Economics & Society
By Marjorie O’Rourke (August 26, 2025)
I went to the Poverty 101 seminar held by Everett Gospel Mission on August 16th. One theme was how society sees poverty as a character flaw, and how some of the current systems we have reinforce that idea.
The seminar considered the 5 types of material poverty:
❁ Generational poverty (i.e. never owned land/property, working low skill jobs).
❁ Working class poverty (i.e. live paycheck to paycheck, may or may not have health care).
❁ People in Immigration poverty (comes to the US with few resources).
❁ People in Depression Era Poverty (worked themselves out of poverty).
❁ People in Situational Poverty (i.e. come from stable middle class conditions, may experience a sudden event affecting income such as job loss or divorce).
The presenters discussed some key issues surrounding poverty:
❁ 1 in 5 unhoused are age 55 and above.
❁ The average Social Security check is $2,000.
❁ Social Security was built to last a 5-year lifespan after retirement.
❁ The “gray tsunami” is happening.
❁ The 401(k) was designed to supplement pensions, not replace them.
❁ A woman’s income after a divorce drops 50-70% within 5 years, while a man’s income after a divorce will go back to pre-divorce levels in that same time period.
❁ Only 1 in 16 children born in poverty will get out of poverty.
❁ A child living in in poverty, on average, moves 4 times a year.
❁ The working poor are just outside the edge assistance.
❁ The US government says $30,000 for a family of four is the poverty level.
❁ It takes 5 to 8 years to get into public housing.
❁ A person’s safety net is 50 people deep.
❁ People applying for government benefits have to repeatedly tell their story to government employees over and over and over again.
One topic I found very interesting was how the ways our basic needs were met as children can influence the way we experience relationships as adults. One exercise we did was the Inherited Assets exercise. A large space is needed for participants to move forward (up to 36 steps) and backward (up to 23 steps). We pretended we were under 18 and took a step forward or back depending on a fact; like if one or both of your parents never completed high school. (This meant two steps back.)
Part of the impact of the exercise is to see the different places of those in the room. Some participant may even end up behind the start line.
The seminar looked at working with the people in the shelter and the unhoused.
Sometimes, those in the shelter do not take advantage of opportunities offered to them because they feel the cost of the opportunity offered is greater than the monetary value of the opportunity. For example, if a person in a shelter gets a voucher for an apartment, they may not want to leave the shelter since it would mean they would lose their access to the community in the shelter. Another reason why a person would pass on an opportunity is they don’t trust the person promising the opportunity. This is due to past trust issues with people making similar promises.
It is important to build trust and relationships first before helping people in a shelter or the unhoused. Some of the unhoused have become acclimated to living on the streets.
In the end, the presenters stressed being mindful of words we use when taking to people in poverty situations. One example is the use of the word "entitled". We need to be aware of feeling entitled or calling someone entitled because we could not keep a promise to that person.
Here is a list of the next Poverty 101 Seminars.
Marjorie O’Rourke is Cascade Party Secretary.