What a great panel discussion we had at the Impact Maker Breakfast! Here are a few takeaways that we thought we'd share. If you missed it, we hope you will join us next year!
What is Intergenerational Poverty?
Intergenerational poverty occurs when low-income status persists across multiple generations. Children who grow up in poverty often face higher risks—such as poor health, lower educational attainment, and fewer job opportunities—leading them to remain poor as adults. This cycle undermines individual potential and constrains broader economic growth, increasing public costs.
A few facts:
As far back as the 1980s, only 50% of children got to out-earn their parents, down from 90% in the 1940s! Can you imagine how much these stats have decreased for children born from the 1990s to the present?
Children from low-income families often earn less than their parents, undermining the “American Dream.â€
Nearly 1 in 4 children in Harris County lives in poverty—one of the highest rates in the country.
Why does it matter to everyone else?
Research links poverty to chronic diseases, higher mortality rates, and lower life expectancy. Children experience toxic stress and developmental delays, which affect their education, mental health, and future careers.
Poverty also limits innovation and talent development. It also raises healthcare, education, and criminal justice expenses that burden the wider community.
What can we do about it?
1. Seek opportunities to collaborate.
2. Build social capital, strengthening and expanding relationships and connections not limited to our enclaves and people like us.
3. Build community and include voices of those not usually included, like that of youth.
How to build community?
Make sure people feel seen. Don't walk on by, ignoring their needs or situation, whether we are talking about kids or adults. Recognize them, whether they are begging on the street, struggling in school, or different from us.
Provide youth access to opportunities and people that are unlike them, so that through mentorship, guidance, and exposure to different circumstances, they can be inspired to break out of poverty conditions and outgrow limited mentalities that their families and backgrounds may have instilled in them.
We are all responsible as a community to overcome poverty and increase economic mobility. As such, we must work together whether by starting an organization, stopping to help someone struggling, making a donation, mentoring, or other ways. People in need are not statistics or numbers. They are someone's family. Do something, whatever you can, but do something.
The solution resides in each of us.
The Jerry C. Dearing Family Foundation, YMCA of Greater Houston, Texas Mutual Insurance Company, Bank of America, Eight Million Stories
Stephen Ives, Kate Fowler, Lillian Diaz Gray, Sandra Bradford, Marvin Pierre
American Leadership Forum - Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter
Houston Public Media
Houston Landing
