Shelby County’s New Year’s Resolutions
If you’re anything like us, you’re struggling to stick to your New Year’s resolutions, and it’s hardly been a week. That’s because it’s way easier to carry on the status quo than to make important, difficult changes to your life. Memphis is the same way—our local governments, education systems, nonprofits, and budgets can easily fall into the same playbook year-in and year-out.
Just like our personal resolutions, we won’t achieve our community resolutions without a plan. While we still face low educational outcomes, entrenched poverty, and a myriad of other challenges, a set of shared resolutions and commitments across our efforts can begin to change how we support our children and families in 2026.
Memphis Again #1 in Child Poverty
The Memphis 2025 Poverty Fact Sheet shows that Memphis still has the highest poverty rate for children in the nation. More than four in 10 children in this city live below the federal poverty line—nearly double the nation rate. This is unacceptable. We must do better by our youth.
But how do we do that? Through long-term structural change, not short-term charity or isolated programs. We need more early investment for children 0-8 years old, better cradle-to-career pipelines, more economic stability for families, affordable housing, and public-private accountability.
230,000 Futures in the Making
The future is advancing quickly and our systems are failing to keep up. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates averaged 5.3%, while their underemployment rate remains over 41%.
Together with the StriveTogether Network and our new statewide collaboration—Cradle to Career TN—we are working to invest in students, improve their academic outcomes by improving their lives, and prepare them for the future.