So i started talking to judges and lawyers and doctors and Health Providers and interviewing people and literally asked thousands of people how many of you had the course history of poverty United States and. We are segregated in america by social class think about it what a middle class people hang out with. Most middle class people dont know someone in poverty by 1st name and settle down to dinner together. Today millions of American Families are taught in circumstances beyond their control. Their children will be compelled to live lives of poverty unless the cycle is broken. President johnsons war on poverty has this one goal to provide everyone a chance to grow and make his own way. I think everything in life thats important really lives in the grey like theres no black and white theres this gray how do we make it more clear of what the problem is there are so many different Life Experiences of poverty and we dont have a clear definition of the federal government doesnt meet the definition they say if your family is more needed right about. To take care of your family for a year in 2000 does that mean that if youre making more youre not in the red. Thats not the case i think the most difficult challenge. Your way out of your current predicament and your. Of course people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write. If their bodies are stunted from hunger. If their sickness goes on 10 didnt if their life is spent and hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check. So we were asked to open the gates to opportunity. Were also going to give all our people the help that very neat. To roll. Through those gates. All of our wealth you get money and you get more have less income go through have 0 income get the biggest money. And then as you earn money lose part of the benefit sometimes if you were even. One extra dollar use the whole benefit medical for Health Insurance for people people who are disabled if that number seems low it should because its based on 1000 fixed these costs of living in the sixtys economists came up with a formula for calculating as a family need and they said things like well well have a parent in the home so we dont have to include childcare people can walk to work so we dont have to include transportation and employers will pay for health care so we dont need to include that 3. 00 major family expenses are not included in the 2017 federal poverty guideline where you have more women in the workplace than ever in the history if you look at parents and divide their income into 5 equal parts and lets just sort of bottom 20 percent of this would be parents with income below roughly 25000 dollars and now we come watch their kids grow up and we made sure their kids income. 3030 to 34 years of age are they doing better than the kids from that bottom 5th of income below 25000 are twice as likely as we would expect based on chance to be in the bottom its very difficult to get out of the bottom. Its a fight every day to meet your needs and the needs of your family. I am very. Sorry. For. Her for having long hair on the. More must be done to reduce poverty in dependency and believe me nothing is more important than welfare reform i think. Is also a state of mind. You know because you can put some make up. Some close. Some. Times have we struggled with poverty in a certain way with and to be most critical because we say well we didnt i pulled myself up by the stress i got it done i struggled i had to work 2 jobs i did it well your situation is not the thing somebody else is because were individuals and our characteristics our personality our network of people our demographics of the area that we lived in are different so we can take 2 people from different sections and say well this person did it he must be good and this person didnt do it they trained elephant backhand elephant with a little girl when a young. Man elephant growth of the bull found the. Elephant. And put the same little rope around that elephant. But that alpha has been conditioned only goal in. As a result will lead. Us to say wait a minute cases of people as he had a little rope around their mouth. Will will only let him go so far you know it doesnt only lead him to. So far under which your. Newly grew up. The same little rope youre talking about. That only goes towards. The 2 most important thing is where youre born and who youre born to so this one guy he said ill do your study for you he said i grew up in poverty and i said thank you so much i said tell me how did your family get by he said well my father was a physician he died when i was 12 i had to go live with grandparents i worked in their store i pulled myself up by my own bootstraps i had the right mindset and i was determined and i became a doctor like my dad and im listening to him through the eyes of somebody whos bought her 5 brothers in the back window of the car and im thinking you knew someone who owned a store and you were related to both. But if you look at it from his context his experiences who are the children a professional singer. Typically its going to be other children of professionals and what people do is we compare ourselves to the people around us and we sometimes put an umbrella and say poverty is just poverty and thats not thats not true thats not the case its so difficult to come up with a solution to help someone we dont understand the problem ourselves how can we Work Together how can we understand each other and the answer is we have to accurately understand poverty what is poverty about. So understanding the perspectives of people who live in generational poverty or working class poverty or immigrant poverty or situational poverty theres so many different Life Experiences of poverty and we use one. Word to describe so many people theyve they have no idea if youre born into a poor family youre born into a minority family if youre born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your life chances people die on average 15 years younger than if youre born into generational poverty. Only 17 percent of the people born into generational poverty move out so you move a lot and you just get through the day and life becomes about getting through the day generational poverty is the deepest part radio cycle out of any people in generational poverty are working 1. 00 jobs a month to decide between paying for buying food. Thats the kind of poverty i come from where most of my family members cant read and write theres high mobility of constantly addicted youre going hungry nutrition if you dont really really sick you know the images through and you just hope they give you sales. By the prescriptions working class poverty is a little different youre living paycheck to paycheck dont have a lot left over but know that checks coming so you feel like you have a little more control over their lives but theyre very hard on themselves they buy into the idea that if they work or dont make it and they had the labor statistics they without an education or skill or your whole life. And then theres any poverty where you have people who are struggling with housing transportation child nutrition out of their basic human needs and in addition to that you have the language barriers the cultural barriers the us the discrimination racism to live to move really big obstacles to address to really develop to their potential and then you have situational poverty you go up to middle class environment you hear middle class words since you were in the war you know middle class that is structure youre not saying you maybe have a divorce and you fall into poverty or maybe you get downsized in your job and. Fall into poverty those are the ones that sometimes dont find their way into our numbers that didnt fill out the papers for the free and reduced lunch. So in america we like to thank that everybody who works hard has a certain amount of talent can make it and can join the middle class thats the American Dream and past generations the American Dream seem to be working pretty well its not working as well now we always think that in america on the theory of the land of the brave equal opportunity and its just simply not. Just. Some. Guy just. Through education you can also better yourselves in other words you learn how to learn how to think critically and find solutions to unexpected challenges education also teaches you the value of discipline but the greatest rewards come not from instant gratification but from sustained effort and from hard work. If i live with the right education both at home and at school you can learn how to be a better human being. Cass calendar is darn alfonzo among his darned this changing page hes dard servant or. His 1st words were i will i will see youre a child of the post you got to use to me if. I have no doubt that what happened scriven. Lets concentrate maki there is a 1000000000. 00 industry these companies how does huge financial motivations to solve these problems there are numerous stocks showing that doctors were keen to test thats right concentrates for the insights of its own that patients wont give them doctors the wrong stoplight. Turn to stone why that would cure me and secure those whose day. And people still die and im always question yourself all right being on our way to live so many have. When you look at the landscape of our Community One of the things that keeps me up at night is. Our education attainment rates 70 percent of our citizens our neighbors that live with us have no postsecondary credential todays economy is very demanding scales and skills means education getting a job these days with just a High School Education is a lot harder than it used to be but chances are that youre going to be in poverty or close to poverty and be especially difficult if youre trying to support a family. Why did 20 different focus groups i did surveys i did interviews expecting to find that students were afraid im asked which. They are that students need more tutoring which they do but those werent the barriers that students identified that were keeping them from being successful in the classroom what students told me overwhelmingly is the Biggest Barriers to their success in the classroom had nothing to do with the classroom transportation Childcare Health care housing food utility payments statistics show that college is a very successful way to go and its still the best decision for students or anyone who wants to get out of poverty or level up in what they want to do however i also think that the worst thing to do is go to college and drop out years ago the goal is to graduate you got to graduate like you just cant drop out because unlike anything else you still got to pay the bill. Now what higher ed would do is they would look at those success rates and they would go oh our students arent as well prepared theyre not smart they dont know how to study theyre not dedicated and i think what weve learned in emerald colleges those arent true at all our students are smart theyre ambitious theyre capable they want for themselves theyre burdened not just provide a future for themselves but to save their families but they have real barriers that they bring with them if were going to fulfill our mission in our education weve got to understand those barriers and address them if we want our students to be successful in the classroom. And i teach people that if you dont get educated you dont get skills you will be poor your whole life and so will your children is an absolute exception the 1st thing you know so little say well my. Makes a 100000. 00 and not educated but im quoting labor statistics and census data thats an exception i didnt know what i wanted to be and so after i graduated from college i think that somewhat normal but i went ahead and i i went to college and i picked the major and i was glad that i had people in my life that encouraged me just to go ahead and go in a lot of people because theyve learned that theyve been sent messages that theyre not smart enough theyre not good enough they dont try and tell me which i. Bet your High School Diploma gets or College Degree and then keep pursuing what it is that you have a skill set for and youre passionate about one of the hardest most heartbreaking things about not having your ged or your highs with koma is sometimes you hit the ceiling at work or you miss an opportunity we dont want you to miss we we want people to have those are. The best food you know im not iostat into every the. Walking around but a graduate of man education and you need to plan. One of things i think were really not talking to High School Students about is this subject that i like to call success we teach english we teach math but we dont teach success which regardless how smart you are in any of those other categories if you understand the subject of success because when you lose basic fundamentals of understanding you know how to network how to communicate will be bold but also how to be strategic realizing whats important. College is not about how smart you are its about how hard youre willing to work every. You should expose. It shows the average income of people who drop out of high school and people who graduate from high school but doable for the kids who get a 2 year degree in kids who get a 4 year the when they get to be adults with different. Levels with education. Over the last 3 or 4 decades and if we can show the kids and make them understand and say you know if i get more education im going to make more money and that will have an impact on every other part of my life the most important thing is not the freedom to buy things its the freedom to dream and chase what you really want to do the more money you can make and now and not spending it allows you to dream at a place and give you the oxygen and during where youre not thinking short term. One thing that i think is so important to understand is how poverty steals your hope. And your confidence i was talking to 2 students at my t. Place and i loaded one up on my car brought them over here walk them through the process got them signed up we got a minute rolled and then that student told me after we got him a schedule when it came time to go to class but the 1st day he said in his car in his parking lot for 3 hours and couldnt get out of the car. Thats thats not because he won smart capable or he didnt want to do it because he was a brave and. Thats real but it cant be an excuse everybody in their lives everyone has fear i just challenge you dont work through your fear and dont let fear keep you from being your best self dont give out my yourself when you are educated and when you know the things that you know and you know how are you know where. To create the story for yourself you need to surround yourself with other people who are going to be possibility and do not allow negative people negativity to talk you out of your doing. What are you passion about what you have a skill set. And in the meantime pursuing your education you have to understand that you have still much purpose between 1024 that the decisions you make not only going to pass are going to pack your kids and your grandkids you dont even know whos going to benefit from the little decisions you make today you may not see it but your grandkids will definitely. I am i am. I am i am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I watched. That was going to be a singer. And and im telling you. From the moment she decided she was going to be a singer and do that really a little girl at that point and every time i saw her do the one thing about. You know this work ethic that she had was this weekend amazing and i mean you know as a kid authorise thing and all the things and then when we started to search in downtown houston her family joe and brought the kids to an assistant and she joined a choir. And every now and then shed get a solo and she would put more into that fellow than the whole choir would into the whole 12 and now she is on the largest platform in the world and they would be a thing. All because of the work ethic of me young woman who made a decision to what she was going to do and be in life. And allowed no one to get away will everyone be a. No. Thats why you got to have a plan a a plan b. And a plan c. We have hard workers in this Community Whether theyre students in Amarillo College or employees in the community we have a really hard work ethic the issue is theyre underemployed so theyre working really hard and not making a living wage doing already is i work in a crisis is 1. 00 jobs and still i cant put food and pay rent i have to make a choice still gotta work harder in order to to make it thats not true not when youre experiencing poverty because people in poverty are working. I started looking at whos the number one teacher of poverty in the United States of america and the answer that i found was the media. So whats the average person going to know about poverty and the people who live in it its probably going to be things like when they get rich off welfare if a kid in high school is taken its not that big a deal as long as i have kids ill be fine ill be getting well for all the good and casual for will be covered by medicaid i can get housing and so. It doesnt happen that way in 1906 my welfare check before going any dollars jennifer was 6 daniels to my 15 year old homeless because i was living with me and they said we wont help her because shes not yours will give you 400. 00 my rent in a neighborhood. In Portland Oregon was 395. But then do the math a welfare check today birth family of 3 National Average or 78 thats 1962000 17 the average rent according to had a modest apartment 750. The average disability check is 756. 00 its almost impossible to get out of poverty based just on public. Our labor statistics if you take a minimum wage job and you work 10 years and you dont have Education Beyond High School you dont have a skill like an electrician or plumber the average increase after working hard for 10 years in a persons income is 2. 00 an hour didnt matter how hard you were about it who works harder the person cleaning the hotel room or the person in their office you dont move up without a skill or an education so if you want to buy your mama house going to make sure your kids dont go hungry cant get a skill got a good education now if you want to earn say start all that 30000 a year and have the possibility of up to 60 or 70000 you know we have to have skills we have to be counted and have to know how to do you need what we call soft skills and hard skills parts skills are just you know being technically trained to do something Computer Literacy anybody who. Goes through school these days and isnt computer literate is going to be in trouble and i think our schools should be doing a lot more if theyre not already to teach people programming and coding skills and the whole set of things you cant get a decent job anymore if you dont have those skills either the soft skills and if you talk to employers employers will tell you that theyre really missing the soft skills as much as the hard skills the soft skills are things like getting to work on tall im dressing appropriately knowing how to interact with other people knowing how to be polite with a client or a customer knowing how to rob them solved knowing what to do when something doesnt go quite right you know being a bit creative. One of the things that helped me in my personal life was to see other people maybe of my same skin color or or in a city and and see them succeed so that becomes attainable you dont know what you dont know and i think a lot of times is thats what i think Holding People back and they dont know its bigger than their town and they dont know what they can do bigger than what they see on t. V. And the people they see at school and the people that their parents are. Used to work in Elementary Schools and yes the kids what they want to be in life and they want to be doctors and anna in a lawyer but if your home life doesnt support the teen ability of those things. Its a nice dream but its not a reality in certain groupings neighborhoods dont have that exposure so its important that our schools our community kind of blend that self in and expose especially the youngest kids to that. Wall street financial engineers. Food money. According to the Rand Corporation more than 50 trillion dollars so that is your god thats why we have social unrest thats why we have incredible. Thats why we have such a distorted economy thats why wages are not keeping up. Weve got inflation raging. In the story. Time after time corporations repeat the same mantra sustainability. Transitions to sustainable transport sustainability. The more equitable and sustainable. They claim their production is completely harmless. Companies want us to feel good about buying their products while the damage is being done far away and this is Something Else is going to. Move. In the headlines this 26 september 25 people are killed as a military plane crashes near a motorway in Eastern Ukraine 2 others are in a critical condition. In consistencies in discrepancies moscow notes the alleged poisoning of alexina valise no bordering on fiction as berlin insists a military nerve agent was used against the opposition leader. Also ahead. Introduces a drone for recording security video inside homes sparking surveillance. Absolutely lets see if that one and then it comes to years later that listening to every word he said