Moreover, two million people work full time all year and can't get their families out of poverty. More than 70 percent of poor children live in families where somebody has income from work. Lousy pay from work is the biggest source of poverty for people who aren't elderly. And all of these problems hit minorities the hardest. We should remember that race is an underlying issue in the debate on poverty.
Some states are better, some are worse.
Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island are really trying to help people get and keep jobs and protect children at the same time. Minnesota gives income assistance to those with low-paying jobs. Idaho, on the other hand, has a two-year lifetime limit, with few exceptions, and throws the whole family off welfare for life after the third violation of its rules. In Mississippi, which has very tough policies and a weak economy in much of the state, the welfare rolls went down by 68 percent, but only 35 percent of those people found jobs. New York City and a number of states force women out of community college and into welfare programs that lead nowhere.