“If you work you should not be poor,” New Hope designers believed. With poverty rates on the rise and with lower-wage service sector jobs replacing manufacturing and other higher-paying jobs, that belief resonates even more today. In 2004, 5.7 million adults were working full-time but still living in poverty, affecting 6.8 million children.

New Hope was designed to help working poor families by offering an income supplement that lifted them above the poverty line, subsidized health care and child care, and offered them a job when they couldn’t find one. New Hope was a social contract—not a welfare program—and participants were required to work at least 30 hours a week.

The designers knew well the history of many failed antipoverty policies. Therefore, they put their experiment to the test, hiring a group of leading researchers to evaluate its impact in the most scientific and rigorous way.

The results are highly encouraging

• Poverty rates declined dramatically
• Employment and earnings increased among participants who were not initially working full-time.
• For those who had faced just one significant barrier to employment (such as a lack of access to child care or a spotty employment history), these gains lasted years.
• More medical needs were met.

Children also benefited

"New Hope yielded academic gains equivalent to half of the average achievement gap between black and white school kindergartners."

• School performance improved, especially for boys
• Behavior problems declined.
• Enrollment in child care centers increased
• Participation in out-of-school activities increased

As for Lakeisha, Inez, and Elena (names have been changed), the three women profiled in Higher Ground, each profited from New Hope in different ways.

In 1994, when New Hope opened, all were single mothers with very young children. Only Elena had a full-time job at that time. Lakeisha was not working, and Inez worked part-time, and both were collecting welfare

Eight years later, Lakeisha had found her way into full-time work through the community-service jobs, despite having no high school degree and little work experience. As of 2004, a full decade after she became eligible for New Hope’s benefits, she was planning to marry her long-time boyfriend Kevin and they had recently purchased a house in a quiet northside Milwaukee neighborhood. She worked at the same agency that provided her second New Hope community-service job at an annual salary of a little more than $17,000 with fringe benefits.

Inez had recently left her full-time job to enroll in college. To makes ends meet, she and her boyfriend moved in with her mother and stepfather. Even with some income from her boyfriend and no rent to pay, finances were tight. Her credit needs “fixing” and her son, 10-year-old Jorge, still remembers times when there was not enough food in the house. She has decided to go back to work and is fairly certain she will start a new full-time job at $14 per hour, but expects to continue in school and to finish her degree by 2008.

Elena describes her experience with New Hope as a “life change.” “My job was on the line because I didn’t have any child care.” In 2004 Elena, now 33 and in her eighth year as a caseworker for a human services company, earned more than $35,000 with full benefits.

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