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Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty – NYTimes.com
While I’m uncomfortable with the “escape” language, I appreciate that this study shifts focus to public policy issues.
“In a large, continuing study of upward mobility based at Harvard, commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder.
The impact of transportation on social mobility is stronger than several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentage of two-parent families in a community, said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the researchers on the study.”
