Of course, poverty comes in different forms. Some Americans (the Episodic poor) slip below
the poverty line for a limited time after experiencing some kind of economic
crisis usually as a result of the loss of the breadwinner for the family due to
layoff, death, divorce, or illness. The
Cyclical poor are people who move in and out of poverty on a regular
basis. Finally, the Chronically poor are
people living below the poverty line for eighty percent or more of the time for
five years or longer even though they work most of the time but at very low
paying jobs.
William Oswald, an Associate Professor at Springfield
College in Springfield, Mass, published an excellent article in 2005 entitled
“The Poverty Trap.” Oswald notes that
poverty is a trap. Once a person or
family slips below the poverty line, even for a short period, it is extremely
difficult to get out. The Chronic poor
are particularly trapped.
So, why do some Americans become Chronically poor? There are two competing theories. One theory (the Structural Theory) is that
people get trapped in Chronic poverty because of structural changes in the
economy that results in a “labor market mismatch.” The Chronic poor become and remain poor
because they are unskilled or under-skilled and the economy changes in such a
way that increasingly they are few low-skilled jobs for which they
qualify. Those jobs that they can obtain
are very low wage jobs and they lack reasonable access to education, training
and other support that might enable them to develop the ability to compete for
higher wage jobs. Additionally, they
tend to be concentrated in poverty stricken areas where jobs are scarce and are
continually becoming scarcer due to a failing local economy that gets
progressively worse over time. Finally,
they lack the access to transportation to jobs out of their neighborhood or
funds to move to other areas of the country where jobs might be more plentiful.
An alternative explanation for chronic poverty is called the
“Culture of Poverty Theory.” This theory
argues that people become and remain chronically poor because of their
behavior. Poverty is personal. This theory says people slip into poverty
because they have certain behavioral characteristics, notably “resignation,
dependence, present-time orientation, lack of impulse control, weak ego
structure, sexual confusion, and the inevitable inability to defer
gratification.” (Oswald, p. 3) Children
learn these destructive behaviors from their parents, according to this theory.
As a result, they become
poverty-stricken themselves as adults.
These two theories of why poverty exists lead to two
different approaches to government efforts to deal with chronic poverty.
Those who adopt the Structural Theory advocate programs to
change the economic structure to increase opportunity for people who are
trapped in poverty. That includes launching
programs like the New Deal Work Projects Administration, Civilian Conservation
Corps, National Youth Administration, Farm Security Administration, the
National Recovery Administration, and the Public Works Administration that
created jobs for the chronically poor.
In addition, those who see poverty as a result of the economic structure
seek to adopt programs like the War on Poverty VISTA domestic peace corps and
Community Action Program that sought to help the disadvantaged poor build
political bases as well as programs like Head Start, the Job Corp, and pubic
television programs like Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers that sought to give the
chronic poor and others the education and other tools for upward mobility.
Those who see poverty as a result of a defective culture
take a totally different approach to a government response. They favor programs like the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The assumption of these programs is that
government assistance to the poor such as those advocated by advocates of the
Structural Theory create a dependence on government. Poor people, under this theory, need a strong
dose of tough love that will force the to take personal responsibility. Under this view, people in poverty must be
forced out. Government assistance should
be hard to get and hard to maintain beyond a limited period. This is particularly true of the generational
poor—families that live in poverty for several generations. These generational poor, argue the advocates
of the Culture of Poverty theory, have developed an attitude that society
somehow owes them a living. They must be
re-educated or re-condition to think differently. They must learn the “hidden rules of middle
class behavior” that they are severely lacking.
Once they learn the rules then the chronic poor will be able to easily
move out of poverty once and for all by taking advantage of the great
opportunities American society offers to all who are willing to work hard.
Of course, Republicans largely favor the “Culture of
Poverty” theory while Democrats are much more likely to contribute chronic
poverty to the economic structure.
It is easy to see why most Republicans would favor the
Culture of Poverty approach. After all,
it is consistent with their desire for smaller government. If the poor are poor because of their bad
behaviors then assisting them only encourages a continuation of those bad
behaviors. Republicans, in fact, argue
that government safety net programs actually create a “culture of dependency.” Additionally, the Culture of Poverty
explanation supports the Republican believe that American is the land of
opportunity where we can all be Horato Algers who might be born in poverty but
can find success through hard work alone.
America’s poor, so the argument goes, are exceedingly fortunate to live
in a country that provides equal opportunity for all and always rewards hard
work. The poor need not be poor. Nothing stands in their way but their own bad
behavior, their own personal failings.
Indeed, if this is true, then helping the poor is the wrong thing to
do. Instead of a hand up or worse yet a
hand out, what the poor need is just a good kick in the seat of their pants to
get them up out of their lazy chairs and working. Our motto should not be “we feed the hungry,”
but rather “he who will not work, will not eat.”
Democrats are not opposed to the poor working. However, they ask, how can a person work if
there are no jobs or if they lack the skills to perform the jobs that do
exist? How can those in chronic poverty
find their way out, if their schools are failing, the infrastructure where they
live is falling apart so no business wants to locate there, and they lack the
money, knowledge or ability to relocate to someplace that might offer them more
job opportunities or public transportation systems to enable them to get to work. How can the poor make their way out of
poverty if they are trapped in neighborhoods so crime ridden that they dare not
venture outdoors for long. How can the
poor make their way out of poverty if they are sick and have no access to
affordable healthcare or if they are addicted to alcohol or drugs and have no
access to treatment programs? How can
children born into poverty make their way out if their mothers get poor or no
pre-natal care, they don’t receive adequate nutrition when their brains or
developing, no one bothers even to read to them when they are young, they have
no Headstart program to help them prepare to learn, and the schools they are
able to attend are crumbling for lack of maintenance and staffed by teachers
who are underpaid, under trained, and under appreciated? Democrats say most people who are poor don’t
want to be poor. Most of the poor want
to work and move up the economic ladder.
Most of the poor want something better for themselves and particularly
for their children. However, they are
stuck in a cycle of poverty. Poverty
stricken areas where most poor people live aren’t attractive locations for
private sector businesses that might create jobs to put people to work. Poverty is a trap and, as Oswald and other
researchers have reported, the further one slips into poverty and the longer
one stays there the more difficult it is to get out without a lot of help. Contrary to the Republican belief that
America is a land of limitless opportunity it is not. Opportunity depends upon where you stand on
the economic spectrum. As Tom Zeller, in
one of the articles I cite below, notes:
“Americans by in large like to believe that the nation provides ample
opportunity for the truly motivated to rise—pulling oneself up by their
bootstraps, as the saying goes. Research
shows that’s simply not the case. In
fact, American children born either rich, or poor, are more likely than
children in other developed countries to maintain that station into adulthood.” The rich in America generally stay rich. The poor stay poor. And, the middle class always has limited
prospects for moving up but significant risk of slipping downward.
Reducing chronic
poverty--What works and what doesn’t?
Structural-oriented programs designed to address poverty like
the New Deal and War on Poverty programs I mentioned earlier have generally had
a significant impact on reducing the poverty rate while Culture of Poverty-oriented
programs have generally had little impact other than locking poor Americans out
of social safety net programs such as Food Stamps. At the
height of the Depression, 80% of Americans lived in poverty according to some
estimates. New Deal programs brought the
poverty rate to less than 50%. When Kennedy
was elected in 1960 the poverty rate was estimated to have been around
22%. War on Poverty programs brought the
rate down to below 15% and it has fluctuated between 12% and 15% since then. “Culture of Poverty” programs adopted during
the Clinton years and later under Republican administrations have failed to have
much of an impact on further reducing the percentage of Americans living in
poverty, although they have eliminated or greatly reduced access to
social-safety net programs for many of the Chronic poor.
We need to return to addressing poverty as a structural
problem rather than one of bad behavior.
We need a New New Deal or a New War On Poverty. What do you think?
The following are two excellent articles about the problem
of poverty with citations and references to other sources on the topic. I recommend them highly.
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