Poverty and trauma

The lifetime toll of financial insecurity

Being born into a poor family in the United States almost ensures a lifetime of poverty that will trickle down to the next generation, and the one after that. Despite the intentional myth of “pulling yourself up the by bootstraps,” American systems of power are intentionally designed to foster intergenerational poverty.

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

–Adam Smith

Scottish Economist (1723-1790)

In the United States, 12 million children live in poverty. Two and a half million of those children do not have a roof over their head. In the same country, 5.5 million individuals have assets over one million dollars. That’s up 62% in the last decade.¹ Approximately 10,000 of these millionaires are worth $100 million or more. This wealth imbalance is easily correctable, but it requires a different c…