Doing Right by Kids: Leveraging Social Capital and Innovation to Increase Opportunity

Material hardship among American children has never been lower. This seeming victory in the War on Poverty, however, has failed to loosen the connection between family origins and where kids end up. Children born to the most disadvantaged parents today are no less likely than in the past to become the most disadvantaged adults when they grow up. Indeed, because of the perverse disincentives in our safety net, policy may have simultaneously reduced hardship while impeding upward mobility. Mo...