November 15, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Perish the poor
If you haven't read Jason DeParle's American Dream, I urge you to do so. It's simply outstanding. The book follows three welfare mothers through the welfare reform years. It gives you a gritty, and touching, picture of the utter chaos of their lives; walks you through the policy process that brought us welfare reform in the first place; and shows you how welfare reform did, and didn't, transform the world of welfare mothers. I simply cannot recommend it highly enough. If you're even tangentially interested in poverty and welfare policy, you must read this book. DeParle is a liberal who opposed welfare reform, but he fearlessly shows all the ways in which women on welfare screw up their own lives, as well as the ways in which they're buffeted by a cruel and capricious fate. I've recommended it to everyone I know, as well as to my employer's annual "best books" list--this is not an attempt to get you to enrich my Amazon Associates account. Hey, click over to some other blog you like more, click on their Associates link, and buy it there. Just buy the damn book, 'kay?.
But that's not all! This week, Slate is hosting Jonah Edelman, Mickey Kaus, and Ron Haskins (a lovely, and very smart, man at the Brookings Institute whom I recently interviewed, and who really, really cares about the poor, and about effective solutions for their problems) talking about DeParle's book. Check it out. But not until you've ordered the book!
(I also recommend The Working Poor by David Shipler. But it's not quite as good as DeParle's book -- a fair amount of liberal polemic slips in.)
My own thoughts on welfare reform: it's clear to me from the research I've done to write about poverty, and from reading books like DeParle's, that the poor suffer from three main problems: their own poor impulse control or decision making; a culture that encourages poor decision making; and limited means, which give them no buffer against the results of their poor decision making.
Liberals want to change the third variable, but this is somewhat recursive. As long as our society offers housing to everyone who needs it, the poor will be stuck living with people whose bad behaviour makes them impossible neighbours . . . so that even if the housing stock is physically perfect, crime and various other sorts of antisocial behavior that flourish in a world without evictions make the housing for the poor actually unbearable. Also, if people have very bad problems, such as mental illness or drug addiction, no reasonable amount of cash will improve their lot without adding things like forced institutionalisation. The people with those problems, unsurprisingly, are the overwhelming majority of the truly immiserated poor, who have rotting housing, insufficient caloric intake, and so forth.
Conservatives, by and large, want to change the first two variables, and there's a lot to this. There's simply no question that welfare enables women to make short term choices that are all right in the short term (dropping out of school, having a baby out of wedlock), but disastrous in the long term. Enabling women to make awful short term choices means enabling some proportion of them to ruin their lives.
But it's not enough to say to these women "Get married" or "Ignore your friends and pay attention to school". Some extraordinary people do, of course, but we all tend to overestimate how easy it is to be that extraordinary. Most of us reading this blog, after all, went to college and/or got nice steady jobs because we had enormous social and familial pressure on us to do so. How many of us were strong enough to overcome our environment, drop out of high school, and sell drugs?
I jest, of course, but not totally. The fact that every inner-city kid isn't a Horatio Alger story doesn't mean that inner city kids couldn't be, if their environment were more like the one I grew up in. After all, the girls in my high school didn't fail to have babies at 16 because they were more virtuous than the ones down the road at JFK High; they failed to have babies because they had a very clear idea that something better awaited them. How do we give those kids a more hopeful vision of their futures?
Part of the answer, I hope, is that by ceasing to enable those bad short-term decisions, the culture changes to focus more on the long term. Girls stop having babies at fifteen, and start demanding committment at 25--and they demand, too, that the boys stop selling drugs, because a husband in prison is one who can't provide for his family, and the government won't replace him any more. I doubt that's the whole answer, but I hope it's a big part of it.
I think withdrawing the cash may not be enough, because this generation, and part of the next one, lacks the tools to really support themselves, and the social network to fill in the gaps. Something that conservatives, and especially libertarians, have been slow to grapple with is that the more productive our society gets, the greater the possibility that some peoples' labour simply isn't productive enough to support them at a minimum level. Can we really tell former welfare mothers to go bunk ten to a room the way my Irish ancestors did? We're a pretty rich country. Are we comfortable telling people to live as if they're nineteenth century peasants, if their cognitive gifts, or education, won't stretch to more?
What we know is that this is going to be a long, painful process, and that part of the process is going to involve some people, including innocent children, getting hurt. The end state seems to be worth it--I see hopeful signs, like the continuing decline in out-of-wedlock and teenage births, and slight uptick in marriage, that change is already underway. But conservatives shouldn't let the end state blind them to the suffering here-and-now, and we should look as hard as we can for ways to mitigate it.
Posted by Jane Galt at November 15, 2004 5:09 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksI am going to buy the book simply because that is one of the best written policy posts I have ever read - and I have read THOUSANDS!
It's not enough for conservatives to be right - in principle they are light years away from the liberals on these issues - but they also have to be compassionate in the short term. Your post evinces that rare combination of honest intellectual analysis (rare indeed) and human, real world understanding.
Anyway, well done. Yours is a terrific blog.
"Part of the answer, I hope, is that by ceasing to enable those bad short-term decisions, the culture changes to focus more on the long term. Girls stop having babies at fifteen, and start demanding committment at 25--"
Or better yet, graduate at 13-15. Then the window of opportunity for avoiding out of wedlock birth is much smaller, and you don't need nearly as much extraordinary social pressure and control to get you to refrain from having a family for a full decade of your prime childbearing years.
Not a full answer, but it would help.
"and they demand, too, that the boys stop selling drugs, because a husband in prison is one who can't provide for his family, and the government won't replace him any more. I doubt that's the whole answer."
Not putting people in jail for selling drugs would be cool too. Of course, they wouldn't make nearly as much selling drugs, since they'd be competing with cashiers making minimum wage - unless they were able to move into the upper echelons of the drug distribution corporations. And if they could do that, then they could do that now in (currently) legitimate companies.
"Nor, I think, is withdrawing the cash necessarily enough. Something that conservatives, and especially libertarians, have been slow to grapple with is that the more productive our society gets, the greater the possibility that some peoples' labour simply isn't productive enough to support them at a minimum level."
No, the more productive our society gets, the more productive everyone's labor becomes. The catch is that "a minimum level" gets redefined upward even faster than the increase in the productivity in some people's labor.
Being below that minimum level means you've got more wealth than the middle class of years gone by, but it also means that you're far more likely to get shot or robbed by thugs. This is a law enforcement problem, not an economic problem.
"Can we really tell former welfare mothers to go bunk ten to a room the way my Irish ancestors did? We're a pretty rich country. Are we comfortable telling people to live as if they're nineteenth century peasants, if their cognitive gifts, or education, won't stretch to more?"
I seriously doubt they'd be living exactly like your Irish ancestors. But seriously, this idea that a decent society doesn't permit anyone to fall below a relentlessly increasing minimum level sends us bouncing back and forth between two undesirable states - giving money to people who don't earn it, and restricting people's choices in a forlorn attempt to make it impossible to fail.
In any event, stopping thugs from preying on poor people would do far more to improve their lives than any other feasible government action I can think of.
The truly intractable root cause of poverty, IMHO, comes down to a combination of lack of self-awareness and lack of intelligence. It's true that it's hard to get started if you have no margin for error, but even if that is provided, the real challenge is in the mental sphere. There are people who are organically incapable of productive thinking and work, yes, but most aren't. The problem is that no one can really give someone else self-awareness, intelligence, or discipline.
The solution, I think is something along these lines: basic subsistence housing and essentials, with users organized in small "communes", for those incapable of taking care of themselves. Those who won't do their assigned share of the work, or who disrupt the community with crime or destructive behavior, are evicted by a vote of the community and are left to live 10 to a bed in a hovel somewhere. I think this subsistence safety net should be provided through private charity so that there is accountability that just isn't possible with government. People living in this sort of commune can be supported by others in the community, as well as held accountable. And they can do as much productive work as they are capable of doing and donors can subsidize the rest. This is something that can be started now, without government help, in a thousand variations. Ultimately I really don't think government is going to come up with a real solution because there are too many incentives for government NOT to solve the problem.
Our challenge is that we can't stomach watching people suffer, even if it is caused by their own choices despite a helping hand being offered. That's where the tough love approach has to come in. I think the world was built by the creator in such a way that pain is dished out to us until it gets through our thick noggins that we have to change our behavior. When we altruistically get in the way with our charity and dull that pain, we take away the natural, god-given pain that is SUPPOSED to result from stupid choices. That pain is a gift. Of course, the pain can overwhelm someone who has no hope. And that's when we should be there to reach out a hand, in the form of that sort of subsidized "poor house" commune. But even then there will be people who simply will not try and will be determined to strike out at or sabotage others. For them there is no alternative but to literally go off somewhere and suffer until they either die or decide to try a different approach.
Regarding the problem of thugs ruining a community: what about some variation of the ancient "banishment"? Set off a part of the country and build a big wall and when a person proves incorrigible, off they go. They lose the benefits of the civilization that they preyed upon, and become an "out-law", outside the protection of the law. Maybe part of the problem is that we have this soft, altruistic desire to never really crack down on people who screw up our communities and so we never force them out (unless it's into prisons, which we have to fund). Send them off to the hinterlands to fend for themselves.
Tell ya what: I'll Agree to read DeParle's book, if you agree to read Charles Murray's Losing Ground. It's twenty years old, but his analysis of the welfare problem still rings true.
Jim
"Set off a part of the country and build a big wall and when a person proves incorrigible, off they go. They lose the benefits of the civilization that they preyed upon, and become an "out-law", outside the protection of the law."
This is essentially prison, no?
How do you get people to engage in self-control and self-discipline? Well, I'm reminded of two stories I read years ago that stuck out in my mind. Both involve religion. The first one was that evangelical Christianity was essential to the rebuilding of the US military following Vietnam. It provided the necessary discipline and examples for other recruits. I was pretty shocked when I read that. I wish I could remember where. I'd like to learn more about that. The other was about how Victorian (or was it Edwardian?) England got its lower classes to behave as well: strict Protestantism. I'm no expert on these matters, so if someone has more complete information, I'm all ears.
hehe Help the poor! Brainwash them! Eh. Sigh.
Im currently reading Henry Millers "Air Conditioned Nightmare", and I have J Stahle on deck, welfare mothers just doesn't appeal to me as a subject.
Im no expert on welfare mothers, but I think Welfare and Aid for dependent mothers with children are two seperate entities. I think you unknowingly have interjected cultural bias in comparing the decisions unmarried mothers with children have made to your peers expieriences. Having lived in some nasty urban enviroments, I think inner city women are far more interested in being mothers then they are in being wives or a single babes with options. Is being a mother first and foremost a good strategy for a comfortable life in todays world? No, but cutting off their money isnt going to change their behavior. The poor have always reproduced younger in life then the upper classes. Not that the money makes for a better life for the welfare mother and her kids in most cases. Because in most cases that money goes for cigarettes, lottery, booze, and drugs. But some of those women do use that money wisely and are responsible parents. How you look at this expenditure is really a question of compassion, there will always be good arguments to cut these sort of programs.
Why can't we tell them to bunk 10 to a room? Are they better than your Irish ancestors? If everyone gets a 2 bedroom apt - even if it is as you say in unbearable conditions - without working, what is the motivation to better yourself? There are consequences to life's decisions; just because they didn't learn that at 12 doesn't make it not true. All the government programs in the world can't change the nature of the world. "The decisions we make, dictate the life we lead."
Painters, caprenters, plumbers, truck drivers, and a dozen other trades all make good money, none have been outsourced to India, and are within the grasp of most people who are willing to work hard.
Jeez, Jane. This is illogical. Contrary to the Declaration, all men are NOT created equal. And the Founders never thought there would be equal outcomes. It's the 80-20 rule all the way. 80% will have a decent life because 20% can not. Or be even more stringent and realize that we cannot have a society if 80% of our effort goes into trying to make things good for the 20%. The older I get the more I think that socialism is the one idea that should be banned because it cannot work. Even mild socialism fails miserably. Ask yourself this: Would society be better served if we took every welfare dollar and used it to identify and nuture brainacs? And let the welfare users go without? Why do you recommend encouraging the unsuccessful at the expense of those who can be successful?
"...that change is already underway."
Change (if it is indeed true change) is always cataclysmic, at least for some portion of whoever is caught up in it.
Change is not evolution. You can social scientist it all you want to but it won't make a difference. It works the way it works and you can always sort of figure out what happened after it happens. But predicting what happens is like playing with your self -- it feels good but nothing results from it that lasts more than an instant.
Mitigate the pain?
People differ in their capabilities even at the bottom of the scale. Mitigating the pain for one person is providing encentive to remain dependent for another. Ever were we to create the most finely crafted assistance scale this would only create an incentive to show no talents or capabilities at all in order to qualify for as much mitigation as possible.
Jane says, "Something that conservatives, and especially libertarians, have been slow to grapple with is that the more productive our society gets, the greater the possibility that some peoples' labour simply isn't productive enough to support them at a minimum level."
I call shenanigans!
What is the basis for this statement? The more productive society becomes, the richer society becomes. Comparative advantage works just as well between job sectors as it does between countries.
Can you provide any examples of this phenomenom or is it just theoretical? If it is theoretical, could you explain the theory? It doesn't match any econ I learned.
As long as we're mentioning Losing Ground, let me put in that Visible Man deserves a read, too.
I would suggest a good book by Ayn Rand called "Atlas Shrugged". It addresses a lot of the topics on this blog.
The way you dither around socialism, you really should get another screen name, Meg.
Since everyone is suggesting books, how about The Corner by David Simon and Edward Burns?
Regarding the "buffer against the results of their poor decision making," I think that we in the middle class underestimate just how much our own buffers make things easier for us. If I forget to record a transaction in my checking acct and overdraw, my bank transfers the money from my savings, charges me $5, and pays the transaction. Other people have similar safeguards with lines of credit. Operating this way makes it easy to forget how bouncing a check can throw someone without those safeguards, already living paycheck to paycheck, into a financial crisis.
I don't think this was Jane's point, but not all buffers are bad, just as not all bad decisions have equal impacts. What I see very little of in debates about poverty are how we as a society can help or enable people to build their own "cushion" so that they can keep on a reasonable path upward, according to their own ambitions and abilities.
Mark J wrote: "Set off a part of the country and build a big wall and when a person proves incorrigible, off they go."
See Robert Heinlein's short story "Coventry" for a take on this.
Jane has gotten to the heart of the matter is the focus on getting teenage girls to stop having babies. At my daughter's school there was a talk by one of the teachers in which she cited a study (Carnegie Foundation, IIRC) that traced the roots of these bad decisions to middle school. The conclusion was that if you can get a middle school girl to think she has a future ahead of her that involves finishing high school, she has a much lower chance of getting pregnant or dropping out.
Jane writes:
>>>My own thoughts on welfare reform: it's clear to me from the research I've done to write about poverty, and from reading books like DeParle's, that the poor suffer from three main problems: their own poor impulse control or decision making; a culture that encourages poor decision making; and limited means, which give them no buffer against the results of their poor decision making."
When did people start choosing their parents? If you are born into a poor family, you are poor. You had nothing to do with the decision. Your morality or impulse control has nothing to do with your monetary status as a child.
Also, it's very telling that the phrase "inner city" (code for non-white) is often used by posters here. The facts are:
>>>Racialization--Media Role in Group Divides
1) media coverage--book by Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare, argues that news organizations have racialized poverty (65% of poor Americans shown on TV are black, while only 29% of poor actually are black)
-CBS poll revealed that 55% of Americans believe most welfare recipients are black when in reality most poor people and welfare recipients are white (Gilens, p. 139)
-hate welfare because whites believe welfare benefits undeserving blacks"
--http://www.insidepolitics.org/ps111/coveringrace.html
As unskilled labor is pouring out of America, the opportunity for the "Irish immigrant ancestors just working hard" isn't going to get the job done. If you remove the buffer zone/safety net that protects millions of POOR CHILDREN of America from starvation and homelessness, you will see the rise of an INSURGENCY. I wonder how you could persuade armed forces who make less than $20K a year themselves to fire on other poor American countrymen in defense of robber barron class?
--Cobra
Cobra's cooked his statistics. The percentage of blacks on welfare is enormously higher than that of whites or Orientals. Ditto for crime. How about "The Bell Curve", as long as we're mentioning Charles Murray's books? It explains the phenomena of poverty and crime and welfare. I'm halfway through it. So far it offers no solutions but sure as heck documents the problem. People also tend to forget that, as the country has become richer, the "poor" have been accorded a much higher standard of living, such that now the most cognitively deprived American welfare mother lives at a level higher than the middle classes of most countries in the world.
The historical answer to cognitive deficiency has been family unity, where each family will have enough total wisdom to take care of those who need help. Think of this fact when someone mentions gay "marriage" and the family structures "compassionately defined" relationships imply.
> "Something that conservatives, and especially libertarians, have been slow to grapple with is that the more productive our society gets, the greater the possibility that some peoples' labour simply isn't productive enough to support them at a minimum level."
What's our definition of "minimum"? If it's on an absolute scale, the above is reasonably close to false. Poor people in the US have TVs, beater cars, and eat too much.
Yes, the gap between rich and poor in the US may be bigger than the gap in Bangladesh, but US poor are significantly better off than Bangladesh poor.
We have a local group of parents who advocate for their retarded children. (And yes, they use the word.) Something under 3 percent of Americans fall into that category (measured IQ under 70). If we could get everybody else out of the poverty category, that would be pretty good. But in fact, the parents tell me, most of their adult children are working, living independently and self-supporting. The trick is to work with employers to re-engineer their workplace to separate enough necessary but low-skill chores out of high-skill jobs to make a jobs' worth of stuff to do. For instance, one of the parents told me about a restaurant where they had observed activity in the kitchen. Chefs and sous-chefs and assistants did everything, including hand-shredding salad greens. Aha! They created a salad-shredding job (which probably meant they could have one less higher-paid person). Would you want to spend your career shredding salad greens? No, but it is a respectable and useful job and enables someone to live with dignity.
If two of every three of that 3 percent could be accommodated in such fashion, and some fraction of the remaining 1 percent in sheltered workshops, no one would begrudge the very tiny minority who really cannot care for themselves the means of survival at a decent level.
To echo a couple of things said above, however, this is a private activity, and accountability is inherent because the families are closely involved. And the other thing is that these young people have a robust support system, someone who makes sure their taxes are paid and they don't get ripped off buying a car and they get proper medical care. They won't ever be rich, but they aren't poor either.
great post, i love your analytical approach...
i agree that mimizing the number of future young girls that make these bad choices is the best long-term solution. i also realize people have free will and many will still choose poorly or have 'accidents'.
what about looking at the marginal benefit of working from the point of view of the single mom already on welfare in a similar fashion that you discuss a proposed progressive tax plan? i think that the there is quite a barrier to getting a job for a mom with kid's to watch living in gov't supplied housing on welfare money. i'd guess there is a negative marginal benefit to that first $15-20k of income. it can't possibly cover day care and housing, much less replace food stamps and welfare. so where's the incentive for her to get a job, even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and say she is intelligent and willing to work hard. the solution must address this problem.
I have to chime in and semi-agree with Dagny's comment, here.
MM, you really don't have any business having a Randroid moniker, when you use it to go around posting cogent, reasonably compassionate analyses of the poverty problem like this. Honestly.
There is a very simple idea, that many people disagree on. That idea is: a human being has intrinsic worth.
That's the basis of compassion.
If you do not accept that idea, you're never going to be sold on charity of any kind, even if only the kind of charity that fills in the gaps left by the slow and global nature of economic solutions.
If you accept that idea, then forget stupidity, forget insanity, forget age and disease and addiction. A human being has value. Period. And if something can be done to assuage some of that suffering, it's worth the attempt (and certainly worth some thought).
>This is essentially prison, no?
Or, for that matter, many inner city neighborhoods:
"Set off a part of the country and build a big wall and when a person proves incorrigible, off they go. They lose the benefits of the civilization that they preyed upon, and become an "out-law", outside the protection of the law."
Some related thoughts o the subject of crime and poverty:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/081804C.html
"Poverty can be resolved through individual effort; crime cannot. We know what prevents poverty. Acquire as much education as you can, get a full-time job and work hard at it, get and stay married, and avoid substance abuse -- take these steps, and you won't be poor. Each step is within the abilities of even a below-average person. But how can individuals resolve crime? No amount of hard work or personal initiative will stop a mugger from waving a knife in your face. A responsible lifestyle won't put your car radio back after some thug steals it. For the crimes that afflict the poor, our society has only one approved solution: stop being poor, so you can move somewhere safe. Some solution."
"There is a very simple idea, that many people disagree on. That idea is: a human being has intrinsic worth.
That's the basis of compassion.
If you do not accept that idea, you're never going to be sold on charity of any kind, even if only the kind of charity that fills in the gaps left by the slow and global nature of economic solutions.
If you accept that idea, then forget stupidity, forget insanity, forget age and disease and addiction. A human being has value. Period. And if something can be done to assuage some of that suffering"
By whom? A human being that doesn't have value other than as a servant to the "unfortunate"?
"it's worth the attempt (and certainly worth some thought)."
Fine. Attempt it. No one's stopping you.
But really, the idea that human beings have intrinsic value, if it means anything at all in the real world, means that humans ought to be free, not that they should be cared for like pets. It doesn't mean that human beings should never suffer. It doesn't mean that human beings should never be allowed to fail. It means that they ought to live as civilized human beings, prospering by using their minds and cooperating by peaceful trade, not as animals that either take what they need by force or live in captivity being fed by actual humans.
And damnit, there are humans who lack any real worth, intrinsic or otherwise. An unusually high number of them congregate in poor areas and prey upon those with intrinsic worth who can afford to move to more luxurious quarters. It's not unconscionable that Bill Gates can afford private spaceships when they (finally!) come on the market. It is unconscionable that poorer people can't live within their means and reside in cheap neighborhoods that they can acquire on their own without begging without running a high risk of being victimized by thugs.
Why oh why do people keep talking about the suffering of the poor when complaining about the fact that the non-poor still have money of their own that they haven't yet given away, but oddly enough run out of compassion for these poor people with intrinsic worth when the subject turns to the very thugs that are making the lives of the poor such a living hell, and what ought to be done with them?
If we ARE going to have government involvement (interference?) in this, though, can we at least align our incentives better? Paying people BECAUSE they are poor creates a market in poverty -- we should not be shocked when there are people willing to be the supply side of that equilibrium. It would be more effective, imo, to subsidize low-paying jobs, ie, make it affordable for low-skill positions to exist, and give the "welfare" subsidy to people who are willing to work. Eliminate the incentive to not-work, replace it with increased incentive to work. And, yes, this distorts the market, can be gamed, exploited, abused, etc.... Of course, the current system isn't?
'What's our definition of "minimum"?'
Basic cable, cell phone, new leather coat
Your analysis seems to hinge on "poor people are significantly more likely in a given situation to make a bad decision than not-poor people". Not clear either way, IMHO; everyone's known lots of middle class types who are getting bailed out by friends and family.
The first one was that evangelical Christianity was essential to the rebuilding of the US military following Vietnam. It provided the necessary discipline and examples for other recruits. I was pretty shocked when I read that. I wish I could remember where. I'd like to learn more about that. The other was about how Victorian (or was it Edwardian?) England got its lower classes to behave as well: strict Protestantism.
Well sure. 'Strict Protestantism' back then, and evangelicals now, generally hold to simple fundamentals in an era when the prevailing opinion (particularly among those with money or power) is that you can rewrite the rules, or at least escape the consequences of violating them, at free whim. Simple fundamentals, on the other hand, stipulate that there is a God who is over all things, that God sees all things whether or not a human authority is present to comment or pass judgement, and than men have a moral accountability to God.
Are you in fact surprised that this kind of worldview, if sincerely held, could have a chastening effect on behavior?
Linsee wrote, regarding retarded citizens: "But in fact, the parents tell me, most of their adult children are working, living independently and self-supporting."
Well, from experience in my wife's family, the mentally handicapped are only "self-supporting" with government subsidy of housing (group homes staffed by college students in a social work degree program), healthcare (Medicaid), and living expenses (disability from social security). That said, they can do jobs that are only worth minimum wage and are quarter time or less. (Examples: product facing at stores - arrange all the stuff on the shelves to face forward; kitting of small production runs of parts - put the parts in a box and seal.)
Add a few of these jobs together, and you've got a marginal living at a middle class (with help from the government).
Robert writes:
>>>Cobra's cooked his statistics. The percentage of blacks on welfare is enormously higher than that of whites or Orientals. Ditto for crime. How about "The Bell Curve", as long as we're mentioning Charles Murray's books? It explains the phenomena of poverty and crime and welfare.
I didn't "cook" anything. Statistics are statistics. If %13 percent of white Americans are living at or below the poverty line, that amounts to 26 million poor white people. The Bell Curve, and other black-bashing literature doesn't explain how that can be, since it claims blacks don't have the same mental capacity as whites.
However, the face of welfare and government aid is ALMOST ALWAYS presented with a black face. That happens with a major media that's %95 white.
--Cobra
Cobra's earlier post states: "If you are born into a poor family, you are poor." I would amend that: you start poor. I recognize that starting poor is more than just starting without money, but it is not like being cast in concrete.
"Statistics are statistics" is obviously a meaningless tautology (which would be redundant as well, for those keeping score). The Gilens book Cobra cites was published in 1999. In 1999, according to the US Dept. of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families, 30.5% of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) were white, 38.3% black, 24.5% Hispanic, 3.6% Asian, 1.5% "American native," and the rest "other" (http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/characteristics/fy99/tab06_99.htm). Not having read the Gilens book, I can't and therefore won't argue his claims about why Americans hate welfare, but his numbers certainly don't seem to reflect the published record, unless the Gilens statistic is actually combining, say, "white" and "Hispanic" as defined by ACF into "white" as defined by Gilens. (It is noteworthy, though, that the percentage of black families on TANF is only 8% greater than that of white families, which isn't all that "enormous" a difference in my view.) Another interesting factoid is that the percentage of TANF families with only one recipient child really is enormously greater than those with two, three, or more (from another table in the same report) - but it's a statistical game to say that therefore the stereotype of a single Welfare mom with multiple kids is definitively wrong, because of course the percentage of families with two or more recipient children is far greater than the single mom/single kid group.
In other words, statistics in the wrong hands are still just the third class of lie.
Sayeth Ken:
But really, the idea that human beings have intrinsic value, if it means anything at all in the real world, means that humans ought to be free, not that they should be cared for like pets.
Absolutely.
Why oh why do people keep talking about the suffering of the poor when complaining about the fact that the non-poor still have money of their own that they haven't yet given away, but oddly enough run out of compassion for these poor people with intrinsic worth when the subject turns to the very thugs that are making the lives of the poor such a living hell, and what ought to be done with them?
I see my error.
Compassion is possible, without a belief in intrinsic worth. I erred in saying that it wasn't. If I had thought it out more clearly, I would have said that compassion which exists independent of the belief in the intrinsic worth does exist, but it is limited by one's sensibilities.
As you ably demonstrate.
You're a little quick on the trigger, to imply that I'm a socialist (or even a bleeding-heart liberal) just because I believe compassion should be an objective concept with a baseline of above zero. I was leaving a comment to MM's entry, not to anything you said.
You're also dead wrong to imply that I believe in the virtue of poverty. I'd trade places with Bill Gates in a heartbeat. But I'm not going to evade the popular bigotry our culture holds toward the wealthy and fortunate, and then turn around and make the equally blind assumption that only the strictly victimized poor have any worth as human beings. Even if it were right to do so, it wouldn't be in the least useful. Especially when it comes time to decide "what ought to be done with" the criminals.
I realize that turning someone's arguments into straw men is a long and respected tradition, but it's really not fair of you to make straw men out of beliefs I don't even have. There's nothing more disconcerting than having to say to someone, "How right you are!" when they're speaking so critically of what they think is you.
Wow, twelve pages of comments -- and that was earlier today when I first read the post and printed them out. I do, though really want to weigh in on this, because I think Jane's touched on something that most conservatives/libertarians overlook: the best way to push welfare reform would to be to undermine the need for welfare.
I read a lot of comments suggesting solutions, from banishment (still makes for an uncomfortable media image), communes, legalization of drugs (which might lower the salary of the average drug dealer, but doesn't mitigate the appeal that drugs have of their devastating impact on productivity) to name a few.
I'd like to suggest something that I didn't see mentioned here: the idea of building community. Prior to welfare and social security (okay, I wasn't alive, correct me if you know better), tightly-knit neighborhoods of people recognizing the "intrinsic worth" of humans and who knew one another well enough to recognize legitimate needs/misfortunes from laziness . . . enter welfare and the idea that our taxes already supported our neighbors, so any extra help was just coddling and television, which keeps individuals at home and out of touch with their neighbors (as well as the legendary American mobility, my neighbors today aren't my neighbors of last or next year). We've lost that.
I think that conservatives and libertarians in particular, are missiong out on an opportunity to mitigate the need for welfare by finding opportunities to bring neighbors together. After the election, with a grassroots mechanism still in place, why not strive to build community and emphasize the idea of helping our your neighbor, instead of paying an unweildy and easily corrupted government beaurocracy to do it?
I like to think of this as my idea, but has anyone heard of anything similar? Have thoughts on the idea working (or not)?
I'd be glad to hear them.
> i'd guess there is a negative marginal benefit to that first $15-20k of income. it can't possibly cover day care and housing, much less replace food stamps and welfare. so where's the incentive for her to get a job, even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and say she is intelligent and willing to work hard.
The incentive is that if she doesn't do it, she's stuck forever. I recently worked for free for over a year to get ahead significantly.
As far as day care goes, at some point we're going to figure out that we can make aid dependent upon showing up to provide "free" day care for those who are working.
What? They're not qualified? Then what are they doing with kids....
I'd like to throw a few ideas in the pot. My mother was 16 when I was born, she had 5 kids by 25, so I don't care too much for fancy romantic views of the poor. Most liberals, moderates, and even conservatives still treat the idea of personal responsiblity the way Count Dracula reacts to a crucifix. Here are some ways to really change the dynamic.
1) If we don't want women and children to be poor we have to discourage men from getting them pregnant. Over 50% of pregnant girls under 16 were impregnated by an adult male. How many prosecutions for statutory rape have you seen lately?
2) If the father does not want to pay child support (and no more milk and Pampers level of support either) his family should have to indemnify his iresponsiblity. If his mom and dad can't be squeezed enough then go after the grandparent's Social Security, knocking their payments down to the lowest rate possible and transferring the rest to the mother. The same should be true for the mother's family if she is under 21 at the time of conception.
3) Being an American used to connote a valuble birthright; it's what our ancestors faught for us to have. Fundemental restructuring of the job markets will not occur until progressives realize that their support for a laisse faire policy on illegal immigration is hurting the people they claim to care about most.
Toby has the right idea. Unfortunately, times have changed. People no longer feel responsible for taking care of others. Big Brother is there to do it. I mean, isn't that why I pay taxes? In another time, I would have responsible for taking care of my parents in their retirement. I would be their retirement.
As Big Brother moves to take over more and more of our lives, we give up more and more responsibility. I see it everyday. Someone barely hanging on. Desperate for money, but she has cellphones, has her nails done regularly, etc. The problem with lower classes can be boiled down to living with terrible choices. Besides, that 13 year old girl knows their is a better world out there. However, she does not care. She, like the above mentioned women, are living for the now. She does not care a whit about the future.
How do we fix the problem? We cannot. The poor will always be among us (a wiseman once said...some here may know who). That statement does not mean we should not help lift them out of poverty, but it does mean that we will never truly fix the problem.
Or maybe we have. No poor person in this country really knows what real poverty is all about. To see that, one has to go no further than Mexico.
My $0.02. I read this blog often. I do not post often.
Potpourri:
1. Another good book: Life at the Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple.
2. My reservation for the worst of the bad guys would not be like a prison. No guards inside, no law library, no workout equipment, no 24 hour nursing service. Enough food and supplies and hot water and you're on your own. At the end of your sentence, if you're still alive, come to the gate and we'll let you out.
3. I've always thought the welfare system was designed by zookeepers. Feed them, house them, and have no expectation that they'll behave like humans or contribute to their community. By and large, they live up to our expectations.
4. When I first started to work, the minimum wage was 75 cents (yeah, I'm that old) and a man could support a family on 75 cents. At the time, a candy bar cost a nickle. Now it's 65 cents. The value of the candy bar hasn't changed; the value of the money has. The minimum wage doesn't work any more because the dollar, in 1940's terms, is worth less than a dime.
These then, are your people, Jane...
1. Does it strike anyone arguing for the "Law of the Jungle/The Strong Survive/Let Them Eat Their Bad Decisions" rule as the least bit ironic that you just elected a man who was a drunk till he was 40? (Admittedly, I'm not sure if being an alcoholic qualifies as a "bad decision" or just a lifestyle choice in red states).
Does the election (all of two weeks ago) make anyone wonder about strong claims of a meritocracy in the US? Close to half of us think Bush's foreign policy was a joke, and yet he was still elected. Clearly the best person for the job? The other half are left to ponder the fact that a change of 100K voters in Ohio would have ejected this paragon of virtues from office, this man responsible for our ceaseless line of unparalleled foreign policy successes. Clearly not the man for the job? Anyone?
2. After 12 years of Republican rule, we ended up with Crown Heights and Rodney King. (Really not going for the racial angle; those two just jump out). The Clinton era saw a slew of social statistics going in the right direction, finally. Well, you've got at least eight years to see what you can do. I know which way I'm betting.
Federalism, now - that's the easiest answer, and it'll be deeply beneficial for both sides. Maybe the Law of the Jungle works; maybe GWB really is a SuperGenius. Federalism will help us find out.
These threads always end up so mean spirited. There is alot of legitimate pork to cut from the budget before we make the poor into the desperately poor. Theres the Louisianna Sugar subsidies, or the Texas hydrogen for Zepplin warfare pork, and alot of other waste to cut.
I think all no direct victim vice crime should be legalized, but I dont see that happening. But with all the revenue the government needs to generate in the near future, Marijuana should be legalized and taxed. MJ is safer then Alcohol or Tobacco, and alot of people break the law everyday to smoke it. Cultivation could remain illegal or heavily regulated, and participation could be determined on a state by state basis. It makes no sense to continue to give the MJ revenue to organized crime, when theres so much debt.
Toby,
I like to think of this as my idea, but has anyone heard of anything similar? Have thoughts on the idea working (or not)?I'd be glad to hear them.
Ha! I like to think of it as my idea as well, but in conversation with liberal, conservative, and libertarian friends, it would seem that many are slowly coming to this conclusion.
Count me in.
Jane, did you actually think that your rational arguments would cut through blind ideology? I frankly don't understand how people can refuse to recognize that increased automation of labor combined with tools to increase efficiency of the work force can reduce the demand for labor, especially for labor that doesn't require a college education. They're working on reducing labor costs at McDonald's through automation, for heaven's sake. Every argument opposing this concept that I've seen generally comes down to an appeal to the past, to history, saying that since all previous increases in production have worked out for the best all future increases in productivity will do so as well. Does anyone else consider this a fallacious argument? How much of economics comes down to this kind of argument?
"The incentive is that if she doesn't do it, she's stuck forever. I recently worked for free for over a year to get ahead significantly."
I'll bet you had a buffer to carry you through your year of poverty to achieve your preferred employment. you were probably in an environment that encouraged good decision making as opposed to the enviroment at typical public housing encountered by our single mom.
none of that changes the need for any good policy to address the negative marginal benefit experienced by anyone in this situation willing to work to improve her lot. measure the proposed policy against it's cost and potential for 'moral hazard'
I agree with the idea of communal day care. many other approaches are also possible that are productive and treat people with respect. it certainly would be beneficial to increase employment (even if it's of below average productivity) while reducing the cost of providing for the poorest of the country
wayne:
I find your point (2), if enforced exactly as written, abhorrent. If the family is sheltering the deadbeat, then yeah, there might be some advantage to going after them, but if not, you're punishing people for no reason. People can and do go bad without any regard for familial distress; no grandmother living on social security checks should have to forfeit, say, heat -- just because some lout grandchild whom she hasn't even seen in ten years discovered the joys of irresponsible sex.
Toby, your idea is great. Churches, local neighborhoods, extended and immediate families etc served some of these purposes for thousands of years. Unfortunately, the "community" that needs to be built is the very one that was attenuated to nothingness by all of these social programs.
My parents cared for my poor g-parents for 5 years before their deaths in their 90's. It was stressful, but very worth it. And my g-parents got to do the things that g-parents CAN do; care a bit for the little ones, share stories with family, teach lessons, rest a lot, be loved, and love. No state nursing home at $5000.00 a month cost borne by the govt here.
Secondly, Jane hit on a great point. "What we know is that this is going to be a long, painful process, and that part of the process is going to involve some people, including innocent children, getting hurt." To this point, the states have been unwilling to allow the children to get hurt, and therefore have lost the lever to move mom to more responsible behaviors.
If mom only loses her portion of TANF, and her medical, while still getting her children's TANF, food stamps, medical, housing etc, where is the pain that would force her to change her behaviors? And what kind of huge $$ would it take to INCENT her to change her behavior?
You left out lifting the prohibition of drugs as a way of helping welfare moms. One of the reasons black males do appear to have higher dropout rates and lower college attendance rates, as well as possibly lower labor force attachment rates, is because of both expectations about the legal sector (ie, discrimination) and a decline in the domestic demand for unskilled labor. It seems plausible that together, they create powerful substitution effects leading black males into the occupation of drug trafficker - an occupation that is extremely risky. This leads to two things. One, it leads to lower gender ratios among African-Americans due to the high incarceration rates and high homicide rates. Two, this might therefore cause women to lose "bargaining power" in the marriage market. The surplus of women may have further effects on black male behavior as well as black female behavior, such as diluting the incentives for males to complete school even more (if there are returns to educaiton in the marraige market, that is) and leading to increases in teenage pregnancy and female head of household rates. Legalizing drugs would at the very least eliminate the high incarceration rates and high homicide rates (insofar as the latter is linked to the drug trade more generally), and thus men would have to compete more for the women. As it is, men are in such high demand, that equilibria like "multiple partnering" and sex at earlier age seem to be more the norm than the exception.
If I'm not mistaken, there's not clear evidence that welfare payments did cause either teenage pregnancy and high female head of households. William A. Darity and Samuel Myers have a 1984 article in the the Journal of Marriage and the Family entitled "Does Welfare Dependency Cause Female Headship? The Cast of the Black Family" in which they found no significant effect of "real" AFDC payments on female head of household rates. They used a measure of AFDC payments that they believed captured AFDC's real value - they measured it as the nominal payments of AFDC relative to the average wages earned in the market. When viewed that way, the real value of AFDC had been declining while female head of household rates were increasing throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
My initial feeling (and yeah, though it might not be my idea, it's cool that I'm not alone) is that the community idea sounds like a good one. Are there weaknesses with it?
How does one go about building community? Particularly in "this day and age"? With people moving for work, school, marriage, and an animosity for organized religion (I can't say this as a fact, but my impression is that this was once a foundation of community) and the divisiveness of television (think about it), I don't know what can be done.
I do think the idea has merit and, if libertarians can come together and begin working on a workable plan, they'd greatly increase their appeal. Lower taxes, personal freedom, and what amounts to a voluntary social net (if you dont' support your neighbors when they get laid off, don't you think they'll remember when you lose your job?). It sounds ideal. All of my brainstorming, however, hasn't even left me with anything I think might be workable.
"How does one go about building community? Particularly in "this day and age"? With people moving for work, school, marriage, and an animosity for organized religion (I can't say this as a fact, but my impression is that this was once a foundation of community) and the divisiveness of television (think about it), I don't know what can be done."
Moving shouldn't be an impediment to building community. In fact, better and cheaper transport should strengthen our ties of community that we currently maintain across state lines.
"Lower taxes, personal freedom, and what amounts to a voluntary social net (if you dont' support your neighbors when they get laid off, don't you think they'll remember when you lose your job?). "
Sounds like we don't really have to do anything other than dismantle the mandatory stuff, and plain old self-interest will lead people to develop their community ties themselves, or find some other way to protect themselves from unforeseen events.
SCMT:
"(Admittedly, I'm not sure if being an alcoholic qualifies as a "bad decision" or just a lifestyle choice in red states)."
But overcoming alcholism certainly does!
Close to half of us think Bush's foreign policy was a joke, and yet he was still elected.
Fortunately LESS THAN HALF of us (that would be you and your ilk) were wrong and MORE THAN HALF of us could see that and we prevailed and YOU LOST.
After 12 years of Republican rule, we ended up with Crown Heights and Rodney King. (Really not going for the racial angle; those two just jump out).
You mean the Rodney King of Democrat CONTROLLED CALIFORNIA AND DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED LOS ANGELES AND THE DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED DISTRICT OF THAT PARAGON OF VIRTUE Maxine Waters?
Oh and you also mean the CROWN HEIGHTS in THE CITY OF NY CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRAT DAVID DINKINS, NY STATE CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRAT MARIO CUOMO (the Scfachime(sp?)) and the Democrat primary candidate Al Sharpton who played a central role in creeating a riot.
You guys-- you and smallbee are so clueless, haven't you the sense to realize that every time you attempt to justify your confusion you only come across as fools?
maybe GWB really is a SuperGenius.
Well a broken clock is right twice a day. This is your first correct conclusion so I guess we will have the unmitigated pleasure of having to read through you insipid posts in anticipation of stumbling across another inadvertant blossom of your being right about something (albeit probably for the wrong reason)
S Cunningham you make great points.
If you reps going to make the argument that the safety net of social programs need to be completely dismantled, you need to show the financial savings of eliminating these programs is great enough to offset the human suffering the removal of these programs would cause. Imo there is alot of useless pork that should be eliminated first, and plenty of ways to increase government revenue that should be explored before even considering further cuts to these programs. Imo the reps real problem here is that they cant stand the thought of going to work when other people arent, even if the people not working standard of living is barely of subsistance level.
The Mommy your a fool. First, one never overcomes alcoholism, the moron in the White House is at best a long way between benders. And his mangling of the language suggests he still throws a few back on occasion.
You can say 51% of voters reelected meathead, but dont even suggest that half the population backs the national joke in the White Houses foreign policy.
Rodney King wasn't a case of inadequite policing. It was a case of a facist republican police chiefs policy of baton blows until complete compliance rather then choke holds or other less violent means of restraint when theres ANY resistance to arrest. The sad fact is that those pigs didnt break LA police policy with the baton strikes, the ones to the head were "accidental misses", and the jury verdict that caused the riots was correct, even though the DA jury shopped it to a rep area. I suggest you look into who was running LAPD in the 80s and 90s, consider the overall level of corruption, before laying this failure of rep policy at the dems feet.
I dont remember all the details of Crown Heights, but the people of NYC were completely fed up with Rudy the lisp and his stormtroopers prior to 911. There was Louima and the broomstick that was shoved up his anus into his colon(not turning you on, am I, the Mommy?)by NYCs "finest", and then there was the unarmed Jamaican, that was supporting his family with three jobs, that was shot nearly 20 times by NYCs "finest". Its kinda funny, but NYC is still a democratic city, even after 911, that suggests more people agree with the Sharptons then your side.
I actually think highly of the community-centered service model, but there is a downside which I am surprised that this libertarianish group would accept. In these small mutually supporting communities, you are generally expected to conform rather rigorously to the appearance of a consensus value model. Read that, nosy neighbors interfere in your private business and disapprove of your small deviations from what is right and proper. And their disapproval has consequences, because you have to be networked into the community to have access to the mutually supportive part. Think of it as the unofficial government run by the ladies church auxiliary. And the reason we won't see it again is that it was organized and operated by the fairly rigidly heirarchical network of wives. Today's women are too busy doing interesting stuff to put up with the continual schmoozing that went into that.
Another fabulous book which talks about the first two factors on the list of the main problems: Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare. It talks about the legacy the 60s counterculture left the U.S. I read it during law school, and it really changed my mind about a lot of things, including the efficacy of throwing money at the problem of poverty. Excellent post, by the way.
Move on, Begbee. While the vaunted Amendment One guarantees your right to insist continually that Bush is both stupid and immoral (and having been in the front seat for a number of "life journeys" involving the participants' taking a stand against the alcohol that was ruining their lives, come over here and say that, you self-righteous punk), the audience wearies of it. Especially given that Bush's verbal slipups appear to be your primary evidence. This fact is particularly ironic, coming from you.
Did somebody say that the Rodney King awfulness was the result of inadequate policing, and I just missed it? I think thedaddy's point was that politics at the national level have at best a minor effect on things like the behavior of police at a local level. Anticipating your rejoinder that police policy in LA at the time was not set by the Democratic leaders then in power locally, I'd add, "Why the heck not??" If the mayor was unaware of police policy, why? If he was aware of it and disagreed with it, why did he let it stand? Because otherwise, the use of overwhelming force by the officers was either not condoned by anybody, including the LAPD, or it was condoned from the top of the ladder - by the mayor. Is there another interpretation?
And as for SCMTim's assertion that a change of vote from 100,000 Ohioans would have ousted Bush and, um, insted?? Kerry (there ought to be a word!), yup, true, and that's the way the system works, and THE END. Because if Kerry had been elected by an Ohio change of heart (with a minority of the popular vote nationwide, recall), we could note that more than half of the electorate believed (believe) that Kerry's foreign policy (such as it was anticipated to be, though he was vague either by design or by lack of ideas) was a joke. This is of course assuming that every Bush voter feels as strongly about Kerry's lame foreign policy statements as I do, which is just as fallacious an assumption as SCMTim's that every Kerry voter felt as strongly about Bush's foreign policy as he does.
In other words... (deep breath - inept and unsatisfactory segue approaching) in the battle for the hearts and minds of America, reasonable people can discuss alternatives to a self-perpetuating Welfare situation, including alternatives that reduce government's involvement in people's personal lives, and it's not automatically a sign of their complete lack of compassion for those less fortunate than they. It would be difficult to make a convincing claim that "red state" Americans are cold-hearted sons-of-guns, which seems to be SCMTim's perspective. Of course, a lot depends on how you define "compassion"...
Begbee, I am a religious and conservative guy. I do think that success in this land lies mostly in hard work, and in education, and in self-sacrifice. I'm not resentful that some people cannot work, but I do think that ALLOWING able bodied people not to work is a mistake.
"He who will not work shall not eat."
I know too many immigrants to this nation who started by sweeping floors and stocking shelves, and ended up with highly educated children and successful businesses.
Also, I occasionally help my church to analyse requests for charity. I am amazed at how many people ask for help, but have no idea how to plan for the future so that the problem does not happen again.
But the worst is when we have a request for charity that we cannot grant. When a person's choices have caused his financial distress, and when the person does not recognize his failure, and express remorse for his failure, AND have a plan to change his actions to avoid the problem in the future, we cannot honestly step in and solve the problem.
As I discussed, this discussion of the "poor" has devolved into a "let's bash black people" thread once more, with absolutely denial of nearly 30 million white Americans at or below the poverty line. Please give me the rationale for trailer park America. Please tell me why the largest single group receiving welfare are single white mothers. Please tell me why the divorce rate among whites is over 50%. Please tell me why we have white soldiers in Iraq who have family at home receiving food stamps.
There are millions of white families struggling in Red and Blue state America, working extra jobs, long hours, and making sacrifices knowing that they are one paycheck away from disaster. There are millions of white people who were downsized, outsourced and laid off from manufacturing and white collar jobs spirited overseas. Why oh Why does this thread on the poor always drift back to "those no good black thugs and those promiscuous black teenaged girls."
Get with the facts. Get with REALITY.
--Cobra
TheDaddy,
You sure haven't gotten any smarter since the last time you posted. CA wasn't "Democrat controlled" in 1992, the governor was Pete Wilson, a Republican. If you are arguing that a governor controls a state, as evidenced by your claim that NY was "Controlled" by "Democrat" governor Cuomo, then CA was not "democrat controlled."
Jane,
Great post! Inciteful and thought provoking. I have some uneasiness with your next to last paragraph tho, based on empirical observation of 2 immigrant groups in my hometown.
I have observed both Mexican and Asian immigrants coming here and taking low wage jobs, living many to a home, in what I would consider working poor conditions, and working as a group to raise the standard of living for the whole. They are willing to live under 19th century conditions TEMPORARILY while they work hard and pool resources to raise themselves up. I have seen both groups being successful at it in multiple work venues. It makes me question your statements concerning asking people to do without in the aforementioned paragraph.
Any insights into why these immigrant groups can overcome the barriers, generally without public welfare, while more native poor groups cannot?
Michael writes,
>>>Any insights into why these immigrant groups can overcome the barriers, generally without public welfare, while more native poor groups cannot?
Not ALL members of any group are entirely successful. Many take day labor, sweat-shop type jobs and live together en masse because it's the ONLY OPTION available. If anything, the more successful of these immigrants often use collectivism, self-segregation and communal lifestyles to survive in a nation reluctant to assimilate non-white citizens.
Also, you have to factor in that a person raking leaves, sewing t-shirts, or slinging fried rice full-time would still have a tough time clearing the poverty line anyway.
--Cobra
> The Mommy your a fool.
That's a two-fer. Why does Begbee think that calling someone a woman is an insult?
Cobra,
Isn't most of the US population white? I think whites are 75-80% of the population, while blacks are 12-13%. Given these numbers, it would seem natural for most of the poor and most welfare recipients to be white, because most people in this country are white.
In your post, you state that 29% of the poor are black. This far exceeds their share of population. Reasons for this could run from racism by whites to the drug laws to whatever. But given that these proportions are right, what is your point about whites being most of the poor and most of the people on welfare?
It still makes some sense to pay attention to black poverty given that it is disproportionate to their share of population.
"As I discussed, this discussion of the "poor" has devolved into a "let's bash black people" thread once more, with absolutely denial of nearly 30 million white Americans at or below the poverty line. "
Maybe you're confusing this thread with the voices in your head. There ain't no bashing of black people around these parts, and no one has denied or said anything at all about the number of white Americans at or below the (steadily increasing) poverty line.
"Please give me the rationale for trailer park America. "
Trailer parks are cheap. What more rationale do you need? And why should the residents of trailer parks need to give you a rationale anyway, especially the ones that are paying for the whole thing themselves?
"Please tell me why the largest single group receiving welfare are single white mothers. "
Um, maybe because the largest racial group period is white people?
"Please tell me why the divorce rate among whites is over 50%."
Because divorce is pretty easy to get compared to the old days. And people of all races remain children for far too many of their prime reproductive years and sometimes get themselves into a jam, and "marry in haste and repent at leisure", as they say. And just how does that 50% stack up against other groups, anyway?
"There are millions of white families struggling in Red and Blue state America, working extra jobs, long hours, and making sacrifices knowing that they are one paycheck away from disaster."
Yeah, and this is unusual because? This ain't Europe - you please the customer (employer) or he doesn't give you his money anymore, which is perfectly reasonable since he isn't your mommy.
"There are millions of white people who were downsized, outsourced and laid off from manufacturing and white collar jobs spirited overseas."
Yep. That's what we call "creative destruction". If you don't want to keep buying the same old crap forever, you can't expect to keep doing the same old jobs forever. How do you think we got past the horse and buggy days, anyway?
"Why oh Why does this thread on the poor always drift back to "those no good black thugs and those promiscuous black teenaged girls."
Get with the facts. Get with REALITY."
Again, I'm not sure which thread you're talking about. Maybe your eyes are seeing the word "black" inserted into places where it doesn't actually appear in the real world. You might want to get that checked out.
In any event, we keep talking about thugs who prey upon honest poor people, many of whom are black (see, this time the word actually did appear) because those thugs are making the lives of honest poor people (again, many of whom are black) a living Hell far more effectively than anyone else, black or white, rich or poor, in this country, and they need to be prevented from doing that in future if our lower-income population is going to have any sort of a decent life. Some mention pregnant teenagers (of any race) because dropping out of school and having babies is well-known for being a sub-optimal strategy (to say the least) and getting people to earn diplomas before having babies is at least a plausible way to increase their overall wealth and income.
"If anything, the more successful of these immigrants often use collectivism, self-segregation and communal lifestyles to survive in a nation reluctant to assimilate non-white citizens."
Reluctant to assimilate non-white citizens? I want some of whatever you're smoking. We assimilate non-white citizens better and faster than any place on Earth. You want to see non-white immigrants kept unassimilated for several generations on end, you're going to have to go to Europe.
If you are arguing that a governor controls a state, as evidenced by your claim that NY was "Controlled" by "Democrat" governor Cuomo, then CA was not "democrat controlled."
No I am not arguing that, what I was pointing out is that local conditions, eg, LA, NYC NYS (although I stand corrected re CA gov.) were all controlled by local democrat administrations. And in addition, in the case of the Crown Heights riots, they were inflamed by the future would be DEMOCRAT presidential primary candidate ( Al "Sharpie" Sharpton). 12 years of Republican national administration had nothing to do with the disfunctional local conditions run by democrats for years and years ( up until that time).
As a matter of fact, the soaring crime and murder rates started to fall like a stone as soon as the Democrat mayor in NYC was voted out of office and replaced by a Republican.
In virtually every place in this country where democrats are or were running things there is decay, disfunction, despair and racial tension.
Just today I heard the "The Big Dig" in Boston after the expenditure of many Billions of Dollars and years of in-convenience to the citizenry has sprung more than 800 leaks.
I might add that John Kerry D- L(oser) had (he says) a hand in bringing federal $ to the project.
Chalk one more up for the Dems tim and smallbee and wb goode.
BTW smalb you still are clueless.
and still the "Twit of the Blogosphere"-- You must be so proud.
Democrats -- worse than useless, they're destructive.
The repudiation continues! --- Unabated!
Ah, yes. Nothing like blind hatred, equally blind ideology and partisanship in response to a well reasoned post. If you want to make people work for their check if the private sector fails in providing them a job, fine. If you want to encourage them to form stable families, fine. But enough with the blind faith in libertarian ideals being able to solve it all. It's no more valid than Marx was. Is there anyone willing to acknowledge that some things work on a small scale but won't work in a country of 290,000,000? There were "communist" communities that functioned on a small scale. People who didn't want to live that way could leave. People who did could join in. But it quits being that easy when you start talking about an entire modern American state or the whole country. Communism on that scale becomes tyranny. I would say that it inevitably would do so. Libertarianism? It might dissolve into chaos. It might produce a backlash that could produce tyranny. I do think that it is too much of a political extreme to actually function.
Jim S.
Which well reasoned post and which blind hatred are you referring to here?
Ah, yes. Nothing like blind hatred, equally blind ideology and partisanship in response to a well reasoned post.
The well reasoned post I meant was Jane's original one. The blind hatred part applies to several including the back and forth between you and a couple of posters and others who have chimed in.
I'd agree with you on the two extremes, but the second variable is something that liberals would like to change and rail about all the time (and have much fun poked at them on this blog and other places for doing so) whereas conservatives, by the very principle their title suggests, see little problem here.
Why is no one else calling Jane out on this?! Anyway, liberals by and large realize that (2) is a losing battle. No one's really figured out how to engineer social change of this kind yet (and if they did, that would not necessarily be a good thing).
The last comment was in reference to the following quote in the original post:
Liberals want to change the third variable...
Conservatives, by and large, want to change the first two variables...
Sorry about that.. too quick to hit 'Post' too early in the morning too late in the week.
'if the private sector fails in providing them a job, fine. '
It's not the private sectors responsibility to provide people with jobs. This common misunderstanding of basic economics is a huge problem.
Jamie, there is a very large difference between my poor spelling on a message board, and a President so stupid he cant even have a press conference, muttered "hard work" and "mixed messages" as a one answer fits all questions at the debates, needed Cheney to hold his hand when questioned by the 911 commission, etc.
Jamie, Ive tried to sort through your gibberish about the LAPD and the best I can figure is that you think local politicians oversee law enforcement policy. Thats garbage. The police chief sets the policy on law enforcement. Local Pols may use the media and political pressure to influence police policy, but they have no real power to change anything.
CJ, Im certainly not a religious man, sometimes I dont even believe my lying eyes. Your charity work is noble, but you avoid the issue. Do you believe the government should help those your charitable work cannot, or are you content to sit back and watch them suffer?
A Freeman, I dont think the general usage of the words "The Mommy" is insulting to most. But theres a hyper-masculine inference intended by the screenname "The Daddy", so feminizing the phrase is an effective taunt, imo.
Ken, the phrase "creative destruction" is a phrase that jr should avoid. In any case, your usage of that phrase is incorrect. These jobs arent destroyed, there moved to third world nations that do the work much cheaper. Most of the manufacturing jobs have left America, and now the higher paying service oriented jobs are being shipped to the third world, whats left for the 70% of America with no higher education? And before you say back to school, consider the huge number of Americans already underemployed, wouldnt flooding the job market with even more degrees do nothing but further devalue a college education?
The Mommy, since you bring up Bostons "Big Dig", arent many of the companies, like Bechtel, doing the work there already far over their bids? And arent many of these companies the same companies that have contracts in Iraq that have far surpassed projections? The "Big Dig" is a failure of big business, not politicians.
Jim S, nobody has claimed social programs are the solution. I think what most are saying is that doing away with social programs will make things worse. And my primary point is that there are far more wasteful uses of government revenue then the social programs when considering budget cuts.
Why dont you reps break out the communist and socialist claims when the government hands out grants and no bid contracts to big biz?
A commenter said:
"If anything, the more successful of these immigrants often use collectivism, self-segregation and communal lifestyles to survive in a nation reluctant to assimilate non-white citizens."
SAY WHAT???? WHAT RACIST AREA ARE YOU LIVING IN? I live in red state NC, and I am PROUD of the successes I see happening for Mexican and Asian immigrants. IN many ways, they represent the ideal and hope of the American better than many of our native citizens. And by the evidence of the numbers achieving this success I am witnessing here, few are reluctant to immigrate them.
And the response still never answered my original question about why these immigrant groups seem to be able to overcome poverty without govt welfare aid while many native groups cannot.
Ken writes:
>>>Maybe you're confusing this thread with the voices in your head. There ain't no bashing of black people around these parts, and no one has denied or said anything at all about the number of white Americans at or below the (steadily increasing) poverty line.
Hello? The very book Jane alludes to while forming this topic is based on poor BLACKS. Look at the cover of the book if you don't believe me. Books by Charles Murray (the guy who believes black people are intellectually inferior to whites) have been mentioned numerous times on this thread. Rodney King, Crown Heights, black incarceration rates, black unemployment and the "inner city" have been mentioned throughout this discussion.
Your inabillity to READ the comments posted has no bearing on the arguments I make here.
Michael,
If you think there isn't an anti-immigration sentiment coursing through America, you need to listen to some more conservative heroes, like Pat Buchanan, Michael Savage, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly and others.
--Cobra
COBRA,
Pay attention now son...
Those columnists are talking about ILLEGAL immigrants, which I agree should be sent back home and then allowed to immigrate legally if they qualify.
Yes there are those who oppose any foreign immigration. I am not one of them. I appreciate the work ethic and values they bring with them, which as I have said more closely matches the American dream & traditional values than many of our native born citizens (blue ones esp).
AND MY ORIGINAL QUESTION STILL REMAINS UNANSWERED.
Why are those groups so much more successful at overcoming poverty than many native groups? This post was about poverty and how to address it, not immigration policy. Please stick to the topic at hand.
Michael,
The topics go hand in hand, especially when you pose a question comparing immigrant groups with groups already established. Undocumented labor is HUGE in America, undocumented workers are usually impoverished and denying its existence doesn't aid your argument.
Second Would the posters on this board consider our millitary service folks "poor", since they have low wage jobs, and government subsidized housing and meals?
http://www.thecobraslair.com/images/GRADUATES-NAT.gif
--Cobra
COBRA
Again, you fail to answer the question and instead do the red herring "deflect the focus of the argument" tactic of debate.
1) Where, pray tell, did I deny the existence of a huge undocumented worker issue? Exactly! I did not. You threw that out as a false strawman, to which I am not going to respond.
2) I have no idea how the rest of the poster's on this site would feel about the military situation you describe. But I will dispel your falsehood equating military service and it's compensation package that includes housing, meals and healthcare as being the same as welfare. Our military personnel are providing a service they are being compensated for (poorly IMHO) while those on welfare in most cases are not. One is compensation, one is welfare.
I take the fact you have failed to answer the original question as being evidence you don't have an answer. Thats ok. Its why I asked the question, hoping someone could shed some light. You haven't. MoveON.
Servicemen and women don't have
'government subsidized housing and meals?'
They're part of the military and that's the contract they sign up under. It's part of their compensation.
Jack and Michael,
Who pays for the millitary? The federal government, which is your tax dollar and mine. Welfare isn't automatically dispensed. You have to sign up for it, just like public housing, food stamps, medicare and other government programs. Millitary service became a type of "work-fare" program where college tuition, skills training, health coverage, and housing are exchanged for service. That's part of the recruiting pitch, folks. I didn't make that up. Pvt. Jessica Lynch is a perfect example of this. A small town girl from rural West Virginia, where unemployment was over 20% to an office pool millitary job to help her pay for college, and become a teacher. Now, according to the pay scale, an E-3 service person makes approximately $16,400 a year in salary. The poverty line is somewhere around $15,000.
Now, my question again to you posters...do you consider someone making $16,400 a year "POOR?"
--Cobra
'Welfare isn't automatically dispensed. You have to sign up for it, just like public housing, food stamps, medicare and other government programs.'
Not to state the obvious but these are handouts. Part of the contract of military service is food, housing and medical. These are received in exchange for service in the military. There is no equivalency or connection or anything else between military service benefits as part of their contract and someone who receives gov't assistance benefits.
Jack writes:
>>>There is no equivalency or connection or anything else between military service benefits as part of their contract and someone who receives gov't assistance benefits."
A person has to sign up for government assistance benefits. There are plenty of homeless people on the streets who choose not to, for whatever reason. A person also signs up for the millitary. It is a GOVERNMENT JOB, with government housing, food and healthcare. And despite what you may think, many use what YOU describe as "gov't handouts" to feed their families:
>>>In his ghostwritten 1999 biography A Charge to Keep, an indignant Bush wrote: “Nearly twelve thousand members of the armed forces are on food stamps. I support increased pay and better benefits and training for our citizen solders. A volunteer military has only two paths. It can lower its standards to fill its ranks. Or it can inspire the best and brightest to join and stay.” Despite four years to do something about it, more than 250,000 military families did not get Bush’s much-vaunted child tax credit because their breadwinner earned less than $26,000 a year. And in his 2005 budget, Bush proposes only that combat pay not count toward eligibility for food stamps—for which no less than 25,000 military families are eligible."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1401/
So Jack, how would you describe these afforementioned millitary families?
I would say that they are POOR.
--Cobra
Thanks Jack for reinforcing the point that military service is a service delivered and compensated thru an agreed upon package. That is how things work in the world where you pay your own way. Cobra apparently thinks filling out a form and signing it is & then waiting on the check is the same thing as 6 months basic training, being shipped overseas and then fighting house to house in Fallujah, risking your life, and being away from family and home. The guy is totally incoherent. Methinks he must be suffering from that Post-Election-Stress-Trauma (PEST) syndrome.
AND SEEING AS HE STILL WONT ANSWER THE ORIGINAL QUESTION...BTW, we are no longer discussing Jane's original poverty post, so we need to just close this thread out until someone other than Cobra makes some coherent points.
Cobra - go home and get some sleep! The more you write the more you invalidate your own arguments.
After reading the conversations in the Slate series about fathers and illegitimacy, I now understand why they used to have shotgun weddings.
Jack Tanner, what is the point of existence for an economy? Of a society? My point was that if the private sector can't create enough jobs for people to work for a living then should society find an alternative? I think that it should and your alternatives are to either create jobs through the public sector, provide financial assistance while they re-train if their current skills can't get them a job in the private sector or just provide a subsistence living.
Begbee, I would never argue that public programs aren't necessary. If my memory serves me correctly I remember how surprised I was when an economics professor told our class that even if an economy was 100% efficient it would still have unemployment. I've never heard a legitimate counterargument so I just shake my head when I hear the conservative commentators and politicians claim that everyone who wants to work can find a job. I do know that there are bums out there who don't try hard enough to do so, I've just never been able to bring myself to accept punishing those who do try but can't find something in the name of getting the other group.
Jane writes:
>>>My own thoughts on welfare reform: it's clear to me from the research I've done to write about poverty, and from reading books like DeParle's, that the poor suffer from three main problems: their own poor impulse control or decision making; a culture that encourages poor decision making; and limited means, which give them no buffer against the results of their poor decision making."
My commentary on this issue is perfectly within the context of Jane's main premise above. My point is to EXPAND upon the stereotypical definition of whom poster presume "poor people" are. In my posts, I've debunked the assumption that the "poor" are all inner city black women with multiple kids and felon baby-daddies. I've also asked pointed, unanswered questions about whether posters consider millitary personel "poor", many of whom earn less that $17K a year, with thousands of millitary families on food stamps.
The rationale for the millitary argument being one can't easily apply a pathological fault on an individual's DECISION to serve and defend our country, but the end result is certainly a degree of poverty.
This agument can be applied to Christian theology as well. After all, Jesus did say,
"Blessed are the poor, for they are the children of God."
--Cobra
thedaddy, disdain can't exist without hatred.
Cobra:
Back when my dad was in the service, I remember hearing that some members at the lower ranks were on food stamps. Generally these seemed to be really young guys (usually) who married at 18 or so and had a child. The recruits who were single, not supporting children, living on base, and eating at the enlisted mess were doing fine on their $16K/yr equivalent (I don't remember what the scale was back then); they had very few fixed costs. The situation is definitely different for the young enlisted folks who are married and/or have children to support, but even in their case, base housing defrays a significant portion of their living expenses, so that (if you use the 30% formula for what people ought to hold their housing costs to) they're making the equivalent of 30% more than that $16K/yr, plus having no out-of-pocket expense for health care and other similar military benefits. My husband and I lived on about $1200 a month, net after payroll deductions and housing, when we had our first child in Seattle; we didn't miss any meals. It took a good deal of discipline and some coupons, I'll admit.
That said, at other times in my youth, we were unable to live on base because of housing shortages, and my dad's housing allowance often hardly made a dent in our housing cost. So where base housing isn't available, these young families might be in some hurt.
You're forgetting that certain jobs have not changed in centuries, and yet their income has risen in real terms. In order to get somebody to do $FOO, you have to pay them a similar amount if they can also do $BAR. So when productivity increases raise the price for $BAR, the $FOO person gets a raise as well. It's not as high, but it helps ameliorate your worry.
Cobra, are you referring to Luke 6:20 "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"? I think that you are forgetting the first part of the verse. "Looking at his disciples, he siad: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.' "
They were not blessed solely because of their poverty, but because first they were disciples.
Begbee, I think that we no longer have any choice in the matter. Too many people are dependent on Gov't aid; that train has left the station. IF, and only if, society becomes willing to say "no", then a certain percentage of TANF, food stamps, housing, social security etc can be rolled back. Maybe 35%.
No, I am not "content" to watch people suffer. I would MUCH rather be able to feed and cloth people, and have them begin to work, and to save money, and to get their lives back on track. I support the "5 year" part of the welfare reform plan; since the Gov't is already involved, let's go the extra mile and take care of daycare, med, housing, education etc. For 5 years only. After some fixed amount of time, then the gov't should change it's tack. Radically.
I do not enjoy the thought of suffering people; I do not wish suffering on other people. But there is no denying the truism that personal pain can cause growth and change. God allowed Israel to be conquered and enslaved many times; not for his pleasure, but for His people to repent and turn back to Him.
My 2 year old son was born with Down Syndrome. I have struggled with this for 2 years, and through thousands of dollars of medical bills. My choice was run away and destroy my marriage and family, or to dig in and work.
I can honestly say that my marriage has gotten better, and I have become a better father and husband in the last 2 years. My wife agrees with me, but wants me to do the dishes. Gotta go.
Begbee:
So is it your contention that the mayor of LA has less effect on LAPD policy than the President of the US? Hmmm..... Because my point was that the mayor of LA is a greater influence on the LAPD any President, Rep or Dem, and that therefore it's spurious to lay the Rodney King awfulness at the feet of the President. I don't think you're disagreeing with me on those grounds. If you feel I implied that the mayor waves a mayoral hand and creates police policy, well, sheesh, my bad. That was not my meaning. (My meaning, to clarify the "gibberish" for you, was that local leaders can and do form public policy, both directly and through pressure on their department heads, and that the LA leadership at the time shares culpability for the Rodney King awfulness because the buck always stops at the executive office. Of the mayor, not of the President, on local matters. Just to clarify.)
I shall now go try to find the book that Jane recommends (man, I hope it's either at the library or in paperback) so I can try to be bleeping topical for a change.
'My point was that if the private sector can't create enough jobs for people to work for a living then should society find an alternative?'
I'll go real slow for you. An economy is the measurement of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. There isn't a point of existence for an economy because it is the measurement of economic activity. Businesses don't exist to create jobs. Their objective is to make money. Businesses can't fail to provide jobs for people because that's not their objective. There can be a level of economic activity that results in less than full employment.
'I think that it should and your alternatives are to either create jobs through the public sector, provide financial assistance while they re-train if their current skills can't get them a job in the private sector or just provide a subsistence living.'
You can't 'create' jobs in the public sector. You can redistribute wealth from private industry and citizens which would otherwise be used in the private economy and create a subsidized public economy but this neither creates wealth or economic growth, it just redistributes income to other people. Whether you think this is a benefit to society or not is up to you but since the gov't can only continue by taxing the productivity, wealth and earnings of others it doesn't 'create' wealth.
Charles Dickens, who was a whole lot more familiar with real poverty than any of us, once said something like:
Income 20 pounds, outgo 19 pounds 6 shillings: happiness
Income 20 pounds, outgo 20 pounds 6 shillings: disaster
Being poor has as much to do with how you choose to spend your income as with how much income you have. I've known two cases where a family had heat shut off in mid-winter - but in one case, they still had plenty of cigarettes, booze, and probably other drugs. In the other case, she'd just paid $150 for a pair of shoes. I have never paid $150 for shoes...
High income or a fat bank account can buffer the effects of bad choices - but 99.9% of those with high income or high wealth got there by making good choices. Mostly they keep on making good choices. (An exception - one of my wife's friends picked a very rich husband, and then chose a good divorce lawyer. She is quite wealthy, but often has to pawn her jewels to make it to the next quarterly dividend...) It's true that Bushes and Kennedys are born with an advantage over the rest of us, but what are you going to do - tell people that they can't pass the money they earned onto their children and grandchildren? And the number of heirs that go and spend 40 years as a drunken parasite (for example) is so small, dispossessing them wouldn't have any noticeable effect on the federal budget.
Jamie writes:
>>>My husband and I lived on about $1200 a month, net after payroll deductions and housing, when we had our first child in Seattle; we didn't miss any meals. It took a good deal of discipline and some coupons, I'll admit.
Jamie, you are a PERFECT example of my point.
Do you fit the profile of the poor that Jane and others paint? I see NOTHING wrong with you and your husband's decision making, even though you cleared $1200 a month, putting you right at the poverty line. I for one, don't disparage you for living at that wage, and serving our country, but by definition, you and your husband were no better off financially than a single mom working the swing shift at Walmart trying to make ends meet. Jane and other posters seem to feel that people who make that little money have a "cultural problem." Do you agree with that premise?
--Cobra
Cobra and Jamie, I was one of those low-ranking and low-paid enlisted men with a family back in the Carter and Reagan administrations. Don't be fooled by the pay scales - they sound like deep poverty level, but the benefits and safety net are such that a family can live well, with reasonably good decision-making. I also say others with not-so-good decision-making get into trouble fast.
Before I joined, I married a woman who already had one child. We were both working, but at barely above minimum wage, and no benefits. We weren't in need, but we were just one medical emergency or layoff away. So the Air Force's free medical and other benefits looked pretty good. And off I went to boot camp.
Base housing goes by rank, so you've got to be at least E5 or E6 to get it. Instead, I got a housing allowance added to my pay. After a few weeks in tech school in Denver, I was able to make a deposit on an apartment and send for my wife and the kid. (And our son was born 9 months later.) My wife worked for a few months, but between child care, pregnancy, and transportation, it eventually made more sense for her to stay home. And after I finished tech school and was assigned to a base in rural New Mexico, there were just too many other military wives competing for a small number of jobs. So for most of the first three years, our official family income was actually lower than when we both worked at near minimum wage.
But there was free medical care. When my son was born, the only hospital charge was for my wife's meals. There was the commissary - a supermarket where food was sold at cost, the gov't picking up the labor and overhead. (That's a huge savings, although if you're sensible food isn't that big a piece of the budget anyway.) There's the BX/PX stores, with somewhat lower than usual prices on most other things. When I bought a used trailer house, an Air Force lawyer reviewed the contract, at no cost to us. The rent on the lot in the base trailer park was pretty reasonable, and any neighborhood that only lets in people that can conform to military regulations is a good neighborhood. Our one car was mainly for grocery runs and trips home - on the rare occasions when the roads were too icy to bicycle to work, it was still close enough to walk.
And we didn't get food stamps, but until I made E5 we qualified for and used the Department of Agriculture's surplus food give-away, and even at E5 the kids got reduced price school lunches.
Cobra
Stop throwing false strawmen out that you have made up:
"The profile of the poor that Jane and others paint", a profile that you say "are all inner city black women with multiple kids and felon baby-daddies".
I've read no comment on this thread nor in Jane's original post saying that or anything similar. You have these preconceptions in your head and are making some kind of Quixotic quest to convince everyone otherwise. Again, no one has made any such representation here. Why do you insist on saying they have?
If you are possessed of stereotypical models of poverty, then deal with your own inner prejudices, but don't project them onto others. If you have some preconception of how everyone else views those in poverty, how about opening your mind to the fact that your preconception of others views just might be incorrect.
Then try addressing their points instead of some made-up, false image of what they believe. Honestly, I don't know where you get some of this stuff.
Markm,
Now, don't take this the wrong way, but you actually re-inforce my viewpoint. You and your young family were POOR. You availed yourself of government programs to help you survive. These were conscious decisions on your part, and in my estimation, perfectly acceptable. I also find no FAULT in Jamie for her family's decisions.
These "Perish the Poor" in here have problems with both of you. Especially with both of you DARING to bring children into the world at the salary level you maintained at the time. I would like to see the upper-class warriors in here evaluate YOUR situations, and file their condemnations, as they file them on minorities who earn as little as you did.
--Cobra
Cobra: But I EARNED what I got from the government.
Jamie,
That $1200 a month that you're speaking of has one big caveat. After housing. Housing can be a huge expense and there are people who are trying to make it on not that much more than the money you're talking about BEFORE housing.
Michael writes:
>>>I've read no comment on this thread nor in Jane's original post saying that or anything similar. You have these preconceptions in your head and are making some kind of Quixotic quest to convince everyone otherwise. Again, no one has made any such representation here. Why do you insist on saying they have?
Markm,
You certainly earned what you did for the government. You were also certainly POOR. My question to you again, is do you feel your poverty was