Generational Poverty is defined as a family having lived in poverty for at least two generations.  It’s often more, a long-term pattern.  It is important to understand the difference between Generational Poverty and Situational Poverty.  A person can experience situational poverty when their income and support is decreased due to a specific change, such as job loss, divorce, death, etc.  While there may be a domino effect caused by this one significant change, families tend to remain hopeful, knowing this is a temporary setback.

This typically is not the case with generational poverty.  Poverty in general is lacking financial resources to meet basic living requirements.  Generational poverty is often challenged with other types of poverty as well, educational poverty, nutritional poverty and/or lack of family or community support.  These can combine to create the damaging outcome of generational poverty, which is often hopelessness.  Hopelessness is the key factor in creating the cycle from one generation to the next. Without hope and the belief that life can be better, the motivation and energy needed to break the cycle are very low.

People caught in the cycle of generational poverty are focused on surviving.  They are focused on the issue or challenge facing them today.  It may be money for food, finding a place to live, dealing with family member’s issues, unresolved health issues, child care, etc.  Often these problems are urgent.  The concept of planning typically doesn’t exist, in part because planning is tied to the belief that the individual has sufficient control of their life.  In comparison, generally, middle class values encompass education, work and being perceived as a productive member of society.  Also, counterproductive traditions may be passed down, such as low emphasis on education, health or stable relationships.

Many studies show that growing up in poverty hinders a child’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development, and children raised in poverty generally have lower lifelong educational and professional attainment compared with children raised out of poverty.

This disparity is due in part to the fact that children raised in poverty have access to fewer resources than other children. Low-income children typically live in underserved, disadvantaged neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are marked by overcrowded and underfunded schools, by a lack of healthy food sources, by higher pollution and crime rates, and by fewer parks and recreational opportunities.

Almost all of the psychological issues with generational poverty are centered around finances. Many parents work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. This lack of a fundamental resource - money - creates a “scarcity mindset”. The people trapped in poverty struggle to think of the future because they are so focused on surviving for the next few days or weeks. In this mindset, neither adult nor child are thinking about college, careers or higher achievements. Even if they are, they often feel that these dreams are unattainable to them, and their lot in life is to just try to survive.

Living in constant worry about money can also cause toxic stress which can damage the learning, behavior and health of people living with it. For children, the effects span their lifespan.

One of the most effective ways to break generational poverty seems to be education – helping these families find hope in their future and providing them with the path to reach those new dreams. Ending generational poverty requires many different programs, services that help end generational poverty from preschool to vocational training to housing assistance to food assistance and education.  Basic courses like financial literacy and soft skills training make a huge difference.

By providing education, training, financial and nutritional support and a little human kindness, we can help break the cycle of generational poverty.  

Eradicate:  tr.v. 1. To tear up by the roots.

2. To get rid of as if by tearing up by the roots: eradicating poverty.

The American Heritage College Dictionary, 2000

As a member of the Matthew 25 working group assigned to the goal of “eradicating systemic poverty”, I have frequently wondered if our goal is the same or different from that of Central’s Mission Committee. If it is different, in what way is it different?  Many members of the church, led by the outstanding Mission Committee, have long been hard at work feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, finding shelter for the homeless, and comforting the sick. (See Matthew 25: 31-46.) What more can we, as one church in Longmont, actually do to eradicate poverty?