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 real clear definition of the federal government does that. They say if your family is more. About. To take care of your family for a year in 2000 does that mean that if youre making more united red and that thats not the case i think the most difficult challenge. Your way out of your current predicament. 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 theyre alive to spend and hopeless poverty just drawing a will search. So we were asked to open the gates to opportunity. And were also going to give all our people the help thats very neat. To walk. 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 the. One extra dollar use the whole benefit medical. Health insurance for people people who are disabled but that number seems low it should because its based on 1000 fix these cost 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 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 the bottom 20 percent of this would be parents with income below roughly 25000. 00 and now we come watch their kids grow up and we made sure their kids income. 30 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. For having long hair on the. More must be done to reduce poverty and dependency and believe me nothing is more important than welfare reform i think. Is also a state of mind. Of a. Noble cause you can put some make. Some close. Sometimes if we struggled with poverty in a certain way we turn to the most 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 same 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 the person did it he must be good and this person didnt do it they train an elephant backhand an elephant with a little girl when theyre young. And elephant growth of the poll found the. Elephant. Put the same little world around that elephant. But that elfin as a condition only go in. As a rope with a little. Probably were saying 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 enough of. So far and they would show. Me when they 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 bill. But if you look at it from his context his experiences who were 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 them all 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 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 and generational poverty are working 1. 7 jobs and to decide between paying more buying food. Thats the kind of poverty i come from where most of my family members cant read and write theres high mobility of absolutely addicted youre going hungry nutrition if you dont really really sick you know the registry 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 emigrant poverty where you have people who are struggling with housing transportation child nutrition out of basic human needs and in addition to that you have the language barriers the cultural barriers. 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 a middle class environment you hear middle class words since you were in the war you know middle class and structure youre not saying you maybe have a divorce and you fall. Into poverty or maybe you get downsized in your job and you 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 and 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. For. Kids. To. Go to school so. 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. And finally with the right education both at home and at school you can learn how to be a better human being. Always be polite never engage with a negative aided or confrontational. Dont get into any conversation or start answering questions just ask for an attorney. To survive and territories. Definitely dont want to be going to try to jump on cops. Youre more likely to walk free if youre rich and guilty or if youre poor and. Youve got 2 eyes 2 ears and one mouth. So you should be seen in here and a whole lot more than youre saying if you dont take that advice easy going to dig yourself a hole. The flow whatever the americans are saying about. Being a humanitarian items is just is just a lie we have been trying to transfer money for the code 19. X. Weve been trying to transfer money even for no money influence of oxy. The United States restrictions prevents us from even transferring money to buy vaccines so its its basically made the coast header so that the us has a. 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 are now. They live with us have no postsecondary credential todays economy is very demanding scales and skills means education so getting a job these days with just a High School Education is a lot harder than it used to be the chances are youre going to be in poverty or close to be especially 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 of which they are that students need more tutoring which they do but those werent the barriers that students identified that were keeping him 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 at Emerald College is those arent true. 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 Higher 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 skilled you going to be poor your whole life and so will your children is an absolute exception of the person who is living you know so when i say well my uncle makes a 100000 and hes 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 their courage to 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 you to. Get your High School Diploma get your 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 High School Diploma is sometimes you hit a 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 honest that it is the. Walking around but i graduated man education and you need a plan. One of things i think will really not talking to High School Students about this subject that i like to call success we teach english we teach math but we dont teach except which regardless how smart you are in any of those other categories if you understand the subject of sex. When he loses basic fundamentals of understanding you know how to network how to communicate will be bold but also how to be strategic realising whats important. College is not about how smart you are its about how hard youre willing to work in every case we should expose. That 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 degree when they get to be adults with different. Levels of the education have exploded 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. I dont think 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 him signed up we got a man rolled and then that student told me after we got him a schedule when it came time to go to class for the 1st day he said in his car in his parking lot for 3 hours that he couldnt get out of the car. Thats thats not because he won smart capable or he didnt want to do it thats because he was a brave. Thats real but it cant be an excuse everybody in their life everyone has fear i just challenge you dont work through your fear and dont let fear keep you from being your self give out my yourself when you are educated and when you know the things that you know and you know how hard you work. You need to create this story for yourself you need to surround yourself with other people who are going to be possibilities and do not allow negative people negativity to talk you out of your dream. What are your passion about what you have skill set for and in the meantime pursuing your education you have to understand you have so much purpose between 1024 that the decisions you make not only going to pick yourself 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 see. That it was a good. She was going to be. And and im telling you. From the moment she decided she was going to be a singer. Because of the 1000000 little girl at that point. Every time i saw her do is not what i think about. You know this work ethic that she had was this weekend amazing i mean you know as a kid authorise thing and all the things and then when we started this church in downtown houston our family joe and brought the kids to an assistant and she joined a choir. And every now and then shed get a fellow 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 a work ethic i mean 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 she already is working a crisis is 1. 00 jobs and still i cant put food and pay rent i have to make a choice so we say you just got to 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. Then it is probably going to be things like whether getting rich off welfare with a kid in high school is thinking 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 me jennifer was 6 daniels to my 15 year old homeless cuz 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 her 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 0. 75 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 work with think 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 a mom house going to make sure your kids dont go hungry cant get a skill got a good education now if you want to on say start all that 30000 a year and have the possibility d of up to 60 or 70000 you know who have to have skills you have to be talented you 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 do