Lack of knowledge was a problem. Lack of role models was a problem. And I suspect that what was an obstacle for me remains an obstacle for poor kids today. According to Gottschalk and Danziger, among children in bottom-quintile families that received welfare in the early 1970s, only 2.3 percent managed to escape the bottom quintile. According to Gottschalk and Danziger, there is a big difference between being poor and white and being poor and black.
Blacks are more likely to stay at the bottom.
Gottschalk and Danziger say that between 1970 and 1980 the overall probability of a child s escaping poverty did improve, although the improvement was not significant. For the record, the probability of escaping poverty improved from 43.2 percent to 51.2 percent. Gottschalk and Danziger say the only group to show a significant improvement consists of children in two-parent families. Their chance of escaping poverty improved from 47 percent to 65 percent. Now, recall that we are talking about the chance of escaping poverty before the age of 15.