Today I was reading the Washington Post and I came across a pretty startling article.

The Pew Charitable Trust has released a study that says that  growing up in neighborhoods that are low income acts as an indicator for future growth earnings.  This comes as particularly shocking news to me.  The study shows that even African Americans that have grown up in households that earn more still don’t have better earning potential.

No other factor, including parents’ education, employment or marital status, was as important as neighborhood poverty in explaining why black children were so much more likely than whites to lose income as adults.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this to be absolutely stunning.  The notion of the cycle of poverty has always been something that has been talked about and taken very seriously.  But this study seems to show that it doesn’t have to do with employment or education, but diversity.

The idea of putting people in a successful environment and seeing improvement doesn’t seem surprising.  We do so much for poverty and hunger, maybe diversity is one of the ingredients we’re forgetting.  And according to this study diversity isn’t just about being black or white, but it’s also about being rich or poor.  Just one more interesting ingredient we need to add to the mix to figure out how we can make the world a better place.

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