The Greater Louisville Project has finalized its 2017 Competitive City Update, “Poverty Beyond Income,” which takes an intimate look at poverty and assesses the interconnected barriers that keep families caught in the cycle of poverty. The data gathered indicate that because the many individual human, social, community and, of course, financial costs of poverty – Louisville is missing out on $200 million per year of economic growth.

The report uses data to describe the lived experience of poverty at the household level. Families and children in poverty do not just struggle financially; they also experience deprivations in education, jobs, health, and quality of place. These hurdles all build upon one another to create chronic stress within households and make poverty difficult to escape.