What went wrong with the South?

By Alyson Zandt, MDC

In an article last month for the Washington Post, Chico Harlan describes the difficulties facing young people growing up in some of the nation's lowest wealth communities. "The Deep South's paralyzing intergenerational poverty is the devastating sum of problems both historical and emergent — ones that, in the life of a young man, can build in childhood and then erupt in early adulthood," says Harlan. These young people "deal with traumas at home and dysfunction at school — only to find themselves, as graduates, searching for low-paying jobs in states that have been reluctant to fund programs that help the poor."

An accompanying infographic, which maps life expectancy, children living with one parent, unbanked households, median household income, and income mobility, poses a solemn question: