Stacked Deck, a new video interview series from the Ford School's Poverty Solutions, invites people with various types of expertise to share their views on the intersections between poverty and U.S. social systems and explore ways to create a future where everyone has a fair chance to achieve financial stability and thrive.
In the first episode of the series, Kristin Seefeldt, faculty director of Poverty Solutions, discusses the complex and often politically charged nature of creating effective poverty policies. Although poverty is typically defined by the U.S. government-based income measure, Seefeldt believes that metric doesn't always help policymakers measure what really matters.
"Poverty is a word that both means so many different things and almost nothing at all," Seefeldt said. "I tend to think that some of the issues that we should be concerned with are [those] like how much opportunity do people have? Are they able to do what they want to do, within reason?"
Poverty Solutions highlights a mix of traditional academics and prominent local leaders to give viewers a more holistic understanding of how flawed social systems stack on top of each other and affect individual outcomes. In addition to Seefeldt, watch videos from Courtney Smith, founder and CEO of the Detroit Phoenix Center, and Christie Baer, managing director of the U-M Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project. Additional videos are added weekly.
Watch the Stacked Deck interview with Kristin Seefeldt here.
