Sublime

In the 1960s and 1970s, destitute families often relied on extended kin networks to get by. Poor black families were “immersed in a domestic web of a large number of kin and friends whom they [could] count on,” wrote the anthropologist Carol Stack in All Our Kin. Those entwined in such a web swapped goods and services on a daily basis. This did lit

Poverty isn’t simply the condition of not having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that.

But the sex-education program, because it discourages extramarital sex and promotes marriage, focuses the girls on finding a husband (who more or less has to be a sugar daddy), undoing the effect of the uniforms.

The persistence and brutality of American poverty can be disheartening, leaving us cynical about solutions. But as Scott and Patrice will tell you, a good home can serve as the sturdiest of footholds. When people have a place to live, they become better parents, workers, and citizens. If Arleen and Vanetta didn’t have to dedicate 70 or 80 percent o

Our cities have become unaffordable to our poorest families, and this problem is leaving a deep and jagged scar on the next generation.

Girls in Kenya know perfectly well that unprotected sex leads to pregnancy. But if they think that the prospective father will feel obliged to take care of them once they give birth to his child, getting pregnant may not be such a bad thing after all. In fact, for the girls who cannot afford a school uniform and therefore cannot stay in school, hav