so we were raised the following question what if we could get every kid to follow 3 simple. graduate from high school get a job and continue work and don't have children tell you're 21 and. right now we've walked out at the entire country and we classified people according to whether they

broke all those rules or they followed one or 2 or all 3 of the rules the results are astounding. so i started talking to judges and lawyers and doctors and health providers and interviewing people and literally asked thousands of people how many of you had the course istria poverty united states and. we are segregated in america by social class it is think about it who the middle class people hang out with. most middle class people don't know someone in poverty by 1st name and if it is down to dinner together. today

millions of american families are taught in circumstances beyond their control. their children will be compelled to live lives of poverty unless the cycle is broken. president johnson's war on poverty has this one goal to provide everyone a chance to grow and make his own way. i think everything in life that's important really lives in the grey like there's no black and white there's this gray how do we make it more clear of what the problem is there are so many different life experiences of poverty and we don't have a clear definition of the federal government doesn't meet the definition they say if your family is more needed right about. to take care of your family for a year in 2000 does that mean that if you're making more you're not in red and that that's not the case i think the most difficult challenge.

out of your current predicament. of course people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write. if their bodies are stunted from hunger. if they're sick their school on time didn't get their live fish banned from hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check. so we were asked. to opportunity. we're also going to give all our people. help the very meat. through goes. all of our well for you get money and you get more if you have less income go through have 0 income get them to dismantle. and then as you earn money lose part of the benefit sometimes if you were even $1.00 extra dollar

the whole benefit medical. health for people and people who are disabled if that number seems low it should because it's based on 1000 fixed these costs of living in the sixty's economists came up with the formula for calculating the family needs and they said things like well we'll have a parent in the home so we don't have to include childcare people can walk to work so we don't have to include transportation and employers will pay for health care so we don't need to include that 3 major family expenses are not included in the 2017 federal poverty guideline where you have more women in the workplace than average in the history if you look at parents and divide their income into 5 equal parts and let's just the bottom 20 percent of this would be parents with income below roughly $25000.00 and now we come watch their kids grow up and we made sure their kids income. 30 to 34 years of age are they doing better than kids from

that bottom 5th of income below 25000 are twice as likely as we would expect based on chance to be in the bottom it's very difficult to get out in the modern bites it's a fight every day to meet your needs and the needs of your family. we find some quarter 1000000 of our brothers sisters. parents or home along with our own apartment and a master. our military our marriage more must be done to reduce poverty and dependency and believe me nothing is more important than welfare reform i think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind poverty in a sense. how does piloted love. papa didn't have a loan. because he can put make up. some clothes on ain't

a bad sometimes if we struggled with poverty in a certain way with him to the most critical because we say well we didn't i pulled myself up by the stress i got it done i struggled i had to work 2 jobs i did it well your situation is not the same somebody else is because we're individuals and our characteristics our personality our network of people our demographics the area that we live in are different so we can't take 2 people from different factions say well this person did it he must be good and this person didn't do it they trained elephant by saying the elephant was a little girl when a young. man elephant growth of the bull found all the elephant. but the same little rolled around that elephant. but that elfin is a condition only go in far as that rope will lead. anywhere say wait a minute case of the people as he had a little rope around their mouth. said will will only let him go so far

in a lesson only let him dream. so far and he would children. no need to go up. in the dell. that's a little rope gets added a man. is only good for that will. most important thing is where you're born and who you're born to so this one guy he said i'll do your study for you he said i grew up in poverty and i said thank you so much i said tell me how did your family get by he said well my father was a physician he died when i was 12 i had to go live with grandparents i worked in their store i pulled myself up by my own bootstraps i had the right mindset and i was determined and i became a doctor like my dad and i'm listening to him through the eyes of somebody who's bought her 5 brothers in the back window of the car and i'm thinking you knew

someone who owned a store and you were related to vote. but if you look at it from his context his experiences who do the children a professional singer. typically it's going to be other children of professionals and what people do is we compare ourselves to the people around us and we sometimes put an umbrella and say poverty is just poverty and that's not that's not true that's not the case it's so difficult to come up with a solution to help someone we don't understand the problem ourselves how can we work together how can we understand each other and the answer is we have to accurately understand poverty what is poverty about. so understanding the perspectives of people who live in generational poverty or working class poverty or immigrant poverty or situational poverty there's so many

different life experiences of poverty and we use one word to describe them all so many people they've they have no idea if you're born into a poor family you're born into a minority family if you're born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your lives. dances people die on average 15 years younger if you're born into generational poverty. only 17 percent of the people born into generational poverty move out so you move a lot and you just get through the day and life becomes about getting through the day generational poverty is the deepest part radio cycle out of any people and generational poverty are working $1.00 jobs a month to decide between paying for buying food. that's the kind of poverty i come from where most of my family members can't read and write there's high mobility of constantly addicted you're going hungry nutrition if you

don't really really sick you know the registry when you just hope they give you sales. by the prescriptions working class poverty is a little different you're living paycheck to paycheck don't have a lot left over but you know that checks coming so you feel like you have a little more control over their lives but they're very hard on themselves they buy into the idea that if they work or don't make it and they had the labor statistics they without an education or skill or your whole life. and then there's immigrant poverty where you have people who are struggling with housing transportation child nutrition out of basic human needs and in addition to that you have the language barriers the cultural barriers the just the discrimination racism to live to move really big obstacles to address to really develop to their potential and then you have situational poverty you go up in a middle class environment you hear middle class words since you were in the war

you know middle class that is structure you're not saying you maybe have a divorce and you fall into poverty or maybe you get downsized in your job and you fall into poverty those are the ones that sometimes don't find their way into our numbers that didn't fill out the papers for the free and reduced lunch. in america we like to think that everybody who works hard. a certain amount of talent can make it and can join the middle class that's the american dream and past generations the american dream seemed to be working pretty well it's not working as well now we always think that in america on the theory of the land of the brave equal opportunity. for. kids. to.

go to school so. through education you can also better yourselves in other words you learn how to learn how to think critically and find solutions to unexpected challenges education also teaches you the value of discipline but the greatest rewards come not from instant gratification but from sustained effort. and from hard work. and finally with the right education both at home and at school you can learn how to be a better human being. this politically impossible in the united states to advise eating was anything that

has an industry. that makes a lot of money. as i'm going to say over and over again we know what it healthy diet is it means not much for one for one thing and eating less is very very bad for business it doesn't make anybody rich if people eat less. during the vietnam war u.s. forces also bomb to neighboring laos there was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. how much it is officially the most heavily bombed country per capita in appalling human history

millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn wieber went on to another topic that even today kids in laos full victims of bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for the tragedy in laos won't help to the people need in that little land of mines. when you look at the landscape of our community one of the things that keeps me up at night is. our education attainment rates. 70 percent of our citizens our neighbors that live with us have no post-secondary credential today's economy is very demanding scales and skills means education so getting a job these days with just a high school education is a lot harder than it used to make the chances are that you're going to be in poverty or close to be especially if you're trying to support

a family. why did 20 different focus groups i did surveys i did interviews expecting to find that students were afraid of which they are that students need more tutoring which they do but those weren't the barriers that students identified that were keeping him from being successful in the classroom what students told me overwhelmingly is the biggest barriers to their success in the classroom had nothing to do with the classroom transportation childcare health care housing food utility payments statistics show that college is a very successful way to go and it's still the best decision for students or anyone who wants to get out of poverty or level up in what they want to do however i also think that the worst thing to do is go to college and drop out years ago the goal is to graduate you got to graduate like you just can't drop out because unlike

anything else you still got to pay the bill. now what higher ed would do is they would look at those success rates and they would go oh our students aren't as well prepared they're not smart they don't know how to study they're not dedicated and i think what we've learned to them really. colleges those aren't true at all our students are smart ambitious they're capable they want for themselves they're burdened not just provide a future for themselves but to save their families but they have real barriers that they bring with them if we're going to fulfill our mission in higher education we've got to understand those barriers and address them if we want our students to be successful in the classroom. you know i teach people that if you don't get

educated you don't get skilled you going to be poor your whole life and so will your children is an absolute exception of a person who is living you know so will say well my uncle makes a 100000 and he's not educated but i'm quoting labor statistics and census data that's an exception i didn't know what i wanted to be and so after i graduated from college i think that that's somewhat normal but i went ahead and i i went to college and i picked the major and i was glad that i had people in my life that encouraged me just to go ahead and go in a lot of people because they've learned that they've been sent messages that they're not smart enough they're not good enough they don't try and tell you to. get your high school diploma gets your college degree and then keep pursuing what it is that you have a skill set for and you're passionate about one of the hardest most heartbreaking things about not having your ged or your high school diploma is sometimes you hit

a ceiling at work or you miss an opportunity we don't want you to miss we we want people to have those are. the best you know i'm not i asked them a lot of walking around but i graduated man education and you need to play is. one of things i think we're really not talking to high school students about this subject that i like to call success we teach english we teach math but we don't teach success which regardless how smart you are in any of those other cattle. if you understand the subject of the best way to lose is basic fundamentals of understanding you know how to network how to communicate would be bold but also how to be strategic realizing what's important. college is not about how smart you are it's about how hard you're willing to work every host who should expose. it shows the average income of people who drop out of high school

and people who graduate from high school but doable for the kids who get a 2 year degree in kids who get a 4 year degree when they get to be adults with different. levels for those people should have exploded over the last 3 or 4 decades and if we could show the kids and make them understand and say you know i might get more education i'm going to make more money and that will have an impact on every other part of my life the most important thing is not the freedom to buy things it's the freedom to dream and chase what you really want to do the more money you can make and now and not spending it allows you to dream at a place and give you the oxygen and during where you're not thinking short term. i don't think that i think is so important to understand is how poverty steals your

hope. and your confidence i was talking to 2 students at my t. place and i loaded one up on my car brought them over here walk them through the process got him signed up we got a man rolled and then that student told me after we got him a schedule when it came time to go to class but the 1st day he said in his car in his parking lot for 3 hours that he couldn't get out of the car. that's that's not because he won smart capable or he didn't want to do it that's because he was a brave. that's real but it can't be an excuse everybody in their life everyone has fear i just challenge you don't work through your fear and don't let fear keeps you from being your best self about my yourself when you are educated and when you know the things that you know and you know how hard you work. you need to create this story for yourself you need to surround yourself with

other people who are going to be possibilities and do not allow negative people negativity to talk you out of your dream. what are your passion about what you have skills that are. in the meantime keep pursuing your education you have to understand that you have so much purpose between 14 and 24 that the decisions you make not only going to pack are going to pack your kids and your grandkids you don't even know who's going to benefit from the little decisions you make today you may not see it but your grandkids will definitely see. it's. true.

ok it was for a while i watched her just as. she was going to be. from the moment she decided she was going to be a singer. really a little girl at that point. every time i saw her to do it would think ok. you know this work ethic that she had was just. rican amazin i mean you know as a kid authorise thing and all the things and then when we started this church in downtown houston our family joint brought the kids to an assistant and she joined a choir. and every now and then she due to follow and see would put more into that fellow than the whole choir would into the whole 12 and now she is on the largest

platform in the world and they would be a thing. all because of a work ethic i'm a young woman who made a decision what she was going to do and be in life. and allowed no one to get away will everyone be a. no. that's why you gotta have a plan a a plan b. and a plan for me. we have a hard workers in this community whether they're students in amarillo college or employees in the community we have a really hard work ethic the issue is they're underemployed so they're working really hard and not making a living wage doing she already is i am working a crisis is 1.7 jobs and still i can't put food and pay rent i have to make a choice to only say you just gotta work harder in order to to make it that's not true not when you're experiencing poverty because people in poverty are working.

i started looking at who's the number one teacher of poverty in the united states of america and the answer that i found was the media so what's the average person going to know about poverty and the people who live in it it's probably going to be things like when i get rich on welfare if a kid in high school is taken it's not that big a deal as long as i have. all the fun i'll be getting well probably getting to as well for will be covered by medicare i can get housing and so. it doesn't happen that way in 1960. welfare check before going to any dollars jennifer was 6 daniels to my 15 year old homeless cousin was living with me but they said we won't help her because she's not yours we'll give you 400 dollars my rent in a neighborhood. in portland oregon was 395. but then do the math a welfare check today her family of 3 national average or 78 that's

196-2000 17 the average rent according to had a modest apartment 750. the average disability check is $756.00 it's almost impossible to get out of poverty based just on public. our labor statistics if you take a minimum wage job and you work 10 years and you don't have education beyond high school you don't have a skill like an electrician or plumber the average increase after working hard for 10 years in a person's income is $2.00 an hour didn't matter how hard you were about it who works harder the person cleaning the hotel room or the person in their office you don't move without a skill or an education so if you want to buy your mama house going to make sure your kids don't go hungry can't get a skill got a good education now if you want to on say start all that 30000 a year and have the possibility or up to 60 or $70.00

a year who have to have skills you have to be talented you have to know how to do you need what we call soft skills and hard skills parts skills are just you know being technically trained to do something take computer literacy anybody who goes through school these days and isn't computer literate is going to be in trouble and i think our schools should be doing a lot more if they're not already to teach people programming and coding skills and the whole set of things you can't get a decent job anymore if you don't have those skills and the other the soft skills and if you talk to a boyer's employers will tell you that they're really. messing with the soft skills as much as the hard skills the soft skills are things like getting to work on tall i'm dressing appropriately knowing how to interact with other people knowing how to be polite with a client or a customer knowing how to rob i'm so all knowing what to do when something doesn't go quite right you know being a bit creative. one of the things that helped me in my personal life

was to see other people maybe of my same skin color or or the city and and see them succeed so it becomes attainable you don't know what you don't know and i think a lot of times is that's what i think holding people back and they don't know it's bigger than their talent and they don't know what they can do bigger than what they see on t.v. and the people they see at school and people that their parents are. used to work in elementary schools and yes the kids what they want to be in life and they want to be doctors and in a in a lawyer but if your home life doesn't support the teen ability of those things. it's a nice dream but it's not a reality in certain groupings neighborhoods don't have that exposure so it's important that our schools our community lend itself and expose especially the youngest kids to that.

is your media a reflection of the realities. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation whole community. are you going the right way or are you being led. to it. what is true what's. faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. for a mate in the shallows. oh

my his tongue is a mighty i'm not. a time about what was it was a bit. more about. what when and what in the side of the. scene the following to him but i'm before. him by the. body i'm not moved on. to me.

was. the headlines this hour london police officer suspended after video images of him nailing on the neck of a black man he was arresting also to come. pressure mounts on these right the prime minister over his pandemic performance amid ongoing corruption claims and donald trump demands children should be back in their classrooms despite coby defections to new high schools the triggering debate about safety. every other country has her kids and schools except the united states kids are spreading the disease all the scare i mean the virus is skyrocketing.