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From a quick glance at the headline numbers, California’s economy looks to be in its strongest shape in years.

Over the last four years, California has added jobs at a rate faster than all but six other states, and faster than the U.S. overall.

The conditions that attend poverty—what a National Scientific Council report summarized as “overcrowding, noise, substandard housing, separation from parent(s), exposure to violence, family turmoil,” and other forms of extreme stress—can be toxic to the developing brain, just like drug or alcohol abuse.

A new Stanford report describes how poverty can be permanently reduced in the Golden State. Billed as the Equal Opportunity Plan, this approach focuses on creating equal opportunities for children at the most critical points in their lives.

If there’s one overarching lesson from the past few decades of research about how to break the cycles of poverty in the United States, it’s the power of parenting — and of intervening early, ideally in the first year or two of life or even before a child is born.

An new way to attack social problems: ‘pay for performance’ projects. They aim to put private capital to work to solve problems such as recidivism, mental illness and homelessness.

New studies show that the number of poor children is rising and the impact it has on learning. Two new studies on education and poverty were reported in Education Week in October. The first from the Southern Education Foundation reveals that nearly half of all U.S. public school students live in poverty. Poverty has risen in every state since President Clinton left office.

Jennifer Donald, whose family receives money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also known as food stamps, is seen before dinnertime in Philadelphia. Families already buffeted by difficult economic times will see their food stamps benefits drop Nov. 1 as money allocated by the 2009 federal stimulus plan runs out.

Low-income students made up at least half the public school student population in 17 states in 2011, a marked increase from 2000, when four states topped 50 percent.

Cheyenne Phillips, 17, Angela Phillips, 44, and Cassidy Phillips, 14, stand outside their home in Knoxville, Tenn. Phillips used SNAP from from July 2012 to February 2013, and will be applying for the benefit again on Monday because her temp job ended on Friday.

The nation’s poverty rate remained stuck at 15 percent last year despite America’s slowly reviving economy, a discouraging lack of improvement for the record 46.5 million poor and an unwelcome benchmark for President Barack Obama’s recovery plans.