The article completely ignores the major cause of Vanessa's struggles: she is a single parent trying to raise three children. Where is the father of her children?
If you are not married, do not have children. Just going by the statistics, I suspect Vanessa's children were born out of wedlock.
Also, if you are very young (still in high school) and not on financially sound footing yet, do not have children.
Remedying these problems alone would massively reduce poverty.
Children are a massive financial and time sink, yet according to the Brookings Institute [1]:
"...more than 40 percent of American children, including more than 70 percent of black children and 50 percent of Hispanic children, are born outside marriage."
Many of these children are raised by single mothers and fathers. Sure, married people get divorced, but the number of children raised in single parent households is far less among those born to married adults than those who are not.
It's been clearly shown that the average child raised in a single parent household has worse outcomes than the average child raised in a two parent household.
Cultural issues must be addressed in this country, but everyone seems unwilling to do so because they worry about "blaming the victims".
Well in this case, poverty is clearly being perpetuated by poor decision making on the part of individuals and cultures which perpetuate this poor decision making. The "victims" are at fault.
Culture can be changed, but we must identify and talk about the problems before that change can occur.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-t...
1. Graduate High School 2. Work full-time 3. Don't have a baby out of wedlock
It's that easy.