As seen on One Miracle at a Time – published February 2014
It is an unfortunate truth of modern America: your odds of being successful in life are largely determined by your socioeconomic standing. Factors like race, sex, how and where you grew up, your education, etc. are reliable indicators of how likely people are to achieve, specifically, financial security—a good job. There are of course many outliers who defy the trend—but on the whole it is sadly accurate and utterly predictable.
Career Wardrobe is a work development nonprofit for women in Philadelphia attempting to remedy this—helping people with poor socioeconomic standing defeat the odds and achieve success.
80% of Career Wardrobe’s 5,000 yearly clients are unmarried African American women, mostly in their twenties; 90% are raising at least one child under the age of ten. Career Wardrobe (CW) provides career development support for underserved women, the majority of them unemployed and living on public assistance. CW strives to provide each client with the resources she needs to succeed on her own—a nice suit and makeover, or a resume revamp, or professional communication skills. But you have to wonder how CW’s typical client ended up here in the first place. Why do the numbers predict that she is destined for economic struggle?