Policies to Reduce Poverty Need to be Specifically Tailored

Spotlight on Poverty features a guest commentary by Margaret C. Simms, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, on the need to tailor policies to the specific needs of communities and families:

If we are going to make a serious dent in poverty, the United States will have to develop an integrated set of policies that address the diverse and interrelated needs of the poor and, more broadly, the low-income population. Promoting employment without addressing issues of skills training, discrimination, and physical isolation will not lift low-income working families out of poverty and into the middle class. Putting mothers in the labor force without addressing their children’s needs will only roll the problems forward to the next generation.

For more information on policies to reduce childhood poverty.