04/03/2026
We took this show on the road! And traveled all the way to . . . downstairs!
We joined our friends and neighbors at Elevate Youth Services for a training called Caught in the Middle, where we learned together about the many challenges working people navigate each month as they work to meet their needs, advance in their careers, and navigate unintended consequences created by the benefits cliff.
The imperfect system of public benefits has been turned upside down over the past year—shaped by shifts in funding, competing administrative priorities, and underlying bias. Yet the reality is, this system has been dysfunctional for decades, with far too little attention given to the traps it creates—and even less to the role it could play in stabilizing individuals and our economy.
At GMUW, we have spent years working to understand the complexity of this system—how to navigate within it, work around it, and educate stakeholders across the spectrum. Our focus has always been clear: poverty prevention, not poverty perpetuation, should lead the conversation. And nestled within that focus are the actual monetary and human costs of continuing to do what we have always done.
To bring this to life, we developed Caught in the Middle, which walks participants through real-life scenarios and challenges them to move an individual toward greater independence while increasing the economic stability of our community. The exercise reveals something powerful—the very real scarcity many people experience within the benefits system, and how that scarcity, combined with personal lived experience, shapes decision-making in profound ways.
By the end, one message rose to the surface: while the public benefits system may be fractured and perpetuating poverty, community support is not. When we create space for all experiences and dysfunctional systems to be acknowledged, and recognize the power we hold as individuals to design new experiences and systems, we become a force for change.
