — graduate from high school, wait until marriage for children, and get a full-time job — are virtually guaranteed to not be in poverty. They also have a strong likelihood of entering the middle class.

Mr. Rowe is also co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based International Baccalaureate high schools opening in the Bronx in 2022; the chairman of the board of Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption services organization; and the co-founder of the National Summer School Initiative.

“When it comes to fighting poverty and creating opportunity, Ian Rowe is one of the most effective and eloquent leaders in the United States,” shares Randy Hicks, GCO’s president and CEO. “His leadership isn’t just based in theory and his expansive knowledge, but in his hands-on experience in leading and serving schools that are transforming lives.”

Randy will guide the discussion with Mr. Rowe at the family Breakthrough event. Topics will include:

• What is the correlation between broken relationships and poverty?

• Can you have one without the other?

• If there were no broken relationships, would poverty exist?

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