“ The Roundtable is the leading voice in philanthropy for objectivity, integrity, open-mindedness, and stewardship with a commitment to measurable results. ” –  John M. Templeton Jr., Chairman and President, John Templeton Foundation Circles USA   has been featured in the most recent edition of Philanthropy Magazine, published by   Philanthropy Roundtable . This article comes as Circles USA begins our 2017 expansion   and shares the heart warming story of Danika. When Danika was 21 years old, she nearly became a homeless single mother. After dropping out of college she was working at McDonald’s and couch-surfing. Eventually, she humbly returned with her infant to her mother’s home in Asheville, North Carolina. Danika’s efforts to improve her job-readiness skills led her to the local Circles program, which gave her the help and motivation to become self-sufficient.   Read the full article here .

This report measures our success in key strategic areas related to achieving a major reduction in poverty. The data is collected from Chapters across North America America and is compiled by Circles USA. THERE ARE FOUR VARIABLES THAT INFLUENCE THE RESULTS OF CIRCLES, INCLUDING: 1. The level of employability of Circle Leaders CUSA tracks whether people are in situational poverty or have been raised in poverty. We also note whether they are entering an educational or career track. The level of work experience usually determines the level of soft skills people possess prior to Circles that assists them in earning more income. 2. Availability of Jobs The availability of good-paying jobs in a community dictates how easy it is for people to find economically secure jobs. The trends of automation, globalization and artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the economy. People must have higher-level skills to be qualified for jobs that provide enough income to reach at least 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines and become economically stable. Circles provide long-term support so that people can achieve the education and training necessary to secure good jobs. 3. The impact of the Cliff Effect The most challenging Cliff Effects are in childcare and healthcare insurance. For many, there is a real hardship from shifting from stable benefits to unstable earned income. This is especially true if that income does not cover all the expenses the benefits covered. People raised with food stamps, housing assistance vouchers, and/or TANF subsidies often find it psychologically difficult to exchange secured benefits for new earned income opportunities. If they cannot predict changes, it becomes a potential crisis to accept more earned income. Therefore, Circles USA created its own online Cliff Effect Planning Tool. 4. Social Capital Circles boosts the social capital of each participant to have more peer relationships as well as “Allies” who provide new networks of connections. Circles is co-designed with a variety of education, employment, and human services programs to provide volunteer-driven community supports that produce better results. DATA REGARDING SPECIFIC CHAPTERS OR COMMUNITIES IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to add work requirements for Medicaid and other welfare programs.  Will this help to reduce poverty or make it worse?  The US has a “poverty management” system, rather than a poverty reduction system.  If you follow the money from the federal government to state to local entities, you will see it comes down in silos, for specific programs, creating a kaleidoscope of complicated, fragmented services. Progressives want more subsidies in the absence of robust livable-wage job creation. Conservatives want fewer subsidies and increased personal accountability. Work requirements are intended to increase personal accountability. But, if economic development programs, workforce programs, and safety net programs are not held accountable to providing enough good jobs and coordinated services that move people out of poverty, individual responsibility policy fixes have little to offer. They might sound good politically, but they often make life more difficult for those who are having the most problems in our economy. To reduce poverty, we must: create poverty reduction systems that are financed to support people out of poverty, as in 200% or more of the federal poverty level; eliminate the cliff effect built into safety net programs that financially penalize people for taking more hours, higher pay, and new jobs; create more jobs with better and more up-to-date economic development strategies. There are solutions to poverty. Many conservatives believe the solution lies in people accepting more personal responsibility, and many liberals believe we need to provide more benefits and better jobs. What is the answer? All of the above. For more information on our Circles USA solutions, please read my latest book, co-authored with my conservative friend, Denise Rhoades, “Bootstraps and Benefits: What the Right and Left Understand about Poverty and How We Can Work Together for Lasting Solutions.” Together, we can begin the end of poverty in our lifetime. Join the conversation at CirclesUSA.org

Circles USA Founder & CEO, Scott C. Miller speaking at the Circles USA International Conference, “This is your call to adventure!” Sometimes the worst time of our life sets us up for the best time of our life. By looking at mythological stories from around the world and throughout history, Joseph Campbell mapped out the universal story that all humans live and called it the Hero’s Journey. The Wizard of Oz is an iconic Hero’s Journey. The journey begins with the call to adventure. Dorothy decides to leave home. She then refuses the call—after being fooled by the soon-to-be-wizard– to go back home. But as life would have it, she is tossed into the air by an unexpected tornado, her familiar world now completely upside down. She is dropped into the unknown world of munchkins, witches, and a yellow brick road. With no seeming ability to return home anytime soon, she receives guidance from Glinda, the witch of the north. Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road. She soon meets her circle of allies—scarecrow, tin man, and lion. Metaphorically, they are brains, heart, and brawn. But doubt lessens each of them as Dorothy and her allies make their way to see the wizard to claim their brains, heart, brawn and the way back home. We all know how the story ends. Dorothy meets the wizard only to see that he was not the way home she thought he was to be. Instead, her guide the good witch Glinda shows up to tell her she always had the power inside herself to return home. The Wizard of Oz contains all of these main chapters of the Hero’s Journey: Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Assistance to Accept the Call, Trials and Tribulations (as in the wicked witch of the west), Guidance, The Emotional Reward (treasuring home and family in the case of Dorothy), and Returning Home with more wisdom and a desire to share the lessons learned with others. As people’s homes come spinning down into our Circles’ communities , they are often very distressed, disoriented, and reluctant to walk on the new road. As they continue to walk into the unknown, their allies show up, guidance is given, and the emotional reward that can only come from taking up the adventure makes the experience worth it all. Sometimes the worst of life can become the beginning of the best of life. So it is for everyday heroes .

This past January, my friend Chris and I flew to my brother’s home in Florida to pick up a family heirloom and drive it back to my home in Albuquerque. It is a five-foot model of a clock tower built meticulously by hand by my great-grandfather, John W. Miller, in 1893.  Clock towers typically have four faces so that anyone in the community can see what time it is. It serves everyone equally regardless of who and where they are. Imagine an economy that has the same purpose as a clock tower—to serve everyone regardless of where they are located in a community. Right now, if you are born in poverty , the economy will not serve you at the same level as someone who is born into wealth. This can change. Like a clock tower, the economy is a tool invented by humans to serve human beings. The condition of poverty is an unnecessary characteristic of the US economy. An economy that generates so much poverty as ours is like a clock tower that has only one or two faces rather than all four. To  restore the economy to its original purpose—a tool for all citizens to use in their pursuit of happiness—leaders in each sector of society must embark on a transformational adventure: The business community, which currently wields the most influence of all sectors, needs to adopt the triple bottom line approach–measuring its success and implementing policy decisions based on the question, “is it good for profit, people, and the planet?” This maturational step is essential for sustaining human life on Earth. No longer can the simple pursuit of a profit be what drives the business community. It’s too dangerous. The government sector must evolve from its motivation to serve to the lower realms of political and bureaucratic goals to the higher road of service to its citizenry. The primary question is, “are we expanding the capacity of our citizens to thrive?” Politicians must learn to take the high road, follow their conscience and their constituencies, and let the chips fall where they fall. Everyone will be better off for it in the long run. Philanthropy must invest in innovation. To end poverty, it must invest in creating poverty reduction systems as an alternative to poverty management systems. Education must understand where the emerging economy is heading and provide students with the tools, skills, and awareness to thrive within the emerging economy, not the economy that is disappearing from us . Faith organizations must stay out of politics if they are going to compromise their spiritual principles and values for political gains. They must remain focused on raising consciousness, deepening the spirituality of its members, and building loving and caring communities. Leadership development and support are essential to shift each sector to a higher plane of functioning which is where I am investing the majority of my time and energy going forward. We must recognize the purpose of the economy is to serve us all, not just some of us. Regardless of which sector you work in, there is a need for your leadership in building alternative systems to replace existing ones. To have four faces of the clock for all citizens to see, we must notice that there are at least two faces missing, and it is our responsibility to put them onto the clock, so everyone has an opportunity to prosper.

Amazon’s raise of full and part-time minimum wage to $15/hour is ALMOST good news. But businesses and policymakers on both sides of the aisle don’t fully understand how work subsidy programs like Medicaid, childcare assistance, food stamps, and cash assistance are prematurely cut before people earn enough to replace them. I founded Circles USA in the mid 90’s to support families out of poverty. In 2014, I asked the Circles growing network of over 70 communities across 20 states, “What’s the biggest barrier to getting out of poverty?” The answer, unequivocally, was the Cliff Effect. When working families lose public support benefits faster than they can earn income to replace the lost resources, it feels like falling off a cliff. For example, Circles supported a single Dad with three children in childcare. He got promoted at work with a $3/hour wage increase. The raise was just enough to reach the next category of eligibility for childcare assistance and to lose all of it. The net difference was a loss of $500/month! He did exactly what we hope everyone does—get a good job and increase earned income—but he suffered immediate consequences. This particular story had a happy ending: his employer was outraged by the system and so gave the additional $500/month needed to permanently let go of governmental childcare assistance. But don’t count on that being a universal response. Subsidy programs are necessary to support people unable to earn a livable wage. The federal and state agencies must pro-rate the exit ramps so people can safely leave these programs. If one earns an extra dollar per hour, then give them a dollar less in subsidies, not four of five dollars less. The Cliff Effect creates a massive phantom workforce in which millions of people who want to work, could work, and should work, cannot afford to take the new job, accept the raise, or increase their hours. There are no online calculators to help people understand the full impact of the Cliff Effect, so Circles USA and a team at Mass Mutual are collaborating to build a new tool. We are also working with foundations in Michigan and New Mexico to provide state policy makers with research on efforts to mitigate the Cliff Effect. Our goal is to provide states across the country and federal policy makers with resources that will estimate all the cost savings for eliminating the Cliff Effect. You can view our latest reports at CirclesUSA.org . Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is a positive step to help hard-working Americans earn enough money for the basic needs of life. The other half of the solution is to eliminate the Cliff Effect that will unleash an enormous untapped workforce and save billions of dollars in taxes used for subsidies. Otherwise, positive increases in wages might be just enough income to put people in harm’s way.

I was in New York City a few years ago having a conversation with a former United Nations Ambassador about my first book, Until It’s Gone, Ending Poverty in our Nation, in our Lifetime . He asked me several questions about my assumptions regarding the nature of poverty and about my work at Circles USA. After thirty minutes of debate, he revealed what was really behind his questioning, as he said to me, “Jesus said the poor will always be with us. Is ending poverty going against the Bible?” He’s not alone in this belief. For many in the nation, the biblical reference that “the poor will always be with us” is a strong suggestion that no matter what we do, we will always have poverty. Any attempt to eradicate poverty is a task that has no hope of success. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is to manage poverty or maybe save a few people. But can we believe in ending poverty ? Only if we change our mindset. If one wants to change systems, one must put their energy into “high-impact strategies” that are aimed at changing the mindset that created the organization, or system of organizations. The mindset informs the goals that shape the programs of the organization. To change a system to end poverty requires that the system change its entire culture. For example, when people don’t believe that the poverty rate can be reduced, let alone eliminated, a poverty management system is created. To change that system, we will have to place resources on affecting the deeper beliefs that are shaping the system’s culture. How can a dominating belief be challenged? I took the Ambassador’s belief that “the poor will always be with us” to a theologian who works closely with a Circles chapter and discovered that the original teaching is taken out of context. If one googles “the poor will always be with us,” you will find evidence of this confusion, with warnings not to use this statement to discourage social action. Plus, there are many other beliefs in the Bible that provide a positive contradiction. While this example from Christianity is a useful teaching tool, Circles USA partners with a range of secular and religious organizations. Circles USA’s inclusive, non-partisan community welcomes people from all faiths, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and socio-economic classes. Understanding the beliefs of these diverse community stakeholders is key. Do you personally believe we can end poverty? What dominant beliefs about poverty did you hear growing up? Share your perspective with us at Circles@CirclesUSA.org . The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. Stay tuned for more about: Dismantling the poverty management system Leading your community through the four stages of change Creating a pathway to end poverty To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for The Big View Newsletter , our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change. Warm regards, ~ Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

You cannot change the strategy of a community, an organization, or system – without focusing on culture and the beliefs people hold about how things work. Sometimes attributed to the business guru Peter Drucker, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is an illustrative warning relevant to all of us working on the elimination of poverty. At Circles USA, we’ve changed the culture of poverty by tapping the power of a culture of prosperity. Whenever people have an experience that contradicts a negative reality that they have been normalizing, healing occurs . For example, participants in poverty are called Circle Leaders, and they lead the process to achieve their own economic stability. Since a typical experience for those in poverty is to be dismissed and marginalized, there is a powerful healing that occurs through the acknowledgement that they are the poverty experts and must be at the planning table to find real solutions on behalf of the entire community. The idea of a poverty reduction system is a powerful contradiction to executives who are immersed in the management of requirements for a fragmented and random array of community programs . There is genuine excitement about focusing on how to rearrange work into more clear pathways that actually lead people out of poverty and reduce poverty rates. As more coherence is created in the sector of human services, we can find opportunities to enlist other sectors in ending poverty. For example, in workforce development, employers can challenge their mindsets about employees with backgrounds in poverty and implement responsive ways to do business in order to be more successful. Teachers can integrate pedagogies for engaging children from homes in poverty. Civic groups can question their hidden biases and rules that make it difficult for those in poverty to feel welcomed. Philanthropic organizations can analyze if their funding practices favor short-term wins at the exclusion of long-term gains. Whatever the challenges, transformational leaders engage crucial conversations that generate more cohesion towards a shared vision of ending poverty. Are you leading Big View discussions on this topic? Share your perspective with us at Circles@CirclesUSA.org . The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU . The first post, “Can We Believe in Ending Poverty?” can be accessed here . Stay tuned for more about: Dismantling the poverty management system Leading your community through the four stages of change Creating a pathway to end poverty To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for  The Big View Newsletter , our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change. Warm regards, Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

The European roots of the United States come from nations that had significant disparity between a small ruling class and the masses, where poverty was typical. Severing political connections to Great Britain, the 1776 Declaration of Independence aspired for equality, although the systems that were created replicated many old patterns. European settlers imagined a boundless wilderness to tame in America and created disparity with indigenous populations. The Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s followed patterns established by military organizations originally meant to serve the interests of kings and queens. Schools were built to serve agriculture and new industrial enterprises. Today, these systems still resemble early efforts to create a conforming labor pool. While the Declaration of Independence aspired for everyone to have “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the United States has not accomplished the political changes necessary to realize equality. Slavery was not abolished until 1865. Black males achieved the right to vote only in 1870, women the right to vote in 1920, and it took until 1964 to ban segregation in public places and employment discrimination based on race. At present, the United States has one of the world’s highest rates of incarceration. The culture of racism continues to negatively influence who can move out of poverty. White males have approximately a 300-year head start in getting ahead financially. To use a baseball metaphor, if one starts on third base, did they actually hit that triple and deserve all the entitlement associated with the feat? The American Dream was established on an expectation that hard work could lead to social mobility. With a mantra of “bigger is better,” business leaders have argued against putting any limit on what people might earn, with fear that it will stunt economic growth domestically and push entrepreneurs abroad. Meanwhile, the world’s population has grown approximately 10 times in the past three centuries. Having seven billion people share the Earth challenges the idea of unlimited growth: How can our biosystems be sustained while rewarding unlimited growth and the consumption of the natural world? The economy that was first installed in the United States did not produce a middle class. The growth of a middle class came from the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862, which made land available for farms and schools; the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that made banking secure for citizens in 1933; the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 that made home buying financially safe; the labor policies of the mid-1930s and the Social Security Act of 1935 that provided an array of new benefits and protections to workers; the 1944 GI bill that gave grants to millions of veterans to attend college; and the Pell Grants of 1965 that made it possible for even more people to attend college. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, I directly benefited from these policies that produced a strong middle class. In the 1980s, principles of free market enterprise influenced economic development. Financial crises in the 2000s led to a major recession. In recent decades, many policymakers have become concerned about a middle class that is shrinking. To reduce poverty rates, transformational leaders can advocate for policies that serve the majority of Americans. Reducing Poverty Rates War on Poverty legislation was introduced in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, creating programs that became our modern-day social safety net. In 1963-64, a Social Security administrator named Mollie Orshansky devised a poverty rate based on a formula using the cost of a subsistent food budget. Income roughly three times the cost of that food budget was considered to be above the poverty line. The official poverty rates have remained an important longitudinal barometer. However, unequal inflation rates for necessities such as healthcare and housing have caused census analysts to create updated calculations known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure and Alternative Poverty Measure. Using these more accurate calculations, researchers at Columbia University calculated these new poverty rates from 1967 to 2012 and compared them to the official poverty rates. While the official poverty rate was stable from 12% to 15%, the updated measures showed that the poverty rate was 25.6% prior to 1967 and has dropped to 16% today. Furthermore, researchers compared the updated poverty measures for a five-year time period (2007-2012) with and without government safety-net programs such as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); and others. Without government programs, poverty rates would have increased 5.1%, but with those programs, poverty rates rose only 1.3%. (For more detailed information, please see the 2016 report by the Office of Human Services Policy, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, titled Poverty in the United States: 50-Year Trends and Safety Net Impacts .) While the updated measures are more accurate indications, all metrics reveal information about how many people are financially suffering. To inspire a community-wide intention to reduce poverty, Circles USA emphasizes getting children out of poverty as a focus of necessary system changes. Instead of saying, “Let’s get all the children out of poverty right away,” we recommend the goal of supporting 10% of the children out of poverty as a starting place to provoke a tipping point that over time could more quickly help the other 90% out of poverty. Plus, it’s easier for people to withhold judgments about poverty when focused on the innocence of children. The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. Review the entire series on our Blog. Stay tuned for more about: Dismantling the poverty management system, Leading your community through the four stages of change, and Creating a pathway to end poverty. To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for  The Big View Newsletter , our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change. Warm regards, Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

Dr. Kevin M. Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., a University of Arkansas professor prepared a summary on the “Cliff Effects.” The full report can be found in Basecamp for all Circles USA Chapters/Sites. To view the report please click here .

Ideology, more often than not, drives policy. Denise Rhoades, a fervent conservative and Circles enthusiast, approached me after hearing my panel remarks at the Midwestern Governors Association conference on poverty and commented, “You are a progressive with a conservative accent.” Bemused, I asked her what she meant. She said that my focus on economic development, job creation, qualifying people for the workforce, and changing the accountability of the system are ways in which both progressive and conservatives can agree. Denise and I continued our conversation, and she suggested we write a book together, which we did, titled, Bootstraps and Benefits, What the Right and Left Understand about Poverty and How We Can Work Together for Lasting Solutions . In it, we describe ideological assumptions of those who believe in creating more benefit programs and those who believe in offering bootstrap incentives. Making generalizations for the purpose of understanding one another can come with more risk than reward. Any attempt might be fraught with opportunities for misunderstanding and faultfinding. Yet, for those who would appreciate more of an explanation of what we mean by Bootstraps and Benefits, here are a few broad-stroke generalizations: With regard to the Bootstraps and Benefits ideologies, where would you place yourself on the scale below? Where would you place your community? Where would you place your organization’s board and top management team? The Bootstraps and Benefits book appreciates both perspectives, while keeping a focus on reducing the poverty rate by 10% and supporting families to achieve 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The FPL for a family of four is roughly $25,000, so we aim for a family of this size to earn twice that income, or roughly $50,000 annually. Focusing on clear goals is a unifying way to address the differences between conservative and liberal political ideologies. It isn’t necessary to agree or compromise on key values when we are disciplined in working together on achieving mutual goals. Arguing about hot topics can even be avoided by viewing them as distractions from supporting people out of poverty. With regard to legislation, administrations will always support policies consistent with their party’s viewpoints. Thus, our work must align with right and left policy opportunities that show efficacy in reducing the poverty rates. Furthermore, evidence shows that poverty rates go down when the economy is producing more and better jobs. Therefore, transformational leaders can become interested in economic development planning and can align poverty reduction efforts with the emerging economy. The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU. Stay tuned for more about: Dismantling the poverty management system, Leading your community through the four stages of change, and Creating a pathway to end poverty. To receive subsequent blog posts, sign-up for  The Big View Newsletter , our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change. Warm regards, Scott. C. Miller, Founder and CEO, Circles USA

A ‘Circle’ Of Support Helps Families Stay Out Of Poverty – Click the player for audio. Click image for larger view. Go around the country and you’ll hear lots of frustration about just how difficult it is to get out of poverty — and more importantly, how to stay out. The official U.S. poverty rate may have gone down to 14.5 percent in 2013 according to new numbers out Tuesday, but still more than 45 million were poor. Employment is up, but many Americans still lack jobs that pay enough to meet basic needs. This has some people questioning whether current anti-poverty programs are doing enough. Cara Russo, 34, of Gettysburg, Pa., is raising two daughters, ages 15 and 9, and until recently, could have been the poster child for one of the largest groups of poor Americans — single women with children. According to the new poverty figures, 30.6 percent of such families are poor. Russo no longer lives below the poverty line, which is less than $19,000 a year for a family of three. But she still struggles. She says the biggest challenge isn’t being in poverty, but finding the way out. In the past, she has worked two jobs in an effort to earn enough. “I’m thinking to myself, you know, this is ridiculous. I’m doing all the right things. I’m working two jobs. I’m taking care of two kids. Why isn’t this getting any easier? Why is this getting harder?” she says. “You’d feel like you’d get a step ahead, and you’d really be 10 steps behind.” It’s a complaint you hear again and again. The more Russo earned, the less she seemed to have. Food stamps, housing, day care assistance, health care — everything that had kept her afloat when she was barely scraping by as a waitress began to disappear as she worked her way up the ladder. “She lost all of her benefits and would have about $40 per month to spend on food for her family. It was horrible to watch,” says Megan Shreve, executive director of South Central Community Action Programs, a nonprofit social service agency in Gettysburg. Fortunately for Russo, Shreve was also frustrated when she came back to her job after four years in the private sector. “The same people were in the same rooms talking about the same issues they were when I left. No one was getting out of poverty. We were doing more with less. Like, you look at that and you know that at some point this will break,” Shreve says. “So we started looking around to figure out what was really getting people out of poverty.” That’s when Shreve came across a program called Circles, now in 23 states. It works like this: A poor family is matched up with three or four middle-class volunteers called “allies.” They promise to help the family become self-sufficient, with everything from budgeting advice, to help navigating bureaucracy, to just being friends. It’s a lot of hand-holding. Russo was one of the first in the Gettysburg program. “It wasn’t like they were giving me anything to be there except for the strength to be able move to the next week,” Russo says. And she did that week after week after week. Her allies helped her even at times picking her kids up from day care. They also created a community food program to help those like Russo who earn too much for food stamps but not enough to eat. Seven years later, Russo is a restaurant manager earning $55,000 a year. Now she’s a middle-class ally for another family trying to climb out of poverty. Click image for larger view. Russo and two other women have been matched with Sharon Madrigal, a mother of three. At one of their weekly get-togethers, the families help Madrigal write down the pros and cons of job offers she’s just received — as a nursing assistant and as a part-time teacher’s aide. Russo knows that just getting a job isn’t enough. She works 65 hours a week — which isn’t easy raising a family. She asks Madrigal if she’s thought about day care for her son. “Have you checked out any availability for anybody to watch him? Do you have friends or family?” she asks Madrigal. If all goes according to plan, Russo will still be at Madrigal’s side a year from now, even longer. Studies show that Circles participants have seen their incomes double, even triple. But with so many poor people, Shreve admits it’s a drop in the bucket. She’s encouraged, though, that this and other more holistic approaches to fighting poverty are attracting attention. She says most current anti-poverty programs do help, but only so much. “You’re spending a great deal of money putting Band-Aids on gaping wounds and then turning and walking away,” she says. Even though, she says, it’s clear from numbers like those released on Tuesday that people need something more. Originally posted by npr.org , Sept. 16, 2014. Be sure to share your thoughts with us and, if you tweet, please include #CirclesUSA .