Our Left Behind Workers
In the Neighborhood
12/9/15, WASHINGTON D.C. --
"The hollowing of the American middle class has proceeded steadily for more than four decades. Since 1971, each decade has ended with a smaller share of adults living in middle-class households than at the beginning of the decade, and no single decade stands outs as having triggered or hastened the decline in the middle....The share of American adults living in middle-income households has fallen from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015. The share living in the upper-income tier rose from 14% to 21% over the same period. Meanwhile, the share in the lower-income tier increased from 25% to 29%." (Source: Pew Research Center: Social & Demographic Trends)
April 2014, WASHINGTON D.C. --
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports grim private-sector job numbers since the 2008 Great Recession:
- Low-wage industries lost 2 million jobs during the GR (22% of total job losses) but have added 3.8 million jobs (44% of total job gains) since the recovery started.
- Mid-wage industries accounted for 37% of job losses during the GR (1 million jobs) but have added only 26% of the new positions since the recovery began.
- Higher-wage industries accounted for 41% of jobs lost during GR but only 30% of the new positions since the recovery started.
From Our Blog
2018 Poverty and the Urgency of Prisoner Reentry and Life Restoration
Since 2005 Open Door America has worked to unlock the secret codes of intergenerational poverty in America’s inner cities. Now in year thirteen, our story has greater meaning and urgency than ever before. Having come on line just nine years after metamorphic welfare reform in 1996, we were an immediate beneficiary of the raised social awareness generated by the faith-based initiative movement of the early 2000's. By the end of our first decade, however, a sharp decline in nationwide community development investment, especially in the key area of federal housing, shifted our thinking away from traditional block-by-block redevelopment strategies to individualized programming targeting heads of households, young fathers, and in particular, ex-offenders and current offenders who hold sway in the poorest neighborhoods. Today, 22 years into the nation’s endless rancorous debate over poverty and government spending, we operate in a political and cultural environment where the very existence of entrenched poverty is now openly and counter-factually questioned in Washington. We believe the lessons learned from our improbable survivor's journey and the promising potential of our current efforts to retrieve first-time offenders and restore vetted recidivists are essential to this discussion and critical to America's social and economic future.
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