Middle Class

Growing up low-income doesn't mean you can't rise up. As Business Insider suggests, reaching the middle class has a lot to do with what you do as a teenager.

Poverty rates are soaring in the U.S. 

Between 2000 and 2011, the number of American residents living under the poverty line jumped by nearly 30%, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institute.

Many of the policies geared toward eradicating poverty have centered on providing greater financial and educational resources for poor children and teens. 

RELATED: What It Takes to Make It in NYC in Your 20s

In a frank blog post, Ron Haskins, co-director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families and Budgeting for National Priorities Project, explains exactly what it takes for poor teens to make it to the middle class: 

"Let politicians, schoolteachers and administrators, community leaders, ministers and parents drill into children the message that in a free society, they enter adulthood with three major responsibilities: at least finish high school, get a full-time job, and wait until age 21 to get married and have children."

Haskins has the facts to back himself up here. 

Of the American adults who followed these three rules, only 2% wound up in poverty and nearly 75% made it to the middle class ($55,000+), according to Brookings.

Of course, there's more involved in raising successful young adults than giving them a check list and sending them on their way. We need the people and policies in place to steer them in the direction of the kinds of choices that will lead them into the middle class, too. 

—Mandi Woodruff

Related links:

• Poverty Is Booming in America's Suburbs
• At 27, Kids Aren't Ashamed to Live Off Their Parents
• Millennials Are Turning Into a Generation of Fiscal Conservatives

The election may be over, but now the hard work starts — or in this case, continues. President Obama has had the tough job of reviving an economy that's the worst the nation has seen since the Great Depression. And while more than 12 million Americans remain unemployed, numbers are starting to improve. In the spirit of the president's reelection last night, let's take a look at what the next four years will look like under his plan for taxes, job creation, and the national debt.

Jobs

"We can help big factories and small businesses double their exports, and if we choose this path, we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years," Obama said in his 2012 Democratic National Convention speech in September. That plan seems to be working, albeit slowly. In October, manufacturers added 13,000 jobs after getting rid of 27,000 in August and September.

Through his plan to promote green energy, Obama said he could create more than 600,000 new jobs by the end of the decade.

Something he echoed throughout his 2012 campaign, Obama promised to get rid of tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas; he's also said he will provide incentives for companies so they have more money to hire from within the US.

When it comes to job training, Obama has pledged to put $3 billion into helping nearly 22 million workers.

Taxes

Although in his first term he renewed Bush-era tax cuts for upper-class Americans as a compromise with Republicans, Obama now promises to increase those tax rates. Individuals making over $200,000 should expect higher taxes, as should people making more than $1 million, who will be expected to pay a share of 30 percent.

Obama doesn't want the rest of Americans to experience any tax increases; he is also trying to make tax breaks for lower-income Americans more permanent.

The National Debt

By strategies like increasing taxes on the wealthy and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama plans to cut the national deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years.