Being black and poor in America presents a particular challenge, according to Julia Tripp, a research assistant at the Center for Social Policy (CSP) who also heads up its Constituent Advisory Group of people with a lived experience of poverty.

When you’re a black woman, the stakes are higher, she added. The National Women’s Law Center says the 2011 U.S. census data shows that the poverty rate for black women was 25.9 per cent.

UN Radio’s Jocelyne Sambira met Ms. Tripp mid-October at the UN in New York, during an event to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Duration: 2’27’’