APA Deep Poverty Initiative Challenge

APA 5-Week Deep Poverty Initiative Challenge

More than 18.5 million people in the United States live in deep poverty. That means that millions of people and families are surviving on $6,244 or less per year for a single person; $12,547 or less per year for a family of four.

The APA Deep Poverty Initiative, led by 2019 APA President Rosie Phillips Davis, PhD, created the Deep Poverty Challenge to put deep poverty on everyone’s radar and give you the tools to address deep poverty in your community and beyond. While initially designed to stretch over a 5-week period, the challenge has been adapted to be done at your own pace, in whichever order you choose, and with access to resources at any time. We encourage you to use this information as a guide to raise everyone’s awareness of deep poverty and learn what we each as advocates within and outside of psychology can do to address it.


About the APA’s Deep Poverty Initiative

The APA Deep Poverty Initiative established ongoing collaboration between psychological science and the public and private sectors through advocacy efforts, user-friendly science-based resources and partnerships to effect population-level change. 

Learn more about APA’s Deep Poverty Initiative

About the Challenge

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Check out the five sections of the challenge

The Deep Poverty Challenge consists of five sections: Welcome and Introduction, Examine, Engage, Empower, and Everyone. Each section provides information on the challenge’s objectives and activities. You can choose to complete all of the tasks or only some of them over a time frame that works best for you. Our only hope is that you learn some valuable, actionable information along the way. The challenge also includes a toolkit consisting of action guides to help you join the fight against deep poverty.

Didn’t take the pledge, but want to take the challenge?

Engage online

Use and follow the hashtag #ChallengeDeepPoverty on Twitter to engage in conversation with other people taking the challenge.

Welcome and Introduction
Section 1

Welcome and Introduction

Think critically about deep poverty and the role of psychology in informing societal and structural decision-making processes affecting people living in deep poverty. Learn about APA’s Deep Poverty Initiative and expand your conceptions of what poverty is and who it affects.
Examine
Section 2

Examine

Learn to apply psychological science on bias and stigma to confront individual, interpersonal, community, and societal structures of oppression that impact the lives of individuals in deep poverty.
Engage
Section 3

Engage

Engage with people in deep poverty and create partnerships with community organizations that advocate for people in deep poverty, incorporating psychologists' unique skills and knowledge base.
Empower
Section 4

Empower

Learn to help empower and elevate people in deep poverty to have a voice in their community and advocate for systemic changes, including creating spaces to share their stories.
Everyone
Section 5

Everyone

Everyone can do something to make a difference, whether the action is small and sporadic, or large and sustained, including advocating for systemic change, or state and community-based structural solutions.
Constituent asking a question at an event
World Poverty Day

Deep Poverty Initiative Toolkit

Action guides to help psychologist advocates join the fight against deep poverty.