Author Archives: maja

An article in The New York Times yesterday showed that children living in public housing in NYC preform bad in school. This follows up on the discussion we had in class about how much your environment affects your performance in life.

The researchers suggest that public housing’s culture of poverty offers young people few role models to stress the importance of education, limits their resources and exposes them to crime or widespread peer pressure from those not doing well in school. Another possible reason is that families who live in public housing may differ from other poor families in ways that are hard to measure.

There is a large number of public housing residents who are unemployed, disabled or receive public assistance. Of the 112,000 children ages 5 to 18, roughly 95 percent are black or Hispanic, and 56 percent live below the federal poverty level. Many households are headed by single mothers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/nyregion/24children.html

Below I have posted a link to ABC news. If you do not have time to read the article you should watch the video.

The link, I believe, relates to what we talk about in class – the difference between the social democratic model of welfare (Keynes) and the liberal/conservative model (Friedman). I believe the main reason why people in Denmark are happy or contend is because they have a secured future. The government takes care of them from cradle till grave.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4086092&page=1