How the Truly Disadvantaged Endure: Trauma and Daily Functioning

• In Event: Advances in Qualitative Methods I

Abstract

Most Americans believe that poverty is caused by individual failure. Americans, more so than Europeans, think that how someone’s life turns out is a function of their own attitudes and behaviors. In this study we re-examine this perspective drawing on interviews with 99 current and past participants of Chicago’s Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI), a behaviorally informed violence prevention program, and six months of observation at READI sites. These data illustrate the impact on subjects of what appears to be a key barrier to their economic self-sufficiency – trauma – as well as the long shadow trauma plays in shaping every aspect of daily life. The results suggest the hypothesis that common interpretations of poverty as a downstream consequence of poor life choices ignore the role of trauma. Ending poverty in America may not be possible without researchers and policymakers paying greater attention to this under-appreciated source of disadvantage.

Authors

• Megan Kang, Princeton University

• Kathryn Edin, Princeton University

• Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago

• Timothy Nelson, Princeton University

• Sendhil Mullainathan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology