Cynthia Libby Blog #3

In Chapter Two, Abramsky talks about homelessness and the problem with making eighteen the cutoff age for foster care. This really intrigued me because I just wrote my policy research paper about youth homelessness and under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, there are some shelters that will provide assistance to those in need up until the age of 21. According to the book, one in four homeless young adults in Massachusetts had recently left foster care. My question is, how can our society expect a teenager at the age of 18 to be able to survive without health insurance, a steady job, or the maturity to act as if they are not a teenager anymore? There is a major difference between 18 and 21 in regards to maturity level. Just because someone turns 18 does not make them mentally prepared to live like an adult even though in our society when adolescents reach the age of 18 that is the marker of adulthood. Even though increasing the age in which kids can still receive benefits from foster care will not solve this crisis, it seems like a good place to start. After all, in 2011, there were almost 190,000 inmates who had a history of foster care (about 15% of state prisons) and the cost of incarcerating former foster youth was about $5.1 billion per year (Abramsky, 269). Not only is this a huge amount of money, but these inmates may have had a better chance at escaping poverty and jail if they had been able to stay on the benefits of foster care for a few years longer.

One quote that stuck out to me is on page 317. Abramsky is summing up some thoughts on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and says, “…we need far more policy deposits in what I’ll call the empathy bank. We need a societal commitment to share the pain during hard times and a willingness to think through the long-term consequences on one’s community of not so doing.” I 100% agree with this statement, unfortunately, we live in a very selfish society. Maybe if everyone would read this book then there would be a chance we could make a big breakthrough in eliminating poverty, but otherwise, the “me first” attitude that our society tends to have is going to be hard to break. Imagine if more people could realize the power of working together as a whole rather than creating such a large divide between people.

My last thought is in regards to the entire second chapter of Abramsky’s book. While he makes extremely good points and they all make complete sense to me, I found myself a little confused and overwhelmed by all the different approaches and strategies to end poverty that he spoke of throughout the entire book. Altogether, what I took away from this chapter was that the approach to ending poverty is multifaceted and while yes, the government plays a crucial role in ending poverty, we as a society also play an arguably bigger role. Abramsky is trying to educate people about this vicious cycle in the hopes that the more knowledge we have as a society, the better chance we have to come together to end poverty. 

Abramsky, S. (2013). The American way of poverty: How the other half still lives. New York, NY: Nation Books