Arguments about poverty–suspicions about deservingness and general disdain for poor people–are nothing new. In the 15th Century, English Poor Laws forbid those who might be so inclined from “giving alms to the sturdy beggar.” Those attitudes came with the colonists to the New World, augmented by the Calvinist belief that accumulation of wealth signaled a “predestined” moral merit.
George W. Bush–the self-described “Compassionate Conservative”–pushed his “faith-based initiative” with language that equated poverty with an absence of “middle-class values,” implying that what poor people needed wasn’t better pay or more money, but more faith and better values.
America’s version of capitalism hasn’t helped. As Ezra Klein wrote last June in the New York Times,
The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.
Klein was commenting on a proposal for a guaranteed income–not a Universal Basic Income, about which I’ve previously written, but an annual income that would phase out as recipients entered the middle class. Whatever the merits of either of those proposals, it behooves policy folks who care more about governing in the public interest than about keeping transgender kids out of the “wrong” bathroom to revisit some of the more destructive and erroneous beliefs about poor people.
As Klein quite accurately notes, opposition to proposals that would attack poverty by giving poor people money isn’t based on costs, but on benefits.
A policy like this would give workers the power to make real choices. They could say no to a job they didn’t want, or quit one that exploited them. They could, and would, demand better wages, or take time off to attend school or simply to rest. When we spoke, Hamilton tried to sell it to me as a truer form of capitalism. “People can’t reap the returns of their effort without some baseline level of resources,” he said. “If you lack basic necessities with regards to economic well-being, you have no agency. You’re dictated to by others or live in a miserable state.”
But those in the economy with the power to do the dictating profit from the desperation of low-wage workers. One man’s misery is another man’s quick and affordable at-home lunch delivery. “It is a fact that when we pay workers less and don’t have social insurance programs that, say, cover Uber and Lyft drivers, we are able to consume goods and services at lower prices,” Hilary Hoynes, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also co-directs the Opportunity Lab, told me.
This is the conversation about poverty that we don’t like to have: We discuss the poor as a pity or a blight, but we rarely admit that America’s high rate of poverty is a policy choice, and there are reasons we choose it over and over again. We typically frame those reasons as questions of fairness (“Why should I have to pay for someone else’s laziness?”) or tough-minded paternalism (“Work is good for people, and if they can live on the dole, they would”).
These objections echo the English Poor Laws. Disdainful, financially-comfortable people ignore what we all know–that this country is full of hardworking people who are kept poor by very low wages, bad luck, and policy choices that favor the disdainful.
We know the absence of child care and affordable housing and decent public transit makes work, to say nothing of advancement, impossible for many. We know people lose jobs they value because of mental illness or physical disability or other factors beyond their control. We are not so naïve as to believe near-poverty and joblessness to be a comfortable condition or an attractive choice.
Most Americans don’t think of themselves as benefiting from the poverty of others–but of course, as Klein points out, we do. So we object to proposals to ameliorate poverty with lectures about
how the government is subsidizing indolence, paeans to the character-building qualities of low-wage labor, worries that the economy will be strangled by taxes or deficits, anger that Uber and Lyft rides have gotten more expensive, and sympathy for the struggling employers who can’t fill open roles rather than for the workers who had good reason not to take those jobs.
We haven’t come very far from the 15th Ceentury.
Or the 18th century. Gives me a lot of sympathy for our forefathers living in a country where tyrannical laws were imposed from on-high and from far away by people who had not a clue what their “subjects” were living through.
So the words, “When in the course of human events…..” mean a whole lot more to me now than when I first heard them 70 years ago….. Maybe time to begin again?
Terry, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for our forefathers who replaced a Monarchy with an Oligarchy that used enslaved people to do all the hard work to colonize the states.
Our country is fighting over that history today. Republicans want to cancel slavery from our history books. Democrats want to teach natural history, but they don’t want to take action that will upset “our version of capitalism.”
The political class wants the fight over social matters because that’s what the oligarchs demand. The owners don’t want to change their economic system because they’ve spent billions to ensure they’ll reap trillions of dollars.
Joe Manchin, the guy who said we could not afford to save the planet by switching off fossil fuels, flew a private jet into Davos, Switzerland, to tell the wealthiest .01% that we need to spend unlimited money on a war taking the fight from Ukraine to Moscow. Likewise, Joe Biden went to Asia to inform them that the USA would pay endless monies to defeat China.
These men are deluded. They both should be locked up in mental facilities. When you listen to George Soros or Charles Koch talk, you hear the same illogic and delusionary comments, yet they control our government.
This is why this country is headed for a disastrous end unless these senile old bastards are upended. But, unfortunately, money has warped their brains.
I personally knew three of the downtown homeless in the 1970s and 1980s; two of them had been friends and frequent visitors in my home before they willingly became homeless beggars on our downtown streets. They chose alcohol and drugs and shiftlessness; one of them had been fired from good jobs due to his drunkenness. The third man I knew from my job in the City-County Building; he worked in the County Surveyor’s Office across the hall from my office and we became friends. He suddenly just stopped coming to work, no calls to explain and could not be found. Weeks later I ran into him on Delaware Street across from the C-C Building begging for handouts. I of course asked where he had been and why was he now on the streets; he explained that he was bi-polar and no longer needed his medication, said he didn’t need his job and was happy where he was. I never saw him again but still think of him from time to time and wonder what happened to him.
I believe it was in the 1970s that a social service group did a study by spending a week or so on the streets with the homeless. They were surprised to learn that about 50% of them chose and preferred being on the streets rather than buried under the responsibilities of job and bills. That was then; this is now! We know the source of forced homelessness of entire families today due to such as George W’s “faith-based initiative” and the greed and avarice of the 1-2% who now rule the economy of this country. The dwindling “middle class” is not lower in numbers because they have risen above middle-class but because they have been forced into the lower-class and nearing poverty level. It now takes 2 and sometimes 3 jobs for a family to provide the basics to survive this economy which many are willing to do. Businesses unaware or uncaring about “paying a worker worthy of his hire” but see only their route to profits; then whine about paying their fair share of taxes, leaving the burden of that debt to the dwindling “middle class”.
We know the reason for the soaring prices on everything, that it is simply price-gouging and when – or IF – the situation improves, those prices will NEVER return to affordable levels for the majority of American families. Forcing the U.S. closer and closer to a caste system, run by the dictatorship of the evangelical “faith-based initiative” of the White Nationalist MAGA party.
President Zelensky of Ukraine took time from the horrors of his war against the entire country of Russia to send condolences to this country and the families of more dead children and their teachers in Texas after the horrors of the mass shooting yesterday. Will our own Republican Senators care as much?
There is absolutely no way one can argue against safety nets. They need to be in place for all classes of people, but especially those who are Impoverished. Apparently right now we do have a worker shortage. So giving anyone in our society a UBI even though may appear to help them would go against fulfilling the societies Need for workers. The only way to UBI should be implemented is if artificial intelligence somehow starts begin replacing all of our jobs, which may be possible, but not in the near future.
Right now the incompetence of the Democrat party and the positions it holds in the US government is costing the average family more than what is bearable, if you look at gasoline, food and rent or housing alone, living expenses have or is increased $5000 over last year. There is absolutely no way the US government per person can replace this. The burgeoning debt that the last two administrations have placed on the family is totally unbelievable. So when you take a look at The green new deal ideology it is strangling anyone who makes less than $100,000 a year.
This recession that we are entering has been forecast for over three years by people in the Obama administration, people that I’ve caught it before, and you simply can go on YouTube to watch them, people like Larry Summers, who qualifies our domestic policy as a disaster.
If anyone is listening to the earnings calls the corporations, which I doubt anyone actually is because they are more worried about their ideology than reality, Corporations and the rich Actually supply Most of our revenues that pay for the poor and all the programs. These corporations are reporting losses and revenues due to higher expenses, in labor and fuel. And their revenues dropped by 40 or 50% that means the government revenue also drops by that amount. Research and development in many small medical corporations are being devastated because we need Great hikes to get inflation under control, the cash they need to do their research and development is now gone.
Without an economy that is in full swing, we cannot support the impoverished without the funds for the programs that we are calling for and we actually want. I want these programs I worked in these programs. I volunteer the last 20 years of my life and what I see right now is grieving me deeply. The utter incompetence And the acceptance of this incompetence overwhelms me on a nightly basis where I can almost not sleep. But because I put in about 60 hours a week in my job, I have to exercise on a daily basis to be able to go to sleep at night.
It is the hard-working family that is getting hit right now as well as those that are living at poverty levels and cannot make their way out of this situation especially with this kind of administration in place.
Companies that recorded huge profits over the last 2 years do need to pay their fair share. Loopholes have not been closed. Unions are now on the rise again, this definitely helps the wage gap plus helps those willing to work to lift themselves into the middle class. But again we got the cart before the horse as Elon Musk states with EVs and green power and now we are paying for it
Nothing will change, and I have to agree with JoAnn on her comment today, I’ve talked with many of the panhandlers around here, on every street corner! And, they are homeless because they wish to be. That’s a mental health issue! But Ronald Reagan and before him really Nixon were very instrumental in dismantling that safety net concerning the mentally ill.
Another symptom of being mentally ill besides homelessness, are mass shootings in the schools. More babies blown away for what? They can’t even identify some of them they were shot up so bad. Why?
You don’t think this society is coming to an end? Absolutely it is! This society is going down the toilet like all powerful societies before it. In the book of Daniel, it talks about the Immense Image with feet of iron and clay. It represents a power that is partially strong but also weak. We know that clay cannot mix with iron! And, you can see that today! No continuity no congeniality, no congealing around a cause, no empathy, no compassion, even the authorities throw up their hands!
I talked to a police officer this morning, he is the director of the range training for bannockburn. He said that they just ordered silhouettes of children to practice on! Now, how about that?!? He said that they were told they have to get used to shooting at smaller targets, because, the offenders are becoming younger and younger.
Thoughts and prayers? Here we go again! And, as JoAnn said, president Zelensky offered his condolences as a leader of a country being obliterated by war.
We allow people in this country to buy body armor and guns that are designed for the battlefield, but they can’t provide their own soldiers the protections that they need! Our son-in-law was in Afghanistan, three tours! We had to buy him his body armor! Because the government claimed there was a shortage. Why was there a shortage? Because the civilian population was buying it all up. Now, to me, that made no sense at all! But that was the story We were told. So we had to pony up hundreds of dollars to buy body armor. Which by the way, we gladly did!
So, we’re back to wanting to arm all of the teachers and administrative staff? Maybe we’ll get these second graders 22 caliber derringers to carry around in there backpack. Is pathetic, but, when government is paralyzed, because of some sort of agenda whatever it may be, the cohesion of society is gone. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy concerning the collapse of this civilization. And when that happens, the cry is going to be great. The wailing won’t do any good, because it’s just another example of history repeating itself, until, it cannot anymore. And that will be the end of civilization as we know it!
I just read an article in what asses for a newspaper here that states Florida’s unemployment rate is 1.9%. That is really good news for people in miserable, low paying jobs. They are finally getting the upper hand.
American capitalism is, fundamentally, predicated on slavery, is it not? Meager wages? Well, that’s the same thing as doling out just enough food to keep the “workforce” picking cotton and hoeing weeds. The utterly stupid part of the current arrangement is that the poorer groups spend 100% of their income on – mostly – necessities. So, why not pay these people more, raise the cost of products by a few percentage points and reap the increased profits from increased sales? Nah. That would piss off the stockholders who want it all.
Then there are the 18-year old kids who can buy assault rifles at between $1,500 and $2,000 each… Where did that disposable income come from? Upper middle class? Who groomed these kids into thinking that shooting up schools or supermarkets was the thing to do with all that money’s ability to purchase? Body armor? Who groomed the assholes to prepare for a domestic war that they are creating?
Oh. Right. Better values and more faith. Sure. I wonder how those 20 or so families feel about prayers and values about now in Uvalde, TX. George W. Bush was HANDLED. The GOP groomed him to be their mouthpiece (barely) and puppet. Who pays the GOP? Where do the bribes come from? Oh. Sure. The NRA and the ammunition makers. Their lobby is funded by fear perpetrated on the unknowing and the greed of the masters and stockholders. Greg Abbott is an utter disgrace as he is scheduled to speak at the NRA conference in Houston this week. What a guy! Licking the hands that feed him. Typical of Republicans…and to some extent Democrats.
But Democrats ALL support gun controls and the banning of assault rifles – except Manchin, of course, who understands nothing about governing for the people. NOT a single Republican in Congress – or in most state assemblies – would even whisper gun control. Why is that the case? Simple answer: their reelection funding would be cut off from their “sponsors” from Hell. This is what abject corruption looks like and our children are dying because of it.
Indeed, our economy runs on low-wage workers. But it’s not only that we make policy decisions that keep WAGES low, we have built other barriers to the middle class to keep the “riff-raff” out.
Besides transportation and child care, there are complicated tax laws, overly-complicated retirement and investment programs, overly complicated and financially risky post-secondary education options and major pitfalls left and right in loans, healthcare, mortgages, etc. There are also technical barriers – Just try getting a job without a smartphone and internet. And it’s all intentional. The barrier to entry into a socio-economic level where one can exercise some agency is very high. We really don’t want people to move up the ladder.
You can also argue that much of the criminal justice system is designed to trap people in a permanent underclass.
I’ve heard from those who visited Caracas, Venezuela say that there are no homeless on the streets of Caracas. I’ve heard similar stories from other (developing) world capitals.
Are these reports true? How do other countries deal with their mentally ill? It is only in the US that we have people who choose to be homeless?
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. ”
Anatole France
We shouldn’t oversimplify a complex problem of many causes and effects. Clearly one cause of poverty, which often shows up as homelessness, are those who are just unemployable due to mental/emotional damage inflicted on them by the mental/emotional damage inflicted on their parents, ad nauseum. Another is the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and the corresponding increase in educational table stakes. Would either of these problems be alleviated by some level of guaranteed income? Perhaps.
Clearly wealth redistribution away from the creators of it contributes to the problem so there is a start but that will not happen until we fix our problems with campaign financing.
The bottom line is that we are absolutely mired in opportunity for effective government and instead of fixing those problems we settle for politicians in DC who do nothing but campaign for dollars and votes, shielded from public view by back room deal making and never actually governing.
A writer wrote today about the Texas school shootings. It applies to failure to deal with poverty, as well:
“The social rot that’s come over America, the nihilism and hatred of each other, is part of the cause here. The dissolution of our social ties—and with them the accountability and responsibility that an actual community demands—has allowed insanity to fester unnoticed. Lockdowns accelerated the isolation, the purposelessness, the lack of meaning that was already overcoming us.”
So, Lester, the Republicans and their paymasters continue to say: “More guns means a safer country.” Last year, over 38,000 people died by gun in the United States. I think the next worse was a couple hundred…in a country experiencing a civil war. So, we kill each other by gun at the rate of 0.1% per year…or so. More assault weapons in the hands of all those you mention above will raise that number.
Biden was right! Nobody else does this. Of course no other country has the creep Wayne LaPierre and his thick-headed followers setting policy. Just sayin’…
“Great leaders” lead by example and words. Governor Abbot :
“I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted in October 2015, with a link to a blog article about Texas ordering 1 million guns that year.”
He recently signed legislation authorizing universal open carry….
Fifteenth century? What about the 7th century into the 15th?
During the time of the Byzantine Empire 632-1453 CE, “The average monthly wage of an unskilled laborer was 1 ‘nomisma’ (a gold coin
weighing 4.55 g), WHICH WAS ENOUGH TO FEED AND CLOTHE A FAMILY, AS WELL AS PAY RENT ON A SMALL HOUSE.” (caps are mine).
This statistic comes from “Figuring Out the Past,” by Peter Turchin and Daniel Hoyer, (pg. 70) published by “The Economist.”
What about “We have not even lived up to the standards of some of the fifteenth century world.”
Klein’s perspective, here, is new to me, and quite refreshing, if frustrating.
GWB was in no way a compassionate anything. If there is a god, maybe he/she knows how much public funding went to support
religious enterprises during, and after Bush’s time in office.
Gun violence benefits the upper class by distracting the masses and keeping them in fear. When you are trying to protect your guns or screaming that they should be controlled or banned you’re not focusing on the obscene profits and tax evasion practices of corporations. The same is true for bathroom bills and abortion. They deflect from the real problems most of us face. Those problems stem from a lack of sufficient wealth. A return to 1950s tax rates would go a long way toward restructuring the power balance in this country. That is exactly what the rich do not want. So, keep the people afraid, distracted and fighting each other over peripheral issues.
Wages should probably be doubled to meet today’s corporate pricing, but if they were we would most likely be in the same inflationary boat since executive compensation and shareholders’ demands for more dividends would rise in proportion or even beyond to such increased demand and if any policymaker ever (even if inadvertently) whispered “price control” he or she would be drummed out of office by the media of the terminal capitalists.
This in the face of a minimum wage that hasn’t been raised since 2009. . . Peculiar, isn’t it, that government is involved in setting wages – but prices? Any such suggestion is immediately denounced as “socialist” or “communist,” or whatever other horror the capitalist press is touting to protect and enhance their profit margins.
The truth is that we have had price control in our history. The OPA (Office of Price Administration) was an FDR agency during WW II designed to prevent runaway prices since such would impede our war effort. Today we have no such patriotic rationale for governmental intervention in the corporate price spiral and it’s Katie bar the door in corporate boardrooms, many of which also enjoy monopoly status which wards off competitive pricing as envisoned by Sherman.
Perhaps some brave soul in the Congress (who was going to retire anyway) will suggest that government add price control as well as wage control to its portfolio of regulation. Perhaps, but don’t bet the ranch. He or she is a commie, you know.
Some things that were touched on before in other threads, are very valid today in this thread.
When you have churches, places of worship, and religions, promoting the hoarding of weaponry, they’ve revealed who they really are!
Vernon Turner actually makes some very valid points, and I agree with them wholeheartedly. The fly in the ointment here is these religious leaders pretending to be holy!
They think that being anti abortion will rectify their standing before God, but, they hate their neighbor, they promote evil amongst their neighbor. They speak out of both sides of their mouth, or as native Americans would say, they speak with a forked tongue.
This country was never based on fairness or equality, and actually, when you dig into it, no society no government not one, was ever fair and equal!
Do you think that this country wants everyone to have an easy time? How can people be controlled if everyone is comfortable or satisfied? You have to have the Boogeyman to blame for their lot in life. It’s much easier to control a person who’s aggrieved rather than one who is satisfied. But, just like Dr Frankenstein, the monster he created could not be controlled and destroyed the creator! Greed and power are the forces behind all of this, and, it makes those pulling the strings blind to their actions. And, they’ll stay that way until they can’t anymore. That’ll be the end of society as we know it.
In scripture, it refers to government as mountains. This is in several different parts of the bible. And it says that the time will come when people will beg the mountains to fall over them. To save them! And, don’t we have that today? When the food runs out in the stores, when the shelves are empty, when people are gunning each other down in the streets, when you can’t even go to a restaurant and eat, when you have covid-19, monkey pox, and myriads of other highly communicable diseases floating around, people don’t have money, don’t have a bed to sleep in, don’t have a roof over their head, they’ll want the government to save them, and it absolutely cannot or will not! That is the end of society.
Perfect Freudian slip today, Peggy! Good for a chuckle in this sad old world. Don’t change a thing!
Isn’t it fascinating how the pols and the press distract us from equal opportunity for a good life by focusing on freedom, race, ethnicity, etc..?
John Sorg,
Thanks for the comments. Are you watching the disgusting lie-fest coming from governor Abbott’s “news” conference in Uvalde, TX? My god! He must break mirrors trying to keep a straight face as he lies about EVERYTHING.
Sorry — just can’t focus on any other problem except that 19 little angels met their death yesterday because our f***ing politicians can’t do anything except for their base and the NRA!! I am so fed up with Senate and its ability to stop meaningful legislation for the country because of 50 people!!
Blaming victims for their own victimization has always been a favorite pastime in this country, ever since we imported the ideas of that nut case, John Calvin when he started yet another goofy Christian religion in the 16th century at a time when new ones were all popping out of the woodwork.
I, for one, believe strongly in the second amendment and the precise thinking of that time. Every American should be able to own a musket. Now if we can only get those originalists in the supreme court to be the originalist they claim to be and get the law straight, I can go start a company to make muskets and use the wealth to buy out the politicians. That’s the American way. After all, that wealth and success will prove that I’m worthy to tell everyone else how to live.
Although it seems as if people choose to be homeless, that’s not exactly right. In fact they choose to be free of the expectations that we generally heap upon the poor and the homeless. Many times, if they seek shelter, they have to pray before they receive it. In other words, you can be safe and warm and dry, but only if you are a “Christian.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs did a study of homelessness a little over ten years ago. We found that the only way to solve the problem was to provide housing first, with no expectations of the patient. After they have adapted to having a home, they can focus on their mental health issues, their addiction issues, and their physical illnesses.
One of the arguments so frequently made for ever increasingly permissive gun laws is that citizens need to be able to protect themselves from the government, the “real” intent of the 2nd amendment. Perhaps someone should tell them that the government has nuclear weapons.
Unrestricted open carry laws in Texas, now there is one damn good idea, pardner. I’m going to get me a ten-gallon hat, a studded holster that I can wear real low for quick draws against bad guys on Main Street, some cowboy boots, and shiny spurs. I can help the police keep law and order against all the bad guys running around. They’re the bad guys with guns that we good guys with guns are here to stop, and, of course, we know who they are. They all stand out in a crowd. Yaaa-Hoo!
Vernon,
It’s amazing how that guy can form his mouth to utter his diatribe! That’s not dishonesty, that’s not ignorance, that’s not even chicanery, that’s out and out evil! There can be no other explanation.
The sad thing is Vernon, everyone thinks that there is a solution to what’s happening right now, but I can’t see it! Like I’ve mentioned before, if the president declared martial law? Well, he could solve a lot of this issue himself. But, is that a path anybody wants to go down? There would have to be some huge changes in government afterwards, to prevent that from ever happening again, because someone will come along like Abbott or whomever ends up in the white house, and they will nuke the entire thing.
Our government allows food to rot in the ports of the Ukraine, because a little weasel is rattling his saber! He doesn’t even have the military Saddam Hussein had, he just has nukes! So we drag this out, gas goes up to $6 a gallon, food is running out on the shelves, medicine is in short supply, medical supplies are becoming scarce. But, just keep shoveling cash over there to the Ukraine. That’ll fix it!
Then, you have Joe Biden going over to the South Asian countries, claiming that He’ll engage militarily with China!?!?! Over Taiwan!?!?China’s a little bit of a different animal than Russia. They could crush Russia in one day. China is a different deal! So why threaten China but hide from Vladimir putin? It’s nonsense.
Not only is our middle-class life supported by American low-wage workers, it is supported by low-wage workers in China, Viet Nam, India, neighbor Mexico, etc. Just imagine the cost of vegetables if they were all grown in the US and harvested by workers making, say, $30,000 a year! Check out the national origins of all the stock at Walmart or the tool row at Lowe’s. It is not fun to think of oneself as an exploiter of the poor… but everyone making the above comments is, this one included. As for claims that the US is a “Christian nation,” among those bleating such ideas most loudly, there is a conspicuous lack of Christian behavior. Open carry? What could possibly go wrong with that? Regulate people’s sexuality? Oh, happy days. And so on.
Steve Davidson,
You may be mistaken in that the real intent of the 2nd Amendment was to get the southern slave states to ratify the Constitution. The fear of the southern states was that the new Federal government would deny them the right to form slave hunting posse and that they would denied the right enforce their own slave laws.
Your views of the 2nd amendment are a product of radical shift in policy/propaganda pushed by the NRA starting in about the mid-1970’s. Here is a good and factual (supported by footnotes) account of that shift.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2022
Dan,
You are correct about the history of the 2nd Amendment. I wrote about it in my book, “Racing to the Brink: The End Game for Race and Capitalism” after doing similar research. So, in a sense, the racial animus associated with a slave economy is still with us. It will be what causes our final gasp of democracy to be replaced by another outright period of absolute tyranny. It’s what humans do to each other. You can look it up.
I read Vernon’s Book. 🙂