Born Poor
In 2012, the Emmy-nominated documentary Poor Kids, and in 2017, the documentary Poor Kids: Update, poverty in America was portrayed as it’s rarely seen: through the eyes of children.
Now, those kids — Brittany, Johnny and Kaylie — are all grown up, fighting to overcome the lingering impact of childhood poverty as they navigate young adulthood.
“Once you get in the hole, it’s extremely hard to find your way out,” Brittany says.
She, Johnny and Kaylie continue to share their experiences with the American public in Born Poor, FRONTLINE’s season premiere. Filmed across 14 years, the documentary follows these three kids from three families across three chapters of their lives — from childhood through the teen years to young adulthood — and offers a powerful, personal and longitudinal look at the realities of growing up in poverty in the U.S.
“Do I ever get tired of the struggle? Absolutely,” Johnny says. “But I feel like if you get another day to breathe and wake up and make something happen, you got to get off your butt and make it happen.”
The prologue of Born Poor gives a sense of both the documentary’s sweeping scope and its striking intimacy. Back when director and producer Jezza Neumann and producer Lauren Mucciolo began filming in 2011, Brittany, Johnny and Kaylie’s families were living in the Quad Cities, a crossroads along the border of Iowa and Illinois on the Mississippi river that had been hit hard by the Great Recession.
“We lost our whole house, and everything,” Johnny told the cameras at age 13. “Then we moved to a homeless shelter.” Kaylie, then 10, collected cans for money, and described feeling like she was always hungry. It was a familiar worry to Brittany, then 9, who shared, “I think there’s a lot of people in America that need help with food.”
As the Born Poor prologue shows, the filmmakers continued to follow the trio into adulthood, documenting how they’ve each tried to pursue their dreams while dealing with an economy where they face more obstacles than opportunities. Despite difficulty, loss and setbacks, Kaylie, Brittany and Johnny - now navigating parenthood themselves - refuse to give up on their pursuit of economic stability and an American dream that, to them, has felt perpetually out of reach.
RUNTIME:
90 Minutes
FILMED, PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY:
Jezza Neumann
PRODUCER:
Lauren Mucciolo
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:
Brian Woods
RELEASED:
2025
