Poverty. It seems every politician wants to address it and has ideas for how to alleviate it. Often those ideas involve giving people more money through government hand-out programs.
Poverty is certainly an issue a compassionate society should pay attention to, especially since poverty so often is generational, meaning if one generation is in poverty, it’s likely that succeeding generations will be, unless something significant happens to break the cycle. Giving more welfare doesn’t constitute something significant; unfortunately, too often, that approach entrenches poverty.
But there is a significant something that can break the cycle and is almost fool-proof in ensuring that a person or even a family avoids poverty. Research done by the Brookings Institute shows that there are three steps, if done in order, result in avoiding poverty in the vast majority of people, regardless of ethnicity, race, or economic background.
Brookings calls this the “Success Sequence,” which consists of graduate high school, get a full-time job, and get married before having children. According to Institute for Family Studies, [quote] “the latest research shows that 97% of young people who follow all three steps are not poor as adults….In comparison, half of adults in their 30s who missed all three steps (52%) are in pove ...
