This study seems destined to have a big impact on social policies at the federal level in the future.
Baltimore is mentioned at several places in this article, at the bottom of the heap across the country.
An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty
NY Times - David Leonhardt, Amanda Cox and Claire Cain Miller - MAY 4, 2015
Quote:
In the wake of the Los Angeles riots more than 20 years ago,
Congress created an anti-poverty experiment called Moving to Opportunity.
It gave vouchers to help poor families move to better neighborhoods and
awarded them on a random basis, so researchers could study the effects.
The results were deeply disappointing. Parents who received the vouchers
did not seem to earn more in later years than otherwise similar adults,
and children did not seem to do better in school.
The program’s apparent failure has haunted social scientists and policy makers,
making poverty seem all the more intractable.
Now, however, a large new study is about to overturn the findings of Moving to Opportunity.
Based on the earnings records of millions of families that moved with children,
it finds that poor children who grow up in some cities and towns have sharply better odds
of escaping poverty than similar poor children elsewhere.
|
One of the expected changes has to do with giving families with small children
a higher priority on waiting lists for housing in better communities, which
is the exact opposite of the current policy.