The One Cause of Poverty That’s Never Considered

[Stevicus]

MSN

In the United States, a staggeringly wealthy country, one in nine people—and one in eight children—is officially poor. Those figures have fluctuated only slightly over half a century, during which scholars and journalists have exhaustively debated the reasons for the lack of progress. Training their attention on the lives of the dispossessed, researchers have identified barriers that keep people at the bottom of the social ladder from climbing its rungs, and offered arguments that usually play out along ideological lines. According to conservatives, the most significant obstacles are behavioral: family breakdown and debilitating habits such as dependency and idleness, exacerbated, they believe, by the receipt of government handouts. According to liberals, the real problems are structural: forces such as racism and deindustrialization, which, they contend, have entrenched inequality and prevented disadvantaged groups from sharing in the nation’s prosperity.

This was an interesting article that came up in my newsfeed this morning. It discusses poverty and how American society has viewed and attempted to deal with the problem over the past half a century, yet making little progress. The author of the book mentioned in the article, Matthew Desmond, takes a different approach and makes some compelling arguments that we've been doing it all wrong for all these decades. While conservatives argue that the reason for poverty has to do with the behavior of the poor ("dependency and idleness, exacerbated, they believe, by the receipt of government handouts"), liberals argue the issue is structural ("racism and deindustrialization, which, they contend, have entrenched inequality and prevented disadvantaged groups from sharing in the nation’s prosperity").

But what if both of these approaches are incorrect?

But what if the focus on the disadvantaged is misplaced? What if the persistence of poverty has less to do with the misfortunes of the needy than with the advantages the affluent presume they are entitled to? In Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at Princeton, argues that we need to examine the behavior and priorities not of the poor but of “those of us living lives of privilege and plenty.”

Desmond’s decision to spotlight the privileged may surprise readers familiar with his previous work, in particular his widely acclaimed book Evicted, which told the stories of eight impoverished families struggling to find and keep affordable apartments in Milwaukee. The prevailing assumption among scholars had been that most poor people in America’s urban areas lived in public housing. In fact, only 15 percent of low-income renters in the United States fell into this category, Desmond found. The rest had to navigate the private rental market, where many ended up spending more than half their income on dilapidated units with busted appliances and roach infestations. The indignity of living in such conditions was compounded by the fear of falling behind on the rent and getting evicted, traumatic expulsions that happened with shocking regularity in places like Milwaukee’s impoverished North Side. A similar convulsive pattern of dislocations played out in low-income neighborhoods all over the country.

The safety net in America is more threadbare than in most wealthy countries. But growing government stinginess over the years doesn’t explain the high number of destitute people, he argues, citing a surprising figure: Government spending on the 13 largest means-tested programs—targeted at people under a certain income level—has actually risen 237 percent from 1980 to 2018. Neither does the emphasis on the breakdown of the family and the rise in single-parent households, a theme of the 1965 “Moynihan Report” that has had a long afterlife. It’s true that families in the United States headed by single mothers are far more likely to be poor than married families, Desmond acknowledges. But the disparity vanishes in countries such as Italy and Sweden, thanks to social programs (affordable child care, paid family leave) that aren’t available here. In this respect, the lack of government spending clearly has played a role.

In Desmond’s taxonomy of how the privileged “make the poor in America poor,” the strategy of living in walled-off communities—and more broadly, the proclivity to invest in private amenities at the expense of public housing, education, and transportation—has more than an economic impact. The physical separation also “poisons our minds and souls,” enabling affluent people to forget about the poor and obscuring two other tiers of economic exploitation that Desmond calls attention to.

Surveying a host of other perks and benefits to which the well-off consider themselves entitled, he emphasizes that such life amenities are available only because poor people suffer: When the wealthy patronize shops and restaurants that offer low prices and fast service, their satisfaction comes at the expense of cashiers and dishwashers paid poverty wages. When we open free checking accounts that require maintaining a minimum balance, we benefit from the fact that banks can collect billions of dollars in overdraft fees from poor customers who struggle to meet these requirements—and who often end up gouged by check-cashing outlets and payday lenders.

The article is quite illuminating and illustrates many of the problems in America I've noticed over the past few decades as well.

Here's an interesting statistic:

The average household in the top 20 percent income bracket receives $35,363 in annual tax breaks and other government benefits—40 percent more than the average household in the bottom 20 percent. Federal spending, Desmond reminds readers, is a zero-sum game—a game the wealthy and powerful invariably dominate.

Desmond stated that, despite how he might sound, he's not a Marxist, but notes that Leo Tolstoy's writings were a major influence.

Desmond’s emphasis on the link between wealth and poverty, and on class exploitation, may lead some readers to brand him a Marxist. His thinking about poverty indeed owes a debt to an influential 19th-century writer, but the writer in question isn’t Marx. It’s Leo Tolstoy, who, after publishing Anna Karenina, moved to Moscow, where the poverty he witnessed shocked him. As Desmond recounts, the experience prompted the writer, who lived in a house full of servants, to contend with his complicity and shame. “I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back,” Tolstoy mused. “If I want to aid the poor, that is, to help the poor not to be poor, I ought not to make them poor.”

Desmond himself describes a “bifurcated” country divided by ever more impenetrable barriers that keep the poor in their place: out of expensive neighborhoods, in low-wage jobs, at schools and day-care centers that children from wealthier families don’t attend. A society in which the poor and nonpoor so rarely brush shoulders is, as he’s shown, a society designed to allow the affluent to not see how they benefit from others’ hardships. (In cities like New York and Los Angeles, where homeless people are more visible, it’s also notable that many of the proposed solutions are to get the poor out of sight rather than to direct resources toward them.)

The treatment of homeless people, particularly in affluent, liberal cities like LA, SF, NY, is extremely damning.

The deindustrialization of America is also a major factor in the severe decline in the standard of living. As Desmond points out, the problem today has gotten so bad that the country may not be economically strong enough to help the poor.

he growing awareness of inequality may indeed have shifted popular attitudes, making Americans less inclined to view the poor as lazy and undeserving than was the case during the Reagan years or the 1990s, when Bill Clinton announced that the “era of big government is over” and enacted welfare reform. But there are also reasons to wonder if the current moment is an auspicious time for a large-scale push to end poverty. The War on Poverty was launched in an age of prosperity, when many believed the economy was strong enough to lift all boats. In times of insecurity like ours, when workers in the hollowed-out middle fear slipping downward, the zero-sum game gets only more intense.

This is another point which is true. During the 1960s, when LBJ launched the War on Poverty, it was "in an age of prosperity, when many believed the economy was strong enough to lift all boats." But now, everything has gone to crap, thanks the culture of gross mismanagement, myopic recklessness, outright malice, and gross exploitation which characterized Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and every Administration ever since.

As a result, the country is in worse shape today. Now, we were ill-equipped to deal with this problem through standard liberal-supported social programs, and more radical measures may be needed to get the country back on track to where it should be.

What is “maddening,” Desmond writes, is “how utterly easy it is to find enough money to defeat poverty by closing nonsensical tax loopholes,” or by doing 20 or 30 smaller things to curtail just some of the subsidies of affluence. Yet his book makes it all too clear why the loopholes don’t get closed. The real reason the well-off sustain the status quo isn’t that they believe the poor are shiftless. It’s because meaningful change would require giving up their own advantages—or, to put it bluntly, because “we like it,” as Desmond writes. This is, he notes, the “rudest explanation” for our current state of affairs. Getting affluent people to engage in rhetorical hand-wringing over inequality is easy enough. Persuading them to yield some of their entitlements is a lot harder.

In this part, the author notes one of the key reasons why tax loopholes are never closed and why even the simplest proposals to reduce the misery of the poor fall on deaf ears. It would mean that the well-off might have to give up their own advantages, and this does not suit them. This is exactly what the problem has been all these years, and I've observed the same attitude myself, among both liberals and conservatives.

This is the main part of the reason why many people view liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, as being "the same" even as pompous, affluent, privileged liberals stomp their little feet and scream "false equivalence" all the time.

This is why, to me, all other issues pale in importance. What we're seeing now is the long-term consequences of decades of criminal negligence, and all of the problems which many are bringing up today, such as the supposed "threat to democracy" and the rise of hate and intolerance, all emanate from the wanton failures of our political system and those who hold stewardship over it.

It's not just about giveaway programs or free stuff (since the wealthy have gotten the lion's share of that anyway), but it's about rebuilding and restructuring our economy to be productive again.

 

[Nakosis]

The top 50% of taxpayers in the US pay 97.7% of all taxes.
The top 1% of taxes payers pay at a rate 8 times higher than the average paid by the bottom 50%.
Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data
Maybe they should have done a little more homework.

Also I think it is a false narrative that the rich's ability to make money keep the poor, poor. That is not how the economy works.
There is certainly no guarantee that increasing taxes on people already paying the lion's share of taxes is going to solve poverty.
Politicians have their own agenda for all of that tax money.

So what is the answer being offered? The affluent have to start living more like the poor?
That way I suppose the poor will feel better about being poor.

IMO, the real problem of poverty is culture.
Culture of Poverty

 

[Stevicus]

The top 50% of taxpayers in the US pay 97.7% of all taxes.
The top 1% of taxes payers pay at a rate 8 times higher than the average paid by the bottom 50%.
Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data
Maybe they should have done a little more homework.

Also I think it is a false narrative that the rich's ability to make money keep the poor, poor. That is not how the economy works.
There is certainly no guarantee that increasing taxes on people already paying the lion's share of taxes is going to solve poverty.
Politicians have their own agenda for all of that tax money.

So what is the answer being offered? The affluent have to start living more like the poor?
That way I suppose the poor will feel better about being poor.

IMO, the real problem of poverty is culture.
Culture of Poverty

That just sounds like a rehashing of the same tired, unfounded, specious argument that "the poor are lazy," which implies a "just world" and that they deserve their lot in life.

Even if it were true, it doesn't really change the overall situation and the political instability that comes with it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The top 50% of taxpayers in the US pay 97.7% of all taxes.
The top 1% of taxes payers pay at a rate 8 times higher than the average paid by the bottom 50%.
Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data
Maybe they should have done a little more homework.

Also I think it is a false narrative that the rich's ability to make money keep the poor, poor. That is not how the economy works.
There is certainly no guarantee that increasing taxes on people already paying the lion's share of taxes is going to solve poverty.
Politicians have their own agenda for all of that tax money.

So what is the answer being offered? The affluent have to start living more like the poor?
That way I suppose the poor will feel better about being poor.

IMO, the real problem of poverty is culture.
Culture of Poverty

Have you ever studied comparative studies of poor people in the Western world?

 

[metis]

MSN

This was an interesting article that came up in my newsfeed this morning. It discusses poverty and how American society has viewed and attempted to deal with the problem over the past half a century, yet making little progress. The author of the book mentioned in the article, Matthew Desmond, takes a different approach and makes some compelling arguments that we've been doing it all wrong for all these decades. While conservatives argue that the reason for poverty has to do with the behavior of the poor ("dependency and idleness, exacerbated, they believe, by the receipt of government handouts"), liberals argue the issue is structural ("racism and deindustrialization, which, they contend, have entrenched inequality and prevented disadvantaged groups from sharing in the nation’s prosperity").

But what if both of these approaches are incorrect?










The article is quite illuminating and illustrates many of the problems in America I've noticed over the past few decades as well.

Here's an interesting statistic:



Desmond stated that, despite how he might sound, he's not a Marxist, but notes that Leo Tolstoy's writings were a major influence.





The treatment of homeless people, particularly in affluent, liberal cities like LA, SF, NY, is extremely damning.

The deindustrialization of America is also a major factor in the severe decline in the standard of living. As Desmond points out, the problem today has gotten so bad that the country may not be economically strong enough to help the poor.



This is another point which is true. During the 1960s, when LBJ launched the War on Poverty, it was "in an age of prosperity, when many believed the economy was strong enough to lift all boats." But now, everything has gone to crap, thanks the culture of gross mismanagement, myopic recklessness, outright malice, and gross exploitation which characterized Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and every Administration ever since.

As a result, the country is in worse shape today. Now, we were ill-equipped to deal with this problem through standard liberal-supported social programs, and more radical measures may be needed to get the country back on track to where it should be.



In this part, the author notes one of the key reasons why tax loopholes are never closed and why even the simplest proposals to reduce the misery of the poor fall on deaf ears. It would mean that the well-off might have to give up their own advantages, and this does not suit them. This is exactly what the problem has been all these years, and I've observed the same attitude myself, among both liberals and conservatives.

This is the main part of the reason why many people view liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, as being "the same" even as pompous, affluent, privileged liberals stomp their little feet and scream "false equivalence" all the time.

This is why, to me, all other issues pale in importance. What we're seeing now is the long-term consequences of decades of criminal negligence, and all of the problems which many are bringing up today, such as the supposed "threat to democracy" and the rise of hate and intolerance, all emanate from the wanton failures of our political system and those who hold stewardship over it.

It's not just about giveaway programs or free stuff (since the wealthy have gotten the lion's share of that anyway), but it's about rebuilding and restructuring our economy to be productive again.

^^this^^

 

[Nakosis]

Have you ever studied comparative studies of poor people in the Western world?

No, but I've been poor in the "Western World".
I've also read various studies. I know the idea of culture being the cause of poverty has received a lot of criticism but I believe that criticism misses the point.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, but I've been poor in the "Western World".
I've also read various studies. I know the idea of culture being the cause of poverty has received a lot of criticism but I believe that criticism misses the point.

Okay, in general what I have learned is that single factor causation for a complex subject matter then neither wrong nor true, but too simple.
In one sense it is a half-truth for one understanding of that concept.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

While conservatives argue that the reason for poverty has to do with the behavior of the poor ("dependency and idleness, exacerbated, they believe, by the receipt of government handouts"), liberals argue the issue is structural ("racism and deindustrialization, which, they contend, have entrenched inequality and prevented disadvantaged groups from sharing in the nation’s prosperity").

But what if both of these approaches are incorrect?

Doesn't your quoted text in the OP support the second position above? And isn't it common knowledge among the unindoctrinated that the increasing poverty and widening in the gap of wealth in America as income is concentrated at the expense of an eroding middle class by design? What is the right's agenda there but to concentrate wealth, power, and privilege using specious tropes about the government not having answers, trickle-down economics, rugged individualism and self-sufficiency, and welfare queens that too many conservatives imbibe uncritically.

 

[Nakosis]

That just sounds like a rehashing of the same tired, unfounded, specious argument that "the poor are lazy," which implies a "just world" and that they deserve their lot in life.

Even if it were true, it doesn't really change the overall situation and the political instability that comes with it.

Yeah, that is an easy way to dismiss the argument but being "lazy" is certainly not the basis of it.

My family comes from a long line of agricultural workers in the south. They picked cotton and oranges. So hard work is not a problem with the poor imo. My family worked hard for what little money they had. One thing they didn't do though was stress the importance of education. Also your parents are your role models when you start out in life. They did the best they thought they could based on their parents and upbringing.

My mom remarried someone of a different culture. They had a different view of what one could achieve in life. Higher aspirations, still not big on education though. Most of my family still live in poverty. If not for the influence of my step-dad, I suspect I'd be there right along with them. Working hard but limited aspirations.

 

[Estro Felino]

It's much simpler than that.
There's no a Public Administration apparatus. It's all privatized.
The PA term is widespread in countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain and especially in Scandinavia.

The Public Administration gives children free education, almost free university, and free public services that help people find an employment that suits them. It helps find them a house and so on.

In the United States it's all entrusted to privates who charge users.

 

[Nakosis]

Okay, in general what I have learned is that single factor causation for a complex subject matter then neither wrong nor true, but too simple.
In one sense it is a half-truth for one understanding of that concept.

Well, you could always read more.
It'd be silly right, to rely on the claims of one person like me or the author of the article in the OP.

 

[Estro Felino]

In Europe there's the principle: "it doesn't matter if there's just one class with an average income, all that matters is that there are not so many social-economic differences among citizens."

In the US there's the principle. "it doesn't matter if there are big social-economic differences among citizens, as long as the wealthiest classes are ten steps ahead the average European citizen"

 

[Nakosis]

It's much simpler than that.
There's no a Public Administration apparatus. It's all privatized.
The PA term is widespread in countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain and especially in Scandinavia.

The Public Administration gives children free education, almost free university, and free public services that help people find an employment that suits them. It helps find them a house and so on.

In the United States it's all entrusted to privates who charge users.

In the US, I actually had a lot of public support. The government provided job counseling, provided advice for interviews, drove me to job interviews and helped me get my first job. Of course, my parents weren't around to do these things. Some parents are. It's part of their culture to support the future careers of their children.

The government was a poor substitute but much better than nothing.

 

[Estro Felino]

In the US, I actually had a lot of public support. The government provided job counseling, provided advice for interviews, drove me to job interviews and helped me get my first job. Of course, my parents weren't around to do these things. Some parents are. It's part of their culture to support the future careers of their children.

The government was a poor substitute but much better than nothing.

Each state, each county has an efficient network of public services. But there's no such a thing as a federal law that makes them universal in all states and in all counties.
For instance, a municipality in Europe would never tolerate that citizens live in trailers in the suburbs. The State would solve this by building housing so those people can live in an apartment, paying for a cheap rent.

 

[pearl]

As far as government is concerned I would love to see a stop on lobbying, on trading in the stock market while serving in Congress.
More programs directed to educating towards skilled trades etc.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well, you could always read more.
It'd be silly right, to rely on the claims of one person like me or the author of the article in the OP.

Yeah, but it fits what I already have learned.

 

[Nakosis]

Each state, each county has an efficient network of public services. But there's no such a thing as a federal law that makes them universal in all states and in all counties.
For instance, a municipality in Europe would never tolerate that citizens live in trailers in the suburbs. The State would solve this by building housing so those people can live in an apartment, paying for a cheap rent.

Yeah, they made me get a job, find my own apartment and pay rent.
Them scallywags.

So the thing in the US is the Fed government has limited control. In fact usually the only way the Feds can get the states to act is by enticing them with grants. So certainly the federal government could provide grants to states to help the homeless.
FY23 Funding (in millions) for Selected Homelessness and Housing Programs

Funny no co-sponsors this year. Well I guess them congressfolks have better ideas on how to spend our money.

 

[Orbit]

MSN

This was an interesting article that came up in my newsfeed this morning. It discusses poverty and how American society has viewed and attempted to deal with the problem over the past half a century, yet making little progress. The author of the book mentioned in the article, Matthew Desmond, takes a different approach and makes some compelling arguments that we've been doing it all wrong for all these decades. While conservatives argue that the reason for poverty has to do with the behavior of the poor ("dependency and idleness, exacerbated, they believe, by the receipt of government handouts"), liberals argue the issue is structural ("racism and deindustrialization, which, they contend, have entrenched inequality and prevented disadvantaged groups from sharing in the nation’s prosperity").

But what if both of these approaches are incorrect?










The article is quite illuminating and illustrates many of the problems in America I've noticed over the past few decades as well.

Here's an interesting statistic:



Desmond stated that, despite how he might sound, he's not a Marxist, but notes that Leo Tolstoy's writings were a major influence.





The treatment of homeless people, particularly in affluent, liberal cities like LA, SF, NY, is extremely damning.

The deindustrialization of America is also a major factor in the severe decline in the standard of living. As Desmond points out, the problem today has gotten so bad that the country may not be economically strong enough to help the poor.



This is another point which is true. During the 1960s, when LBJ launched the War on Poverty, it was "in an age of prosperity, when many believed the economy was strong enough to lift all boats." But now, everything has gone to crap, thanks the culture of gross mismanagement, myopic recklessness, outright malice, and gross exploitation which characterized Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and every Administration ever since.

As a result, the country is in worse shape today. Now, we were ill-equipped to deal with this problem through standard liberal-supported social programs, and more radical measures may be needed to get the country back on track to where it should be.



In this part, the author notes one of the key reasons why tax loopholes are never closed and why even the simplest proposals to reduce the misery of the poor fall on deaf ears. It would mean that the well-off might have to give up their own advantages, and this does not suit them. This is exactly what the problem has been all these years, and I've observed the same attitude myself, among both liberals and conservatives.

This is the main part of the reason why many people view liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, as being "the same" even as pompous, affluent, privileged liberals stomp their little feet and scream "false equivalence" all the time.

This is why, to me, all other issues pale in importance. What we're seeing now is the long-term consequences of decades of criminal negligence, and all of the problems which many are bringing up today, such as the supposed "threat to democracy" and the rise of hate and intolerance, all emanate from the wanton failures of our political system and those who hold stewardship over it.

It's not just about giveaway programs or free stuff (since the wealthy have gotten the lion's share of that anyway), but it's about rebuilding and restructuring our economy to be productive again.

Just wanted to say thank you for posting this.

 

[Stevicus]

Doesn't your quoted text in the OP support the second position above? And isn't it common knowledge among the unindoctrinated that the increasing poverty and widening in the gap of wealth in America as income is concentrated at the expense of an eroding middle class by design? What is the right's agenda there but to concentrate wealth, power, and privilege using specious tropes about the government not having answers, trickle-down economics, rugged individualism and self-sufficiency, and welfare queens that too many conservatives imbibe uncritically.

The author leans towards the second position, but still finds it flawed to some degree.

 

[Stevicus]

Yeah, that is an easy way to dismiss the argument but being "lazy" is certainly not the basis of it.

Still, I think it grossly oversimplifies the situation at hand, and again, even if it were true, such a position doesn't change anything or offer any real solutions.

My family comes from a long line of agricultural workers in the south. They picked cotton and oranges. So hard work is not a problem with the poor imo. My family worked hard for what little money they had. One thing they didn't do though was stress the importance of education. Also your parents are your role models when you start out in life. They did the best they thought they could based on their parents and upbringing.

My mom remarried someone of a different culture. They had a different view of what one could achieve in life. Higher aspirations, still not big on education though. Most of my family still live in poverty. If not for the influence of my step-dad, I suspect I'd be there right along with them. Working hard but limited aspirations.

It was much the same in my family, and I agree that parents and upbringing are important factors in how children turn out. Some parents may have done the best they could, although I can say that my parents did not. But that's another topic. Still, abusive, toxic parents can multiply the misery and pass it on to their children, who then become toxic, abusive parents themselves.