http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/080/oped/The_boom_in_povertyP.shtml March 21, 1999 - page E07 Boston Globe THE BOOM IN POVERTY By Robert Kuttner, 03/21/99 Welfare reform is trumpeted as a splendid policy success. Nationally, the rolls have declined from over 11 million people in early 1997 to under 8 million today. Some of this reflects the strong economy, but most of it reflects tough policies that push people off welfare and discourage new claimants from ever getting on. Governors can proudly tell you precisely how their case loads have declined. Wyoming leads with an astonishing 90 percent decline since 1993, followed by Wisconsin with an 86 percent drop. What they can't tell you, because most don't really want to know, is how many ex-recipients are economically worse off, in low wage jobs or on the street. This is research that private institutions have begun to do, with only grudging help from government. In this era of near-full employment, soaring stock markets, budget surplus, and general prosperity, the poor have become what Justice Brandeis called a ''despised minority.'' Their poverty is widely assumed to be their own fault. (Since the majority of the poor are children, born into their poverty, the claim is odd, unless one can identify antisocial behaviors in utero.) While patronage of soup kitchens and food pantries, as well as homelessness, all continue to rise, news coverage of poverty falls. Yes Magazine recently reported that articles in The Washington Post mentioning homelessness declined from 149 in 1990 to 45 in 1995 to just 17 last year. The poor are not just politically unpopular, but invisible to an inured middle class. Eight years into an economic boom, the poor continue to lose income. The income of the bottom fifth has declined steadily, from 5.4 percent of the national total in 1979, to 4.6 percent in 1989, to 4.2 percent in 1997. Their real purchasing power is below 1979 levels. Their public benefits also keep being slashed in the name of economic incentive and budget discipline. One little-appreciated government program which has not been cut, the Earned Income Tax Credit, is all that has kept welfare reform from being a total catastrophe. Under EITC, a breadwinner gets a ''refundable tax credit'' - in other words, a wage subsidy. But even supplemented by EITC, which can add a few thousand dollars yearly for a large household, the $5.15 minimum wage is far from a ''family wage,'' given costs of child care and health care. And other than EITC, programs that directly benefit the poor are under budgetary siege. However, most such programs do not have the negative incentive effects attributed to the old welfare system. Programs like food stamps simply relieve poverty directly. Housing subsidies make it possible for low-income families to live outside of squalor. And programs directed at children and those who care for children increase the likelihood that poverty will not be passed along to the next generation. Although welfare reform is far more punitive than it needed to be, it has one useful side effect. By pushing poor women into low-wage jobs, it invites us to look closely at the bottom end of the labor market. Most of the poor, of course, hold jobs and work hard. They work in nursing homes taking care of our elderly parents, they enter data, clean toilets, push brooms, ship inventory, and sling fast food. They are the people, as Jesse Jackson used to say, who ''take the early bus.'' The writer Barbara Ehrenreich, on assignment for Harpers, recently went underground and worked in a Florida fast food joint. She found the pay impossible to live on. Some of her co-workers were literally living in their cars; others were working 16-hour days. One encouraging development is that unions are once again organizing the working poor. A notable recent success was the unionization of 70,000 home-care workers in Los Angeles by the Service Employees International Union. But most low wage workers are unrepresented. The current boom demonstrates that even when the private economy runs at full bore, it is not enough to lift working families out of poverty. It also demonstrates that most poverty is not the result of dysfunctional or pathological behaviors, just crummy wages and weak bargaining power. Candidate Bill Clinton, before he was reborn as a New Democrat, urged that anyone who worked full time should not have to live in poverty. This very reasonable principle is neither all that costly to society, nor all that difficult to bring about. It is just tragically out of fashion. [Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.] This story ran on page E07 of the Boston Globe on 03/21/99. Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. [Messages on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and cross-posted, as long as proper attribution is given to the author and originating publication (including the email address and any copyright notices), and the wording is not altered in any way, other than for formatting. As a courtesy, when you cross-post or forward, we'd appreciate it if you mention that you received the info via the BRC-NEWS list. Thank you.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International News/Alerts/Announcements
http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/080/oped/The_boom_in_povertyP.shtml March 21, 1999 - page E07 Boston Globe THE BOOM IN POVERTY By Robert Kuttner, 03/21/99 Welfare reform is trumpeted as a splendid policy success. Nationally, the rolls have declined from over 11 million people in early 1997 to under 8 million today. Some of this reflects the strong economy, but most of it reflects tough policies that push people off welfare and discourage new claimants from ever getting on. Governors can proudly tell you precisely how their case loads have declined. Wyoming leads with an astonishing 90 percent decline since 1993, followed by Wisconsin with an 86 percent drop. What they can't tell you, because most don't really want to know, is how many ex-recipients are economically worse off, in low wage jobs or on the street. This is research that private institutions have begun to do, with only grudging help from government. In this era of near-full employment, soaring stock markets, budget surplus, and general prosperity, the poor have become what Justice Brandeis called a ''despised minority.'' Their poverty is widely assumed to be their own fault. (Since the majority of the poor are children, born into their poverty, the claim is odd, unless one can identify antisocial behaviors in utero.) While patronage of soup kitchens and food pantries, as well as homelessness, all continue to rise, news coverage of poverty falls. Yes Magazine recently reported that articles in The Washington Post mentioning homelessness declined from 149 in 1990 to 45 in 1995 to just 17 last year. The poor are not just politically unpopular, but invisible to an inured middle class. Eight years into an economic boom, the poor continue to lose income. The income of the bottom fifth has declined steadily, from 5.4 percent of the national total in 1979, to 4.6 percent in 1989, to 4.2 percent in 1997. Their real purchasing power is below 1979 levels. Their public benefits also keep being slashed in the name of economic incentive and budget discipline. One little-appreciated government program which has not been cut, the Earned Income Tax Credit, is all that has kept welfare reform from being a total catastrophe. Under EITC, a breadwinner gets a ''refundable tax credit'' - in other words, a wage subsidy. But even supplemented by EITC, which can add a few thousand dollars yearly for a large household, the $5.15 minimum wage is far from a ''family wage,'' given costs of child care and health care. And other than EITC, programs that directly benefit the poor are under budgetary siege. However, most such programs do not have the negative incentive effects attributed to the old welfare system. Programs like food stamps simply relieve poverty directly. Housing subsidies make it possible for low-income families to live outside of squalor. And programs directed at children and those who care for children increase the likelihood that poverty will not be passed along to the next generation. Although welfare reform is far more punitive than it needed to be, it has one useful side effect. By pushing poor women into low-wage jobs, it invites us to look closely at the bottom end of the labor market. Most of the poor, of course, hold jobs and work hard. They work in nursing homes taking care of our elderly parents, they enter data, clean toilets, push brooms, ship inventory, and sling fast food. They are the people, as Jesse Jackson used to say, who ''take the early bus.'' The writer Barbara Ehrenreich, on assignment for Harpers, recently went underground and worked in a Florida fast food joint. She found the pay impossible to live on. Some of her co-workers were literally living in their cars; others were working 16-hour days. One encouraging development is that unions are once again organizing the working poor. A notable recent success was the unionization of 70,000 home-care workers in Los Angeles by the Service Employees International Union. But most low wage workers are unrepresented. The current boom demonstrates that even when the private economy runs at full bore, it is not enough to lift working families out of poverty. It also demonstrates that most poverty is not the result of dysfunctional or pathological behaviors, just crummy wages and weak bargaining power. Candidate Bill Clinton, before he was reborn as a New Democrat, urged that anyone who worked full time should not have to live in poverty. This very reasonable principle is neither all that costly to society, nor all that difficult to bring about. It is just tragically out of fashion. [Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.] This story ran on page E07 of the Boston Globe on 03/21/99. Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. [Messages on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and cross-posted, as long as proper attribution is given to the author and originating publication (including the email address and any copyright notices), and the wording is not altered in any way, other than for formatting. As a courtesy, when you cross-post or forward, we'd appreciate it if you mention that you received the info via the BRC-NEWS list. Thank you.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International News/Alerts/Announcements -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: Email "unsubscribe brc-news" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: Email "subscribe brc-news-digest" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Discussion: Email "subscribe brc-all" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive: http://www.egroups.com/list/brc-news (The first time, you'll need to "Join" and set your preferences to "Read it on the Web" mode) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions/Problems: Send email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black Radical Congress WWW Site: http://www.blackradicalcongress.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want To Start Your Own List? Go To: http://www.igc.org/igc/services/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
