By Alexandra Yoon-Hopkins
December 1, 2022
Jennifer Bereskin dropped out of high school when she was 17. Her family was homeless, and she needed to get a job to buy food and afford bus fare. Couch surfing with friends in Everett, Lynnwood and Seattle, her dreams of college were put aside.
“I was merely surviving, I wasn’t able to thrive,” she said.
But Bereskin wonders if it could’ve been different.
A new proposal coming to the Washington Legislature for consideration next year aims to break the cycle of poverty that’s trapped families like Bereskin’s and lift future generations of low-income residents toward a path of financial independence.
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The model is based on “baby bonds,” an idea popularized by Darrick Hamilton, an economics professor at the New School in New York, and William Darity Jr., a professor at Duke University, and now taking off in several states.