policy research, and curtis skinner is the director of family and economic university program at columbia commufrtydean, as we saw the american dream seems cut off from a major segment of the population, it's not just inner city poverty, but we are seeing this in cities suburbs. >> chester pennsylvania, i went to school there. they have been hit by that for a long time. it's an area long victimized. part of the story is remnants - the ongoing story of the economic downturn. we are far from recovered from it. we saw the hit in 2008. the economy was better than in 2009/2010. we still have high unemployment, wages have gone nowhere, so we have populations that are hard-hit for long periods of time. it's been amplified by the knolent of the economic downturn which doesn't show a sign of having gone away. >> is it worse now than in the past. if you look at the numbers from a pure percentage standpoint. it seems we are at the same numbers as we were when we hit the recession in the early "90s and the '80s. >> in terms of child poverty, which is what we look at, child poverty rates are high. they are 22%,