From the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania (http://www.thecaap.org):
While poverty affects a significant portion of Americans, children are more likely than adults to live in poverty. In 2017, it is estimated that 1 in 4 American children were living in poverty. Pennsylvania is home to nearly 1.3 million children under the age of 9, 42% of whom are low-income. Children born into poverty often face poor living conditions, low quality education, lower high school and college graduation rates, frequent moves, fewer resources, higher rates of chronic illnesses, and a life with the constant stresses that poverty brings.
Contrary to the “American Dream,” it can be extremely difficult to achieve economic mobility in the United States. In part, this is due to the vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty, in which a child raised in poverty continues to live in poverty as an adult. Much of this persistent poverty can be attributed to the long-term effects of early childhood experiences. Early experiences serve as the foundation for continued childhood and adult development. When children experience trauma, they are unable to build strong and healthy foundations to help them thrive as adults. Instead, these early experiences contribute to poor educational outcomes, physical health challenges, and impaired brain development, which all hinder the ability to escape poverty as an adult.
Implications of impacted brain development as a result of trauma include increased anxiety, worsened memory, and impaired mood control, all of which make learning, solving problems, and impulse control more challenging. Poor families do not have the same financial resources to invest in their children’s education as their more affluent peers, further putting them at a disadvantage in the classroom and beyond.
The experiences our children have growing up will help pave the way for future success and failure. In order to ensure a successful future for our communities, it is imperative that resources like quality child care and trauma informed communities are in place to help impoverished children build healthy foundations on which to build healthy habits and skills. While the “American Dream” promises success based on hard work and perseverance, it is just a dream. In order to revitalize the American Dream, we need to continue to invest in programming that helps children with limited means to succeed, essentially evening the playing field so that childhood experiences and circumstance do not adversely affect the ability for Americans to succeed as adults. If we fail to make these investments, breaking the cycle of poverty will be much more difficult to accomplish for the 42% of Pennsylvania children that are in low-income families, continuing a legacy of intergenerational poverty.
See Pennsylvania’s Early Childhood Profile here.
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