The New York Times and David Leonhardt wrote recently about lower-income children and pathways to upper mobility. The reporting never mentions family policies that assign some children to lives of poverty, and others to massive wealth. Instead, it focuses on downstream causes. That’s a crucial omission because as the first and overriding human right, a fair start in life can override the property rights that drive racial and other inequities.

Fair Start policies are more effective than hoping poor black kids will make friends with rich white ones, which seems to be the upshot policy implication of the Times article. If we truly care about equity, why not promote it in the most effective way? Why not cover the fuller story of people’s lives, including how they begin?

If the Times can push women to have children to solve an economic “baby bust,” and at massive levels of inequity for the children born, surely it can acknowledge the possibility that systems are not just if they are not constituted fairly.

TAKE ACTION: Urge @DLeonhardt to cover what matters to ensure a better future.