The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Stephanie Hoopes, Peter Kilde, Marc Perry, Dalitso Sulamoyo: "Poverty Blind" | Reality Roundtable #7

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by four professionals with decades of experience working with low-income communities, Stephanie Hoopes, Peter Kilde, Marc Perry, and Dalitso Sulamoyo to discuss the state of poverty in the United States. Even in the wealthiest country in the world, poverty is a pernicious problem - and in a future that is more resource constrained it will only get worse. Do the current official measurements of poverty accurately portray the living standards of most Americans? How are poverty and agency entangled, and how do we empower both for people who currently aren't meeting survivability standards? What role does community and social capital play in alleviating resource limitations and creating a better quality of life?  About Stephanie Hoopes Stephanie Hoopes, PhD, is the National Director of United For ALICE at United Way of Northern New Jersey. She developed the ALICE (Asset, Limited, Income, Constrained, Employed) measures for a pilot study of the low-income community in Morris County while at Rutgers University-Newark, and has since overseen the expansion to a national effort with ALICE data for all 3,000 U.S. counties. Her research has garnered the attention of local, state, and national media. Dr. Hoopes has a doctorate degree from the London School of Economics. About Peter Kilde  Peter Kilde has been ED of West CAP, an anti-poverty community action agency in West Central Wisconsin since 1995.  West CAP has developed and manages multiple low-income housing projects, and operates homelessness, weatherization, food security, adult literacy and skills, and various sustainable community programs. Peter served on the National Community Action Partnership Board of Directors, where he established and co-chaired the Partnership for Climate Resilience which focuses on how CAP agencies across America can help their communities adapt to Climate Change. Peter also serves on the Wisconsin Community Action Program Association (WISCAP) Board, the regional Workforce Development Board. About Marc Perry  Marc Perry has more than 25 years' experience working with youth and adults from diverse backgrounds. Marc currently serves as the Executive Director for Community Action Inc., of Rock and Walworth Counties where he is responsible for making sure the organization stays true to its mission of moving families toward economic self-reliance. Marc provides training and technical assistance for partner organizations and facilitates cultural equity workshops for both private and public institutions, including school districts, NGOs and law enforcement entities throughout the Midwest. About Dalitso Sulamoyo Dalitso Sulamoyo was born and raised in Malawi, South East Africa.  Since moving to the United States of America in the early 1990s, he has made economic and social justice a focal part of his career. Dalitso Sulamoyo has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission since June 2017. As the CEO, Dalitso oversees a multi-faceted government agency with over 140 different federal, state, and local grants and contracts with a budget of over $6million. The agency's services range from transportation planning, police training, energy efficiency training, community services, workforce development, economic and community development to early childhood education for income eligible families. For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/rr07-hoopes-kilde-perry-sulamoyo  To watch this video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/359aiDUDHRo 

You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. That's me. On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, in our society. Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's-eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. Welcome to Reality Roundtable number seven, where we discuss a central topic to the Great Simplification, which is poverty. Joining me today are Stephanie Hoops. Stephanie developed the Alice metric, which stands for asset limited, income constrained, but

employed for a pilot study of low-income community in New Jersey and has since overseen the expansion to a national effort with Alice data for all U.S. counties. as the national director for a program at United Way of Northern New Jersey. Also joining me as Peter Kildee, who's been the executive director of Westcap, an anti-poverty community action agency in West Central Wisconsin for almost the last 30 years, where they've developed and managed multiple low-income housing projects and various sustainable community programs. Also joining me as Mark Perry, who's the executive director for community action of rock

and Wellworth counties in Wisconsin, where he provides training and technical assistance for cultural equity workshops with a goal of moving families toward economic self-reliance. Lastly is Delizzo Sulamoio, who is the CEO of Champaign County Regional Planning Commission in Illinois, whose services range from transportation planning, energy efficiency training, community service, and much more for low-income families. This is a topic that I don't know a lot about, but I recognize the importance of it. And I think this will be the first of many conversations on this topic on this podcast. Please welcome Stephanie, Peter, Mark, and Dilitsil.

Greetings. Welcome to Reality Roundtable number seven. This month, we're going to talk about poverty, specifically in the United States. But I think the lessons that we might learn apply to other places. places in the world. With me today are Peter Kildi, Mark Perry, Dilitsum Sulamoio, and Stephanie Hoops. Stephanie, great to see you. Could you briefly introduce yourself? Hello, Nate. Yes, hi. I'm Stephanie Hoops, the National Director of United for Alice. Excellent. Delizzo.

Hi, Nate, Delitzso Sulamojo. I'm the chief executive officer of the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission, in Illinois, and I'm also the chair of the National Community Action Partnership. Mark Perry. Good afternoon, Nate. Mark Perry, executive director of Community Action Inc. of Brockmoreworth counties, located in southeastern Wisconsin. And Peter. Yeah, good afternoon, Nate. So my name is Peter Kildee, and I am the executive director of a rural cap in

West Central Wisconsin called West Cap, and we do a lot of stuff around affordable housing and everything else. And CAP stands for Community Action Partnership. And Peter. Program. Program. And of the four of you, Peter is actually one of my neighbors. He lives around 30 miles from here.

Thank you all for being here. This is a huge topic. The reason that I asked you here is I think wealth and income inequality are already a serious issue in this nation. And I expect as energy gets more expensive and credit. it becomes less available and even what happening with AI that it's going to become a much deeper and wider issue. And so I would like each of you to give five or six minute overview of your framing on poverty in the United States. And then we will have a conversation about it. Stephanie, would you like to begin?

I would love to start. And you've got a great group here, Nate, but I want to introduce your listeners to one more person. And that's Alice. And Alice is an acronym for asset limited, income constrained, employed. And we all know Alice. Our neighbors, our friends, our kids, our parents, many of us have been Alice. And we all got to know Alice better during the pandemic, especially the essential workers who enabled many of us to quarantine,

who took care of us when we got sick, and we all got to see a lot of Alice family struggling. One of the most poignant for me was seeing those families in a parking lot at McDonald's trying to connect to the Wi-Fi so their kids could do their homework. So that kind of thing just brought Alice a lot closer to us. But Alice is also a very specific measurement that we've developed at my organization, United for Alice,

And the measurement is it's households that earn above the federal poverty level, but below what we call the household survival budget, which is the bare minimum housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, smartphone plan, and Alice pays taxes. So just, you know, the bare minimum for that household budget. and we are finding that instead of 12.8% of households below the federal poverty level struggling to get by, that there's another 28.6%. So in total, we have 41% of households in this country that are struggling paycheck to paycheck, working often, sometimes two jobs, and not able to support their families. So the magnitude of what we're talking about here today is not 12 or 13% of households, it's 41% of households.

And I think that that is a fundamental shift in the way we understand what's happening in terms of equality and in terms of policy that we're having to address this in a much bigger way. And so I just wanted to share maybe a minute or two on what that's based on

so that folks really understand that this is the minimum of what we're reporting. We have this household survival budget that we compile for every county across the country. And then we look at income of households in that county and above or below that basic budget, you're Alice or you're not. And so in comparison, the federal poverty level is one number everywhere in the country. And this number was developed about 60 years ago when Lyndon Johnson needed his measure for the war on poverty. And so that number then was developed based on the economy at the time. And there was a common understanding that food should be about a third of your budget.

That number has been ticked up by inflation ever since. So there's been no adjustment for the way the economy has evolved. and food is no longer a third of people's budgets. And we all know that there's great differences across the country in the cost of living. We know that there are differences within states and between states, and yet the poverty level is that same number in New York as it is in Mississippi. So our Alice metrics and the household survival budget are able to take into account those regional differences in the cost of living.

And then there are differences in what people get paid as well. So it's where there's that gap between what the cost of living is and what people earn. That's where you have Alice households. And in our research over the last decade, we have found Alice in every community that we've researched. So we find Alice in rural communities. we find Alice in urban communities. And we also drill down and look at households by all different kinds of demographics.

And there's no one Alice story. So I hope some of what we can talk about today is dispelling some of the myths about who is struggling. People conjure up ideas about poverty and what we're able to show with the Alice metrics is that there are households struggling of all shapes and size. all race and ethnicities, all ages, all family combinations. And so we need to think bigger.

And part of the reason we developed the name Alice is to move away from that poverty language, which in many cases has some moral connotations with it. People make assumptions about whether households are being lazy or have some moral failing. And our metrics, show very clearly that there's a structural problem in the U.S. economy, that cost of living is higher than what wages earn in a lot of areas across the country. So it's all of our problem. It's not just some families who might not be trying hard enough. That's not the right story. So Alice stands for asset, limited, income constrained, and what's the E? Employed. employed. You know, I'm aware of this, and I assume that many of our listeners are as well,

but we're one of the wealthiest nations in the world as an average income. But that average, the mean, is very different than the median. And in many ways, we are not remotely a wealthy country, given that you just pointed out 40% plus of families are in this demographic. So thank you for that overview. Mark Perry, would you like to go next? Yeah, and honestly, thank you very much, Nate. Continuing really where Stephanie kind of left off as we look at circumstances related to the families that we serve in our organization and community action organizations. You know, one of the things that we do at community action agencies is every three years we're required to do a community-wide needs assessment. And that needs assessment is a

survey of people who receive our services and people in the community and other constituency bases. And what we see and what we found over the last several years as the person who is responsible in our agency for our needs assessment gathering is individuals who are working, sometimes two jobs, and a few occasions, three jobs, but are unable to make ends meet. So it's not that people aren't working. It's not that people are sitting on waiting for public assistance or support. It's literally that they're working and they're not making a living wage. We see people in circumstances like making monthly decisions about whether or not I'm going to pay my light bill or I'm going to put gas in my car so I can go to work. We see people in situations making decisions

about whether or not they're going to buy groceries that month, whether or not I'm going to let my light bill go for the month. The vast majority of the circumstances that we see is we see individuals who, even if they are making their dollar stretch to meet their normal budgets, one of the issues that they'll run into, for example, is if they have a crisis of any sort of, any nature, their car breaks down. They have a flat tire. They have a bill that's out of the ordinary. They're making those decisions about, oh, my gosh, I have to get my car fixed because that's the way that I get to and from work and get my children to and from school. But if I get my car fixed, it's going to make me $300 short for my electric bill. It's going to make me $250 short for my insurance payment. It's going to make me short for my rental payment. So you're talking about families on a regular basis making decisions, on a monthly basis, making decisions about how their money is managed. A lot of the conversation people come to us, or when we hear people talk about stereotypes or stigmas about the people we serve, we hear the thing about they're not good money managers

or they don't manage their resources well. When the reality is a lot of our families manage the resources incredibly well, the simple fact is that there's not enough of the resource. They're not being paid enough to earn a living wage to support their families. and we have to make sure that we're addressing that issue. As I said, we see this circumstance all the time. The other thing that we have to take a look at as we talk about families is specifically talking about child poverty.

I'm affirmed, as a person who's spent almost my entire career as a youth development practitioner, I'm working with youth and challenge backgrounds. One of the biggest measures for me in terms of how healthy a community is, is the health and well-being of their children. So looking at child poverty rate, poverty rates, looking at literacy rates, looking at numeracy rates, looking at, looking at health outcomes, looking at education outcomes, looking at youth employment opportunities, looking at youth incarceration rates.

And looking at those numbers across, I mean, across the board, we're absolutely failing our children right now. And when it comes to racial disparity and disproportionality, bi-pac children are falling much further behind. We have to make sure that we're addressing, again, all of our children and all of our families, but we have to make sure we're paying attention to racial disparity and disproportionality because those numbers are incredibly disturbing. I live in a state and work in a state where we have some of the worst racial disparity outcomes in the entire country. Wisconsin is widely

considered the most segregated state in the United States. It's widely considered the state that it's the worst state for black families to live in and the worst state for black children to grow up in. So we have to start addressing all of our disparities. issues in terms of wealth and income, but really pay attention to the fact that our children of color are struggling, are struggling disproportionately. Thank you. I didn't know that about Wisconsin. I have so many questions for you, Mark, but I'm going to wait until everyone goes. I have plenty of data for you as well, to back up the statements. Yeah, thank you. Delitzo, would you like to follow, Mark? Sure, thank you, Nate. And

just to add to what Mark and Stephanie have presented, and I want to just share with you and your viewers that, you know, my background, I come from Malawi, which is in Southeast Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world. And so for me to be working on addressing poverty in one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest nation in the world, is pretty interesting. But being that, being that, you know, that's what it is. As you said, you know, this is one of the wealthiest nations, and yet we have this issue of poverty,

where there are a lot of households that are, you know, financially insecure. And I think at the crux of this is most households that are in poverty, it's because they cannot afford basic necessities. That is food and shelter. If I may just maybe illustrate something that was touched on by Mark, and, you know, when he talked about, families have to make decisions on whether or not, you know, they should pay the electric bill or, you know, some of the emergency comes up and they have to divert their resources towards that. Let's use one of the programs that community action operates, which is the low-income home inage assistance program. This is a program that we have to divert their resources towards that. We need to use one of the programs that we basically assist households with their utility bills. And we essentially, when we go through the application process, we pay the utility vendor directly. So the money doesn't go to the household, but we pay the utility directly on behalf of that household. And one of the things we're looking at, especially here in Illinois, we've realized that the reason why we have this program and the reason

why people come to our doors is because they cannot afford their utility. It's not because they, like you said, not because they're lazy or they don't want to, you know, pay their utilities. They simply cannot afford it. And I don't know about, you know, Wisconsin or I don't know where Stephanie is, but here in Illinois, our utilities have gone up significantly. I mean, my household, we were used to paying a monthly bill of maybe $100 a month to skyrocketing to $600 a month. So think about a household that is on limit. income, we've looked at households that are anywhere from zero to 50 percent of poverty. And unfortunately, we have to use that measurement because that's all we have to work with right now.

But for those households that are zero to 50 percent of poverty, even after we've provided LIHEAP assistance, they're still paying 30 to 40 percent of their income towards the utilities. So there's no way for these households to really make it. And in most cases, if you can't afford utilities, that is also connected to you perhaps being evicted, especially if you're renting your apartment or house. You may end up being evicted because, you know, you don't have any utilities. So it's a, and that's just one piece. What about rent? You know, a lot of, depending on, you know, the community that you're in, and depending on how much housing costs, a lot of.

families cannot afford to pay their rent. So it's an issue of affordability, but it's also an issue of income, as Stephanie pointed out. You have a lot of households that are working, and, you know, Mark, you said, you know, maybe some are working two, if not three jobs, but yet they're still not able to afford their, you know, basic necessities. And so, you know, we're trying to bridge that gap, but it's still not enough. The question I think I have, and I'm sure we'll talk about this later on, is are we investing enough to address poverty? I just read the book by, I think the last name is Desmond. And one of the things he did is he did this calculation

where he was able to determine that, you know, in order for us to even begin to really seriously address poverty at the basic, $177 billion a year. and I'm not sure that that's the investment that we're making so far to actually put a dent into poverty. So there are a lot of things that we need to talk about because it's a multifaceted issue. Mark has brought up issues of equity that are, you know, disparities that Wisconsin is, you know, disparities that Wisconsin is dealing with. But you see those across the board in education, access to opportunities.

health care, as well as employment. And so it has to be a multifaceted approach if we're really going to be serious about addressing poverty in America. I'll stop there. Thank you. Again, I have lots of follow-up questions. Just one for clarity. You said that if a family or an individual is at zero to 50 percent of poverty, you mean the federal poverty level?

That's like a statistic. That's correct. The federal poverty level. And like how much money is that today? Ooh, I'll have to... Income. I'll look at it while Peter goes. So I can help a little bit with that.

For a single adult, it's about $13,000, whereas our survival budget for a single adult would be $25,000, $30,000 just for those bare basics. I mean, it can tell you how woefully inadequate that federal poverty level is. Yeah, if you start with that base of about $26,000, then you need. need to add somewhere between $13,000 and $15,000 per per new other household member, just to get the basics. And if you're at that federal poverty level, you're still paying full taxes to the government and all that. Well, below a certain amount, you don't pay taxes, but Alice pays taxes. And in some cases, Alice households pay a higher rate of tax than wealthier households. Just something to also share is that even if you have households that are not necessarily defined as being in poverty, there are many of us who are one paycheck away from falling into poverty.

It's a major illness, major catastrophe happens to you. Next thing you know, you found yourself in the predicament of poverty. Or a recession that has nothing to do with the individual. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Kildee. Well, thanks, thank you. Thanks, everybody. You know, listening to this discussion a little bit, I'm reminded of a presentation I once did on poverty, which was basically poverty. It's a math problem, you know. And people talk so much about behaviors and lack of motivation and all that kind of stuff. That just is not our experience. And the other thing that comes to mind again in listening to this is the amazing

persistence of that 40% of the population that can't afford a survival budget. That was true pre-COVID. It's been true for years through up and down and everything else. And, you know, I seriously wondered to the extent to which the 40% is structured into the economy. That's what drives the wage costs down. That's what, you know, supports imports, all kinds of things. But my main focus here today, at least for openers, is to connect this story of poverty in America with the great simplification and all the great realities that Nate's been able to share. And just to let everybody know, Nate and I have been at this since 2010 when we all got together under a partnership initiative to spend a few days dealing with that stuff.

And, you know, that report, you know, looking at, you know, climate change, resource depletion, debt-based economy and everything. and reads like prophecy today. You know, this has not been a big secret. But looking at the sort of the realities of the great simplification, I'm just going to pick a couple of instances on one issue. And it's not the whole story, but there's a lot to unpack in here that I think is illustrative.

So the first one I'd talk about a little bit is what happened in 2005 when Katrina hit New Orleans. So that was kind of the first major shot across the bow of what this thing looks like. And the pattern that was established there has been remarkably robust. We just see it again and again all over the world. But here's the story a little bit. And I should mention, I have a very close relationship with New Orleans, starting with a memorable Mardi Gras of 51 years ago,

and a love affair that's been through work and been through vacation and been through everything else. I just love that city. So, and I actually was literally on a train headed for New Orleans when Katrina hit. They stopped the train in Chicago and I watched the whole thing unfold in a hotel room down there. It was amazing experience. But in the community action world, you know, I just started on the board and we were scheduled to have a meeting down there that week. Some people had went down early and experienced that. But the story of Katrina is basically that, you know, the more affluent folks, folks that had money and the means and a car got the hell out of there.

You know, they saw the thing coming. You still see the images on the freeways and they fled. And the people who, and these are mostly white people in New Orleans. And, you know, the people that did not have those things. And again, mostly black in that city at that time were left to fend for themselves. And 1,400 died, you know, in that. It was a horrific experience. And then, you know, again, what we see so often on these kinds of, I call them unnatural disasters these days because they are happening at such an unprecedented rate.

But, you know, these neighborhoods were in, you know, the neighborhoods that were low-income people tend to reside. We're also in the floodplains. They were on lower ground. They had, you know, greater risk. And then when the recovery came along, and this story again is so robust, turns out that most of that helped on a per person basis, went to the folks who were in the wealthier neighborhoods that actually had less damage. The Southern Poverty Law Center just came out with a big report on that in August 31st,

just a couple months ago. And it really is quite a tale. And it's corruption and it's, you know, people flipping contracts and making a profit. They're supposed to be rebuilding houses. They ended up at the end of the day with blue tarps thrown over the roof. And the houses were never able to, you know, be rebuilt or recovered. And then a lot of people just had to leave. And 15 years after Katrina, the census in New Orleans,

was 100,000 people less than it was pre-Katrina. It just lost it forever and then disappeared. And the other thing we started to see, and it's been exhilarating ever since, is the cameras go away and they go on to the next crisis. And the people stay and the community action agencies and local governments and churches or whatnot are left to deal with those, you know, broken lives for a long time. Second thing I wanted to talk about just a little bit. It's a very similar story in Puerto Rico in 2017.

You know, Maria was coming to Puerto Rico and the more affluent people got on boats, airplanes, everything, and left. That storm hit that island, killed 3,000 people immediately and caused the biggest power outage in American history, 1.5 million people. Same story. when it comes to what happened, especially to the poor people in this community. And again, in Puerto Rico, we're looking at 40% of the population under the official poverty level, so it's probably closer to 80. And it took 11 months for that electricity to be restored. of the 4,600 people ultimately that died there, about a third of them was because they had no power.

They couldn't get medicine. They couldn't get treatment. There was a big spike in suicides. So it's really a halacious kind of experience. And, you know, I'm just for comparison imagining what it would be like if Alexandria, Virginia, or the Hamptons, or Marin County, California was without electricity for 11 months. you kidding me you know i mean these folks are u.s. citizens you know true they don't get to vote for president and they don't have any representation in congress but they do get to pay federal taxes you know so they're included um and you know it it's just unheard of what was allowed to happen

there and the only reason that can come to mind is we value low-income people less than people of affluence. And I thought about that a little bit with the story, you know, not too long ago, the five billionaires in the submarine, right, who died. And that was in the newspapers and on the news nonstop for a month. I couldn't believe it. And yet, you know, when you had Paul Ehrlich on, Nate, and he's talking about, you know, 10 million people starving in this planet every year. And you hardly ever see it. But these patterns are, you know, consistent with, anything you've seen, whether you're talking about native villages burning in Canada or in Bangladesh, what happened, you know, currently or very recently in Somalia, it just doesn't, you know,

the same pattern shows up again and again. So, you know, ultimately, I think that really is a huge issue when you're talking about poverty, is it's also not a level playing field in terms of what happens. these natural disasters, so-called occur. And that's not the whole story, but it's all you're going to get for the moment. Thank you. Yeah, so you're basically saying that Katrina and Maria and Puerto Rico are a microcosm for the larger reality of our income and wealth inequality,

probably in the United States, but also between countries globally. But we don't hear about that. I didn't know those stats about Katrina. and Maria. I'm aware of some of these things, but I'm not an expert. So forgive me if these questions are naive. I'm just going to throw out some questions and you can each speak to each of them or if you'd like to pass.

We'll go on to it next. Working in this space and in the communities you work on, what is the mood of people in the 40% broader definition of Alice? Is there despondency or is it anger? Or, I mean, can you give me a sense of your experiences? I'll jump in because that's a great question, Nate. And seeing the number of Alice households increasing through the last great recession, through the quote recovery and now into the pandemic era,

we are seeing the system not working for 41% of households. Republicans, Democrats, it has not come through for them. And so I think some of the more radical politics that we're seeing are people looking frustrated for new solutions. And so I think they're turning in all different directions. It's not that Alice votes one way or another is, Alice is frustrated and is willing to consider candidates from very different places than they might have 20, 30 years ago because of this frustration.

So I'll throw that out as a starter. If you follow up in that little bit, you know, one of the things that really struck me in the last Alice report, Stephanie, was that, you know, that population above the poverty line but can't, you know, afford a survival budget pays on average 22% of their income and taxes. And so if you have a politician coming along and saying, well, you're obviously struggling, but you're struggling because you're pay taxes that, you know, goes to support those group, you know, name your minority, name your, you know, a nationality or your working group or whatever, that's a way easier message to conceptualize and accept than you're a failure, right, which is the other measure. And as long, and, you know, I really think that can't be emphasized enough.

You know, people outside of the field who aren't dealing with this all the time generally think that the poverty measure is accurate. So if you're not included in that, you're not in poverty. And in this booming economy, you're not succeeding. You know, those are your choices. You can either be a failure, you can blame somebody. And we love to blame somebody. And that's being exploited time and time again. My observation, maybe not to the Alice population, but just more in general of who we serve here at the Community Action Agency.

One of the things we've seen, particularly post-pandemic, is the demand. We are seeing more new faces. We're serving more households than actually we did pre-pandemic. One of our programs has, at this point in time, we're serving 40% more than we did pre-pandemic. So I think what the pandemic has done, and I know I'm glad Peter talked about, you know, Katrina and the cyclone that impacted Puerto Rico.

But what we're saying with the post-pandemic is how further behind households are now because of the pandemic. I think Mark talked about the youth. in our local community, we've just had some test scores shared with us. And some of our schools, the testing has really gone further down. And those are schools that actually have predominantly African-American and low-income individuals. And so we have a lot of work ahead of us. But I think things like the pandemic have really put people further into poverty.

Mark, you have any comments? Yeah, I think, you know, especially from my communities of color, my African-American Latino communities, what I'm hearing, is a lot of frustration because, I mean, especially in terms of the African-American community, that's been talking about systemic issues for decades and largely to blind ears, or deaf ears, excuse me, largely to deaf ears and blind eyes. But it's a conversation that black people have been trying to have systemically for decades in this country. And so, now that the conversation is being had about other populations, kind of the feeling is, yeah, we've been telling you this. Why haven't, but it's, but unfortunately, it took somebody white to say it in order for you to actually pay attention to it. Something else too, which is quite a touchy issue. And I don't know what's going on in your communities, but it's the issue of the asylum

seekers and the challenge of resources. to support those individuals that have come mostly, I think, from Venezuela, seeking asylum here in the United States. And it's creating some divisions in some communities. And even within immigrant communities, particularly those immigrants that came here years ago, and they're seeing the kinds of resources that are being put out there to, and I'm not judging, but resources being put out there to assist asylum seekers. and yet those same resources were not put out there for them. Or you have communities that have a huge homeless population.

But then all of a sudden, we have millions of dollars to support this new wave of individuals that are coming into our community. So that's creating some frustration and divisions within some communities, at least I know here in Illinois. I sent you all a short list of questions that I intended to ask, and I may actually get to those, but as you're speaking, I'm thinking of other things.

And I think I mentioned this on a frankly earlier in the year, but the last time I was in San Francisco, I had a cab driver from Afghanistan. He was 21 or 22, and he was studying computer science at Grand Canyon University. And he's like, oh, I plan to get a job and program, and if I am successful,

I want to be in the United States. But I would hate to be poor or homeless in the United States. States. If ever I'm in that situation, I would prefer to go back to Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is one of the worst situations. And yet he would have preferred to be there if he was poor. So that really struck me that being poor in the United States is not a good thing, even for someone from Afghanistan to say that. Do you all, any of you have an opinion on that story? Yeah, I'd see a couple of things. you know, one of the more pernicious elements of this system, and actually, Delitzot,

touched on a little bit, you know, he talks about, well, when we get LIHE money, it goes directly. What is that? I'm sorry, that's the low-income energy assistance program. Okay. You know, we don't let low-income people have that money. You know, oh, heaven's for bed. You know, we pay that directly to the utilities. And that's true in just about all of the programs except the ones like social security that include the more affluent people.

Then they get the money, right? And to me, it's so perverse, you know. And as, you know, folks have pointed out, this is a community that probably knows better about managing money, you know, being careful and whatnot. But I'll tell you a little story that just to me illustrates this. It just kind of drove me nuts. But in one of our programs, we were trying to do an incentive. I think it was on a vaccine program. And we were going to give gas card, you know, little cards to come along.

And the state, and I really like these people. I'm not criticizing the state. They're following the rules they have to. Wanted to know how we would make sure that people wouldn't use that money to buy cigarettes or alcohol or maybe, heaven forbid, take the family to a movie, right? You know, it can only be for gas. And I remember this state employee say, well, you know, it is the government money. You know, this is taxpayer money, you know, so we have to watch this.

And I'm thinking, okay, this guy's, 100% of this guy's salary is also paid by taxpayer money. Nobody tells him that he can't take his family to a movie, you know, or buy a bottle of wine or anything, that kind of stuff. And we, you know, make people come in and essentially beg. You know, they have to tell you exactly what they're spending their money on and get, you know, provide all kinds of documentation to make sure that they're, you know, eligible under this kind of thing. And in this triennial needs assessment that Mark was talking about, where, you know, we go out every three years and do intensive surveying, I thought it was fascinating that this year, the quality, you know, the issue that got the highest response, 74% of the people responded that one of their top concerns was not having a voice.

You know, it's just like they're, you know, they can't control their lives because they have to, you know, beg, borrow, plead, you know, whatever, just to just to stay alive. And so, you know, efforts to, you know, and I've done some of this, to get low-income people onto boards and whatnot and to change that dynamic. But so, yeah, I can understand that guy from Afghanistan's perspective. I've been in poor countries where the quality of life in many ways is really high. But these people, you know, have close communities and they work together and they value each other and they have some sense of agency in that environment.

And we deprive people of that to a great extent here. Just a quick comment to what Peter shared. I think one of our biggest challenges is how do we, and I don't know if that's even possible, but how do we change the attitude of the public towards poverty? You know, another illustration would be judgments that people make when they see a family that's using food stamps to purchase food. and saying, well, why are they buying steaks and why are they buying that?

It's almost as if because they're in poverty and they're using food stamps, the food that they should be purchasing should be, you know, substandard or not, you know, not good food. Why don't they deserve to eat a steak, you know, just like you do? And so, you know, I think that's our biggest challenge is how do we change the attitude that the public has towards poverty to a point where, you know, we should be collectively working together to assist our neighbor, assist whomever it is that may be in that predicament so that they do get out and have a good quality of life.

So that is one of the things that we're trying to do with at United for Alice is to change that perception. And part of it is to put a spotlight on Alice that we know that's working in jobs that keep our economy running, that we all actually know people who are struggling are many of the people in retail sales or cashiers or home health aids may be on food stamps. And so to really say these are people that you know, not only that you know, but that you are relying on to keep your economy running, to take care of your mother, to take care of your children. and so bring it in closer so that it's something that people are, you know, touching and often not realizing. And I actually get people come up and say, gosh, I'm Alice and I never, thank you for explaining it. Like, I thought I wasn't trying hard enough. And here it is, there's this structural problem.

And maybe there are ways I can advocate for myself and put this out there. and I kind of wanted to pick up on Peter's comments about how hard the public assistance system is in the state and local government across the board. And we had this really interesting natural experiment happening during the pandemic where so many of those rules were put to the side and economic impact payments were distributed by check across the board, you know, much higher levels than the federal poverty level. no strict requirements. You didn't have to go down in person and show three IDs and your bank account statement and all that. And so suddenly it's like, wow, look what public assistance can do. And then it all went away. And so we're, you know, tracking to see what happened in 2021 with all of the impact payments and the child tax credits,

really significant shift in public assistance. And then, you know, out the door, done. by 2022, what's that going to look like when those numbers come in? We're all very worried. But it was certainly a learning opportunity for all of us to see what is possible with the government and what its impact will be. So what if, I mean, obviously, I believe that getting more people aware of these things is important, which is why I invited the four of you on this podcast. But to delete those question, what if everyone,

one in this country, of all demographics, understood what you all are saying and understood what's happening in our neighborhoods, in our communities, our cities, our states, that 40% of households are asset limited income constrained and they have jobs. Would that change the situation, or would that continue to be swept under the carpet or whatever? Or would, or would would more information about this issue help the issue? You know, when I was in high school, there were these two books that we read. One was Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The other was George Orwell, Orwell's 1984.

And so when we were kids, we were debating which one of those futures were we headed towards. And in high school, I remember us arguing George Orwell's 1984, for writing towards this dystopian society where we're all going to be ruled by these outside, we're all going to become these mindless automata. Well, you know, but the reality of it is is,

I believe we've entered Aldous Huxley's world, is that we have been appeased into not paying attention and not caring. As long as my television is being delivered, as long as I can play my Xbox, as long as nobody interrupts me watching my TikToks on my phone. In other words, as long as it's not on my front door, I could care less about it. And I think that's really our big major issue is that we have to figure out how to make sure people

understand that it is everybody's issue and that we are interconnected. And that's a message we have to start sending and reinforcing and reinforcing over and over again. People are not going to react until it starts to impact them directly or they can see the correlation between them and the person next to them. I agree with that on so many levels. Go on, Peter. Well, I'm just going to say, you know, at this point, might bridge a little bit into, you know, the future.

And one of the things that we are looking at here, and, you know, going back to this two-pager that you all received and put together a couple years ago, you know, largely based on the economic consequence of getting to this edge of limits where, regardless of what people want, you know, we are going to be entering a period where poverty will inevitably increase. And so there are going to be more people in that camp, if you will. And so, you know, I mean, we are literally on the horns of a dilemma. We either don't do anything

about climate change, otherwise known as the current plan, are to be so woefully inadequate in a response that the forces accelerating climate change are moving faster than the ones that would mitigate. The consequences of that will be devastating on the economy for all kinds of reasons, disasters, floods, food sources, you name it, supply chains, or if we do take action that is going to be effective, that will take so much energy out of the economy at this point, which is, what, 85% fossil hydrocarbons, Nate, if I have, you're right. So, you know, that will shrink the economy so dramatically that we're going to see a great increase in the rate of poverty. And so

those are the only two choices. And it, you know, lends some imperative there to coming up with some kinds of ways, all right, to, you know, and this is very complex, but to reframe the question a little bit outside of simple money and stuff, but the fact that there are quality of life lived experiences that can still create the best of all possible futures, as I've described it, but aren't dependent on acquiring more stuff or increasing the economic inequity.

So the imperative here is mounting to reframe this thing, at least to some extent, or it's going to be extremely troubling for a very large segment of this society. So while there's a huge argument that one can make that Alice should have the opportunity to do better for their family's sake and for doing the right thing, there's also a huge economic argument for everybody that Alice should or could be doing better. because if Alice earned a little bit more would be a much better consumer, whether it be of going to the movies or solar panels for their house, you know, that when you're just getting by and only able to afford those basics or just afford those basics, you're not able to contribute to the economy in the way that

if you earned a little bit more, you would. And so there is a huge interest in the wider economy for Alice to do better. And I love what Peter said about we need to link this to thinking about the future and how do we frame that. It's not just about going out and buying more stuff. It's about buying the right thing that can help our country, our planet, survive long into the future in a more sustainable way. Here's another naive question, but is there a distinction between economic or material poverty and social poverty? The reason I ask, and Peter brought this up, is when I've traveled internationally, I come across communities that are quite materially poor, but they have wide networks socially and they're in things together. And in the same time, I know some wealthy people that have no friends. and no social contacts whatsoever, they just consume stuff. So is there a resilience or a network that has to happen out of necessity that can be counted

as a social capital to substitute for financial capital? I don't know if that made sense, but what do you all think about that? Mark. So, you know, it's interesting because Peter and I were talking about some like my upbringing, but you know growing up and growing up and being class I guess I grew up poor but I didn't know I was poor until somebody told me because what I had was family what I had was a community network what I had was relationships you know you had you had you had family the neighborhood looked out for each other you had parents that looked out that everybody's parents in the neighborhood were everybody's parents um all the kids knew all of us kids we all knew each other we all knew each other's parents we all connected with each other

We all participated in the same thing. So, you know, we, so collectively, we, you know, we didn't want for what we didn't have or didn't know. I guess there's the best way to put that. We were all kind of in the same circumstance. So we support each other. We looked out for each other. We connected with each other. But we didn't have a lot of material wants because we knew we couldn't afford it.

So we didn't ask for it. You know, our parents were pretty clear about what we can and cannot have. It was our parents made sure we had everything that we needed. and every once in a while something that we wanted. But in terms of being poor, financially, I guess we were, but in terms of missing out on morals, values, ethics, work ethic, things like that, you know, I grew up very rich in terms of those things, you know. So the corollary there is you didn't know you were poor

and maybe the top two quintiles of society should maybe learn that maybe they're not rich in the things that value, that we should value, over the long run, in my opinion. Delitzot, Stephanie, Peter, any comments on that? Very similar to Mark's background, the background that I grew up in, a very sort of collectivist approach as opposed to, you know, the very individualistic approach and hand-me-downs, you know, nothing to be frowned upon. So like my younger brothers, they inherited my clothes and they passed it down, down the line.

Nothing unusual about that. Nothing unusual, you know, sharing a bed, you know, with the sibling. So I think, you know, the way you framed it, Nate, you know, as far as network wealth, you know, in a lot of societies, in the special society I grew up in, that's very, very, very common. But, you know, there is an approach that others have looked into, especially in this country, and that is, you know, the asset development approach, you know, helping families to acquire assets as a means of getting out of poverty. And, you know, those assets would be defined as either, maybe, you know, a home.

So I know, Peter, you do a lot of housing, you know, with your agency. you know, getting an education or studying a business, but at the, you know, critical to that would be, you know, financial literacy and in the ability to actually have, you know, savings as a means of acquiring an asset. And so there's a school of thought that looks into asset development as one way or as a vehicle of getting, getting, you know, people out of poverty. It might be debatable, but it's, it's one of the schools of thought that's been out there as well. To me, one of the big questions that comes to mind is, what's the job of an economy? You know, and if the purpose of an economy is to make the tiniest percentile super, super rich, we have a great system. It's working like a dream. But if you look at a country like Norway where there's much less disparity, I mean, a fraction, and the society takes care of its low-income people,

it pays for its education, its health care, you know, time off for being with your infant at a good way to pay, all that kind of stuff. And amazingly enough, it continues to be in, you know, the top-rank happiest country on the planet for the most people. And, you know, why we continue to fall for this notion that, you know, happiness comes from reduced taxes. Norway, they pay about 50% of their income in taxes. And the country has a huge surplus because it doesn't subsidize its oil companies.

It owns them, right? And so they are able to, you know, support these programs. And the way we do things in this country with regard to poverty are just made up. There's no law that governs this. It's just a result of a historical process that gets us to this end where we have this huge disparity of opportunity, of wealth, of resources. And we need to take a look at that. I mean, that's ultimately, you know, the fix is to, especially going into a shrinking resource and economy base, is going to be sharing what we have in a more equitable way and providing for those.

lived experiences that are truly meaningful. So building on that, I think it's clear that there can be close and supportive communities of all income levels and there can be disconnected communities at all income levels. But some of our research shows that income is directly correlated to political participation and communities that have higher incomes are more likely. to vote, like that across the board. And I think to Peter's point, if you're not casting your vote, if you're not raising your voice, if you're not influencing the way the system is structured and who's benefiting, you're not going to benefit. And that we, and then that may be another big

contrast with Norway where voter turnout is much higher than it is in the U.S. And so I see that as a real challenge for our country and growing as voter participation has, you know, continues to decline and be among the lowest of developed countries. Well, you know, Stephanie, it's interesting you bring that up because one of the stats I was looking at most recently was a stat around civic engagement, looking at states with the least racial progress. And when you look at that, when you look at racial progress, civic engagement is one of the areas where those states fall incredibly short in terms of socioeconomic status among people of color especially. So yeah, it definitely, it definitely matters. Income is definitely relevant in terms of, in terms of participation in government and other outcomes,

but that one was pretty glaring to see that the states that had the least racial progress in a lot of economic areas also had the least racial progress in terms of civic engagement. Right. And it's a matter of if you're working on Tuesday when the elections are held, if you can't get to a rally, if you're too busy, you know, trying to take care of the fires at home that you don't have the bandwidth to be thinking about bigger issues,

you can see all the links that are there to provide those barriers. So do the answers to this have to be at the national and state level or are there people listening to this show that live in a community and irrespective, of their income level, are there things that a community can do to integrate other people and make sure that their community is stable, people listening in Topeka, Kansas or Red Wing, Minnesota, for instance, that want to get ahead of the curve and make sure that their community

is stable and people of all types are taken care of. One thing to share with your audience is that community action, and not the only answer, because I represent community action, we have a presence in 99% of America's counties. We're also in Puerto Rico, we're in Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands. And so I think every community pretty much has, you know, a community action agency that, as Mark pointed out, we all do these community needs assessments that engage the community to try and determine what are the issues going on in our community as far. as poverty is concerned, what are the priorities, where should we focus our resources to try and

address those particular issues. And so that's an opportunity, I think, for, you know, individuals within our, you know, respective communities to provide input to organizations like community action on how, you know, either poverty should be addressed or how to integrate, you know, some of those populations or individuals that may be, you know, silent and not heard as well. we're trying to address these issues at a community level. So I'm going to say something that I hope doesn't get me into trouble. Just to piggyback on what Delito just said, because those resources coming into our organizations are critically important, so I never want to diminish the need for resources.

But sometimes the answer is not more resources. Sometimes the answer is taking off the regulation and the handcuffs so that locally we can use the funding the way that we know it needs to be utilized. There is nobody who knows what's going on better in Rock and War. counties than I do. So give me the resources that I need and the manner in which I need them so I can address the issue. That is one of the biggest issues that I've encountered, especially increasingly over the years, is we have more and more regulation that comes with the funding resources that we receive is that we're not allowed to use the funding in the way that our needs

assessments determine that we need to be able to use them. The answer isn't always more money. The answer is take away some of the stipulations around the resources so that we can actually use the funding the way it needs to be utilized. And I'll give you just a quick, really simple example. I have a funding source that allows me to buy mattresses, but not box springs or bed frames. And I'm not making that up. You know, Nate, one quick thing. This was, this point was, was pretty ponient when one of my staff shared that I spend more time writing reports than I do spend time working with our clients. And that's to Mark's point, we spend a lot of time writing reports. And those things are important. I'm not saying they're not. But when you're

spending more time doing that than actually working with people, something is wrong. There's got to be a balance to that. I had a federal fund. You're saying to me, I get that I'm asking you to spend $1,000 to tell me how you spent $100. Right. One of the ways that I have described our work and community action is to absorb bureaucracy so that people on the other end get real services they need, you know. But I do want to comment just a little bit on what both Delitzel and Mark were saying in different ways. You know, when Delitzel is talking about being in 99% of the counties and Mark is talking about the kinds of things, you know, that are happening in Bloit and other places, he's got stuff going on down there like, you know, a community garden.

that's completely unregulated. Anybody can plant who wants, anybody can harvest who wants. It's a magnificent success, right? And I was at a conference about 10 years ago with Dennis Meadows, the author of, you know, age of limits and, I'm sorry,

limits to growth and just a real icon in this. And we were having lunch together and it says, you know, well, Dennis, how important do you think, you know, developing a sense of community will be towards addressing this future. And he says, it's the only thing that'll work. I mean, we kind of tend to undervalue that piece of it.

So the kinds of things that are possible in terms of, you know, and it's not just, you know, hard work and negative, you know, being involved in the cultural experience of your local communities and supporting the arts and supporting community festivals and farmers markets and other places that build that sense of community, is also really important work. And again, as Mark points out, we don't get any funding to do that kind of stuff.

But it's extremely important in terms of, you know, getting to this quality of life issue, which is how we need to measure wealth going forward. So, Nate, I think you ask a great question, and I really believe local level is the way to go at it. And the work that local community action programs are doing is fantastic. We have a tool that I think could help you, measure and advocate even further for the work you're doing.

It's called the Alice Economic Viability Dashboard. And you can find that on our website, United foralice.org. And the other thing that you do really well is convene other partners. And the problem, when you have 40% of households struggling, it's beyond the scope of what one community action partner can do.

So to bring in companies, to bring in local government, to bring in education institutions is vital. And, you know, there's two sides of the equation. Anything that you can do to reduce the cost of housing, of childcare, of transportation, all those things help Alice incredibly. And then on the other side of the equation, anything you can do to raise wages or reduce taxes, things like tax credits and the guaranteed income pilots can make.

a huge difference. And then in the long term, you know, that's increasing education and training. And I know that you all are involved in all of those things. But, you know, when you look at that ledger like that, there's different things are going to be more important in different communities. And those local organizations are the ones who are going to know the best. So bring in the right partners and focus on the most important things. So this is even further widened my eyes to the situation of poverty and limited income in the United States. We're kind of talking about it as a triage situation, but can each of you share something positive and emergent and maybe unexpected on how people are responding to this deepening problem in our country?

Well, I do think awareness is critical, and we have seen some amazing response when the right person reads the Alice report for their area. And we've seen companies literally look at the survival budget and raise their wages. We've seen community colleges read the Alice report and change their offerings to shorter courses that cost less, that are more linked to jobs. we've seen child care pilots start that recognize families need that child care to be able to go to work and putting more money in the system so that both Alice parents can go to child care and Alice child care workers can support their families. So those are a couple of examples. Yeah, I think, you know, a couple of places. I'm, you know, working with a lot of teens and seeing a lot more youth take. more ownership in their own lives and more personal responsibility and accountability,

taking more stock of kind of their futures, planning earlier, asking the right questions, focusing sooner, really trying to break, especially with the young people I work with really trying to break like the cycle, the poverty that they've been in for in some cases three, four, five generations. So that's been really positive, is seeing youth look for whatever resources are available, look for avenues out of the circumstance that they're in and then take advantage of those situations. We have a few programs that we offer for youth and seeing young people gravitate towards those programs and really take stock in and want to be a part of not being referred

to or made to, but choosing to step into those programs and services. And then the other places, as we see men and women coming out of the criminal justice system, coming into some of our employment programs and some of our other programs and services who are just saying enough's enough. I'm not going to go back into the system. I'm going to break the cycle of recidivism and I'm going to do better for myself and better for my children. So there are people who are paying attention

in a different way, especially to see young people doing it, but to see older adults as well who are some hard lessons learned or making some turnaround. But young people who, before they get to any place where they've made poor decisions or made decisions that have gotten

into negative circumstances, choosing the correct path the first time? Yeah, a couple of positive things here in Illinois. The University of Illinois, which is in the community that my agency is located in, and we have three universities that are part of the University of Illinois system. And back in, I think, 2021 or so, they passed that low-income students can actually go to the university for free. and I believe it's $50,000 or less annually, don't have to pay tuition. The other thing that is just recently, as recent as last week, we have passed major legislation in the state of Illinois, one of which is the Clean Energy Jobs Act.

And it's got a lot of cool things in there, everything from solar energy to deep weatherization, work, but what's really interesting is within it there's a provision for low-income discount rates. And our regulated utilities presented their plans to the regulating body, which is the Illinois Commerce Commission. And from what we understand, once this is implemented, which will be in 2024 next year, low-income households, and that's going up to, again, we're using the current federal poverty level, but going up to 300% of poverty, we'll get a discount applied to their utilities. And for those households that we serve with our low-income home-inage assistance program, also known as LIHEAP, they will be paying something like 6% of their income towards

utilities, which is what we deem to be affordable. And that's pretty revolutionary for for Illinois, that this is something that our households will be able to have once this is implemented next year. So I think that's positive. This is something that was passed on a, well, somewhat on a bipartisan basis, but it does have quite a bit of support here in Illinois. So we're anxious to see how that unfolds in maybe other states may be able to replicate what we're doing.

So I want to keep my word. and I know some of you have time constraints. I asked you all here because I really think this is not only an issue now, but going to be a much bigger problem for the United States and the world in the coming decade. And I really wanted to say, what do the realities of the great simplification to use my language mean for the future of poverty in America? And how can we prepare for this as communities

and as a nation or a government, that conversation, that question would take a whole hour and a half itself. But maybe I'll just close with each of you weighing in on what aspect of that question do you think is important and you could perhaps take a deeper dive if we talk again in the future. Well, I love that question. So I'm going to jump in and go first, Nate. you've got us all thinking about, you know, our short term and then this way bigger long term that is looming. So I think about it in terms of Alice when there's sea level rise.

Where's Alice going to move? So it's one thing if it's your second home that's gotten flooded, you've got to place your first home. But if Alice, that's their only home, where are they going to go? how are they going to afford to move one county over or, you know, move to higher ground? So that's the kind of thing that I think your question and this focus has got to get us all thinking about is, you know, where is this move going to happen? How is it going to who's going to pay for it? How is it going to play out over time? And everyone will be affected, affected.

that we see that with the natural disasters that we're having now when a community is flooded or burned or a tornado blown over, whatever. You know, when Alice is also the emergency responder and yet trying to take care of their family, how much slower a whole community is to recover. So we need to figure it out for all of us. My thesis is it's possible that no one will be able to pay for it. and what are we going to do then? But that's a very big, big question. Peter, and then Mark and Dilitsa. I just want to say a couple of things that are kind of related.

One is, you know, we have found in our, say, this affordable housing development work where we, you know, got this big national award for being the greenest, you know, healthy housing in the country. Always that was caged in a frame of, you know, this helps the people living here. We never have to increase. rents because all the costs are up front,

helps the community that needs the workforce, and it helps the future we all share. And that message is starting to resonate as are some more things happening on a local level. From a macro sense, and this is the beginning of a very big conversation, my understanding of history is that these things usually change when they break.

And you go back to whether it's the Depression or, you know, top-heavy governments that fall apart or wealth concerts, all this kind of stuff, it's out of those things that reform happens. And I think there's a lot of hope in that. You know, this system is unsustainable. We know that. It will fail.

We know that. So, you know, getting some things on the ground that are the seeds that we can then grow on in terms of local communities and relationships and all that kind of stuff, I'm seeing that message actually working. And I'm very encouraged by it. That end young people, but that's a whole other story. Delitzel, Mark, any thoughts on that? I mean, it's almost unanswerable, but I'm wondering which part of that do you focus on and do you have a thought on?

I think one of the things, and I know this topic today is about poverty in America, but we have to look at poverty globally. One thing that the pandemic, I think, reminded us is how interconnected we are as a world. You know, the whole supply chain issue that I think there's still some effects of that right now. So I think we have to look at this more from a global perspective. Because if we're only going to focus on just the U.S. or our communities, you know, to what you've laid out, Nate, I think it's going to be an ongoing challenge. So we have to approach this globally.

And I don't know how we do that. I don't know how we unite globally to address these big issues. But from where I stand, I think a global approach is something we need to really think about. Well, this is a global story and this is a global podcast. There's only 37% of the listeners are in the United States. But I live in the United States, and I think our country is asleep to the issues. that you've brought up here, so I at least want to get people more on understanding what's going on. I think as we're talking about this, the emphasis and focus has to be on.

As we're talking about future and bridging gaps, the emphasis has to be on our youth. It has to be. Part of that, the future of our global society is getting our youth to understand that they are interconnected, that the world is much bigger than the couple blocks that they live on or the few friends that they hang out with. that things that are happening all over the world impact them every day. So if we can get our young people to start seeing beyond the few blocks that they live in and seeing the larger impact of the decisions that they make and the decisions that other people make and understand how something that happens across the world

may indirectly or directly benefit them, that's where the hope comes from. That's where you think there's, you know, there's something positive that could happen is that education and that connection. I need our young people understand that the world is much bigger than they see it now. It's much bigger than the phone in front of their face. But part of that is as adults, we have to do a much better job of exposing our youth to a broader world as well. I think, you know, one of the other challenge, Mark, you may have touched on this earlier, is that while we have all these tools available to us, social media, there's all kinds of platforms,

with all kinds of information and right at your fingertips, there's still a lot of misinformation. And, you know, I think about, you know, other disasters that are happening across the globe that you never hear about here in the United States. You know, Peter, I shared with him

and our colleagues on the National Board, a tropical cyclone that impacted where I'm from Malawi. Thousands of people died, thousands of people were displaced and never made the news here. And so, you know, to your point, Mark, I think, yes, we need to really expose our youth, but I'm challenged with the fact that while we have all these tools and resources available to us, there's still a lot of misrepresentation or underreporting of what's really going on out in the world. Which is why I appreciate what Nate is doing so immensely.

it's just been extraordinary, Nate. Thank you. Well, as I've alluded to once or twice already, this is just opening this can on this discussion. It is a huge, huge discussion. And I would love to have all of you back to take a deeper dive on this. But for now, this has been a great introduction to Alice and poverty in the situation in the U.S. with a few examples, would each of you like to share a few words of wisdom on this topic or general wisdom before we wrap? You know, there's kind of a middle way here.

You know, you tend to find the camps or you're in denials of reality of various kinds or in immobilization. You know, it's just too depressing, it's too heavy and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I look at it a little bit like, you know, going to the doctor and getting a serious diagnosis. You know, you've got pancreatic cancer, a heart disease or something. Okay, you know, what do you do? You know, you just to pretend that's not real and, you know, go off and die. Or, you know, you adapt to it.

You take the treatments that are required and, you know, enjoy the best of all possible futures. And I think there's a tremendous amount out there that's possible, but it also has to, to do with reframing how we assess those values, you know. And that shift happens through experience. And it's starting to happen. And I find that very encouraging. Well, Nate, I'm very appreciative that you have organized this creative group together and the chance to start digging into this.

And I'm especially grateful for the framing that you bring to this. That's making people think about it in a different. different way. Thank you for your work, Stephanie. Mark, any closing thoughts? You know, I think what we have to all, at some point, we have to come to a consensus about standards of quality of life, and we all have to decide that nobody is allowed to fall below that standard. And until we reach that, until we figure out what that threshold is, until we figure out what that basic standard, and that's the baseline. That's not the, that, until we figure out what that baseline standard of quality of life is, we're going to continue

to struggle, we're going to continue to be isolated and alienated. But we have to decide that everybody's life is of value and decide that no human being lives below this standard across the globe. And until we come to that consensus, we're going to struggle. Yeah, I agree with that. And I will close by wondering if there's still a lot of lessons that we need to learn from what we just came out of with the global pandemic and how vulnerable all of us were and maybe to some extent still are as a result of the pandemic. And I think it would be a complete missed step if we don't take any lessons from that and really put that into context as far as this issue of poverty that we've been discussing on this podcast today. Thank you, Dilitso, and thank you

all for your time and your work on these issues. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of The Great Simplification, Please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and visit the great simplification.com for more information on future releases.