Annie Lowrey Quotes

Of course, as the United States built a safety net that excluded and punished black families, it created a wealth-building apparatus to buoy and enrich white ones. It is not market forces and individual effort alone that determine who succeeds and prospers and who remains impoverished and excluded in the United States, but government policy and deep-seated cultural and societal mores.

Here, poverty in the United States is a choice. Stagnant middle-class incomes are a choice. Technology-fueled mass unemployment is a choice. Racism is a choice. The patriarchy is a choice. This is not to discount how deeply entrenched existing policies, interests, and tendencies are - but to recognize that while they might be entrenched, they are not immutable.

. . .cash is highly effective at slashing the poverty rate. Moreover, GiveDirectly argues that cash is more valuable to its recipients than in-kind gifts, such as food or bed nets or sports equipment. If you're hungry, you cannot eat a bed net. If your village is suffering from endemic diarrhea, soccer balls won't be worth much to you.