Research - Unleashing Opportunity: What Can Texas Learn From U.S. Poverty Relief Efforts?

Poverty is often misunderstood because most people do not know who qualifies as poor, how much governmental assistance is available to the poor, or what allows people to escape poverty. Understanding this is crucial to provide more opportunities for work-capable people to attain self-sufficiency with a flourishing civil society as a first resort and effective government programs as a last.
 
Key points
• Poverty has long been a public policy concern with roughly $25 trillion (adjusted for inflation) spent on it by governments in the U.S. just since the 1960s’ Great Society in an attempt to help people move out of poverty
• But this sort of primary financial assistance by governments has not substantially mitigated poverty and too often made it worse through dependency on government programs.
• Instead, there should be a more holistic approach to effectively mitigate poverty through work, community, and opportunity to provide people with long-term self-sufficiency.
• Texas and the U.S. can do this with a flourishing civil society and a robust economy as a first resort and effective government programs as a last resort instead of spending more on the current flawed approach.

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