The Challenge of Multigenerational Poverty

In AmerIcA, poverty is generally perceived as a temporary economic state, thanks in part to the American dream of permanent upward mobility. Nonetheless, many people are poor for many years, others for most if not all of their lives, and some may have been poor for generations. Since no one seems to have looked for or at them, this paper explores what I call multigenerational poverty, asks whether it exists, suggests what we need to find out about it, and discusses some implications for antipoverty policy. The paper also considers two corollary hypotheses. The first is that the most serious and intractable American poverty is multigen-