Graduate high school.
Get a job. Or, graduate college or a technical school. (Then, get a job.)
Get married.
Have babies.
This is a poverty-fighting equation Tennessee GOP lawmakers want to be taught to every single Tennessee student.
The equation is called the “Success Sequence” and it’s nothing new. A version of this sequence has probably been taught to kids for decades. But the idea took formal form in a 2009 book by Brookings Institution researchers called “Creating An Opportunity Society.” Those researchers aimed to ”improve the prospects for our less-advantaged families and fellow citizens” and help bridge gaps in income and wealth.
Two Tennessee Republicans — Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) and Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) — sponsor legislation before state lawmakers now that would require ”family life curriculum [to] include age-appropriate instruction and evidence regarding the positive personal and societal outcomes associated with the method.”
“ Data shows that students who follow the sequence are more likely to excel in school and generally earn higher grade point averages than students who do not,” Bowling said when she introduced her legislation in a committee last week. “This program prepares students for a healthy, productive life.”
In very practical terms, if this bill is passed, it might mean that public school kids in Tennessee would hear this theory that following these steps will either lead you out of poverty or help keep you out of it. Also, in practical terms, a version of this bill died in committee in February before the Mississippi Legislature.
So, how big of a deal is this idea of teaching the “Success Sequence,” really? Well, a strata of academics, think tanks, and policy advocacy groups think it’s a big one.
Some will argue data say if you follow the sequence your chances of ending up in poverty are around 3 percent. Others have taken that further (answering critics) to say the equation works almost equally well for African Americans and Hispanics, even with the uphill climbs they may face in racist systems.
”With the completion of each step of the success sequence, the racial gap narrows rapidly,” Melissa Byers Melissa, the Chief Marketing Officer at National Fatherhood Initiative, wrote in 2022. “For Millennials who followed all three steps, only 4 percent of [B]lacks and 3 percent of Hispanics are poor by their mid-30s. Stunningly, the racial gaps in poverty are almost closed.”
Maybe the biggest naysayer of the Success Sequence is Matt Bruenig, who studies and writes about class, labor, poverty, and welfare for the People’s Policy Project. He’s written posts headlined, “The Success Sequence Is About Cultural Beefs, Not Poverty,” and “The Success Sequence Continues To Be Complete Nonsense.”
Bruenig argues, broadly, that full-time work alone will keep people out of poverty. The rest of the sequence, he said, is about pushing cultural agendas. Marriage, for example, won’t keep anyone out of poverty unless they marry another full-time worker, he said. Marriage could lead to poverty if someone marries someone with a disability or work limitation, he said.
”Success Sequence writers, realizing that full-time workers are rarely in poverty, end up advocating that ‘full-time work plus their cultural preferences’ will get you out of poverty,” he wrote. “This is technically true, but only because full-time work plus anything will get you out of poverty.”
