Message from the Director

Dear Friends of the Center:

I am honored and enthusiastic to work with Carolina's Poverty Center - studying, serving, advocating for, exploring policy options to assist and empower, and raising public awareness of the plight of those at the bottom of the economic ladder - here and across the country. It is crucial work. In recent weeks, for example, we have heard much of the interests of Wall Street and Main Street. These likely represent short hands for "middle class" and, perhaps, the wealthiest among us. But even in such economically-driven conversations, we've had little discussion of the far tougher circumstances faced by the poor in this country.

Almost twenty percent of American children - and numbers far higher for black, Latino and Native American kids - live in wrenching poverty. Over thirteen percent of all Americans. And in October, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the gaps between rich and poor are growing markedly in the world's wealthiest countries - particularly the United States. We now have, it reports, the highest economic inequality of any major industrial nation.

We may talk the most about equality. But our record doesn't match our rhetoric. It is not enough to simply turn our gaze away from those locked at the bottom of American life. I am confident that the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity will continue to make a powerful contribution to the University's efforts in outreach, teaching and research on this vital front.

Sincerely,

Gene Nichol
Director, UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity