For a class assignment a professor asked me to consider what an effective and just policy surrounding poverty might look like. Creating policies to eradicate poverty within the United States and poverty itself are not things I think about, having never examined my own feelings beyond my fear of being poor, and fear at knowing that my existence has been, is, and no doubt may continue to be described as living pay-check to pay-check. Furthermore, when I do think about poverty, along with the other injustices in our society, I immediately become overwhelmed and paralyzed at the magnitude of the problems. And yet, I have found that when I have talked about injustice and inequity with other people who seem to be intelligent and caring it offers a hope, if not for societal healing and equality, then at least the hope that if one person cares, perhaps others will and that the ultimate destruction and “apocalypse” of humanity may not come about. While I remain unresolved in crafting a policy, I invite you to share with me in these reflections of both my paralyzes and my hope.
Due to the magnitude of the problem or perhaps to my inability to get my arms around the problems even in definition, I advocate that a policy to eradicate Poverty be, in itself, simple, however, to address the complexity, the policy would require numerous related policies constellating and complimenting each other. I believe that no one theory or approach will work to solve our problems. We have created a very complex social system and with it, created complex problems. Talking about homelessness, James Wright (1998. Beside the Golden Door, Aldine De Gruyter Press, New York. P. 13) summarizes the three primary theoretical lenses for policy-makers; “Conservative theories of homelessness blame the victims; centrist of services-oriented theories want to repair the victims; social-structural theories want to eliminate the social, political, and economic forces that victimize people in the first place.” To make lasting change I would think we would want to examine poverty utilizing all three lenses in order to evolve a working hybrid.
My Working Class Background
My mother, grew up on a depression-era farm, eventually saved enough money to move to the city and secured work as a book-keeper. My father, too, moved from an Eastern Washington apple orchard life solidly into the Seattle working class. Dad spent our money as though he were going to die in the morning and since he couldn’t take the money with him, at least wanted it all spent on Mother, in contrast, obsessively hoarded canned food, extra sets of dishware, twist-ties to garbage bags, and wouldn’t consider buying my school garments unless the item had been marked down at least three times. Both economic models reverberated with fear at ever being poor again, and even though they had climbed out of Poverty, they promulgated generally accepted stereotypes about poor people being lazy, un-disciplined, and morally defective.
Attending church in the 1980s I heard the same message from the pulpit. In 1980 I joined an inter-denominational missionary agency and we went to Juarez, Mexico with the goal to make sure every home had a bible. People lived in cardboard houses, and streets were not paved, of those that were, the concrete was broken. Bathrooms, which were more like shared outhouses, were filthy and plumbing malfunctioning. A quick walk up any short hill and the El Paso skyline gleamed as though it could be touched. I was horrified both by poverty I had never before seen, as well as hearing others blame the poor, saying it was “their fault”.
Later, driving through White Center, one would imagine it was my first time off of the Queen-Anne, Ballard, and Magnolia triangle. It was not. Again I was horrified; never imaging this kind of poverty could exist in Seattle. I did not form, though was influenced, by the rigid viewpoints assigning blame sometimes to the government, and usually to the poor, however I very willingly left the mental images of poverty behind me. I never wanted to live like that, and as numerous other people, never talked about poverty and avoided it—avoided people—in order to not catch poverty.
A policy to eradicate Poverty would address psychological education for those not currently in poverty, directed toward illuminating the inter-connection of all people. But can we ever mandate or legislate self-awareness? Perhaps we could plan to integrate the poor into all neighborhoods.
Definitions and Associated Values
A. Extreme, Moderate and Relative Poverty. While poverty is real, it is also relative—to a point. There are three degrees of poverty; extreme, moderate and relative. I’d like to use this quote from Jeffrey Sachs (2005, The End of Poverty; Penguin Press. New York. P 20) rather than paraphrase it.
Extreme poverty means that households cannot meet basic needs for survival. They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack the amenities of safe drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education for some or all of the children, and perhaps lack rudimentary shelter—a roof to keep the rain out of the hut, a chimney to remove the smoke from the cook stove—and basic articles of clothing, such as shoe. Unlike moderate and relative poverty, extreme poverty occurs only in developing countries. Moderate poverty generally refers to conditions of life in which basic needs are met, but just barely. Relative poverty is generally construed as a household income level below a given proportion of average national income. The relatively poor, in high-income countries, lack access to cultural goods, entertainment, recreation, and to quality health care, education, and other perquisites for upward social mobility.
While these categories exist, and while it is generally accepted that within the states what we suffer is moderate or relative poverty, and while I suppose we should be able to console ourselves by saying “things could be worse”, let’s not. Let’s omit the sentence “extreme poverty occurs only in developing countries” and remember that the States went through the Depression, went through the 1980s, and are still going through Hurricane Katrina. While I think that creating the action plans to accommodate good policy requires consideration of various levels of poverty, I will not for now be differentiating between the three categories. Ultimately there is no reason to allow poverty to exist at any level.
A policy to eradicate Poverty would need to acknowledge that individuals and families represent unique lacks and that too specific a policy will leave the needs of many poor un-met. Once the obvious needs for housing, food, access to health care and education and safety are answered, listening to the poor in order to discover their framing of the situation will be necessary to continue fine-tuning the various programs.
B. Generational and Situational Poverty: Ruby Payne in Hidden Rules of Class at Work uses a slightly different categorization for her poor. Based upon the pervasive class system, Payne categorizes poverty into generational and situational poverty. “Generational poverty is defined as being in poverty for two generations or longer. Situation poverty is a shorter time and is caused by circumstances (Bridges out of Poverty, P5). These circumstances include many scenarios including the death of a spouse, long-term illness of children, or divorce which more often than not leaves a woman with considerably less financial resources and greater responsibility to raise children than it does the husband, pointing of course to numerous other social injustices
Payne works to reduce poverty through the approach of learning and changing people’s values that are based upon our class, or at least, changing the values of poor people. To simplify, it could be said that if we can only turn poor people into middle-class people, we’ll all be okay. On one hand I cringe at this approach, it sounds too much like blaming victims and to my quasi-spiritual-diversity-initiative-creating-work ears it sounds like exclusion. Yet, on the other hand I see merit as some of her comments resonate with my own thinking on change approaches. I need to remind myself that poverty does not exist just because of social problems and to be able to listen to others who have clearly given more thought to the matter.
To give an example of resonance, one of Payne’s solutions is for corporations to create a mentoring program that mentors lower-class employees in the development of middle-class values. My own work change group tried to set up a mentoring program, and although our goal was to mentor in business skills, it can be argued that middle-class skills and business skills constitute similar and overlapping skill groups. Mentored individuals receive promotions faster than those who are not, and that managers—if they mentor—choose individuals they feel are like them, people they feel will succeed in the same way they did. When I proposed that our Diversity Team at work make the mentoring selections, it was the women of color and the women who had been at working class level or lower, generationally speaking, who refused to adapt the mentoring program as a part of our action plan because they wanted to be mentored by someone who looked like them. Yet, there are so few within any executive pool that looks like them. I believe this is circular reasoning.
Payne wants us to think of poverty as an extent to which an individual is without resources, not simply a monetary lack. Payne lists the following as necessary resources to lift an individual from poverty and to keep them from sinking into poverty:
Financial: Having the money to purchase goods and services.
Emotional: Being able to choose and control emotional responses, particularly to negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior. This is an internal resource and shows itself through stamina, perseverance, and choices.
Mental: Having the mental abilities and acquired skills (reading, writing, computing) to deal with daily life.
Spiritual: Believing in divine purpose and guidance.
Physical: Having physical health and mobility.
Support Systems: Having friends, family, and backup resources available to access in times of need. These are external resources.
Relationships/Role Models: Having frequent access to adult(s) who are appropriate, who are nurturing to the child, and who do not engage in self-destructive behavior.
Knowledge of Hidden Rules: Knowing the unspoken cues and habits of a group.
Coping Strategies: Being able to engage in procedural self-talk and the mindsets that allow issues to be moved from the concrete to the abstract. It is the ability to translate from the personal to the issue.
A policy to eradicate Poverty would acknowledge that individuals and families represent unique strengths and that a systemic and/or holistic approach that would work toward developing these non-monetary resources could have the result of helping people become more self-reliant and psychologically mature.
Government Assistance
How the Government Measures Poverty: Typically, our government does not measure poverty by the available support system, and not by values held by the poor. We measure poverty in the United States by income and by poverty thresholds. Income includes not only earnings, but various benefits including public assistance. A poverty threshold is the dollar amount used to determine poverty status and varies according to the size of the family, to the ages of the family members and the geographic location. The poverty thresholds do not reflect the real family needs but are merely a statistical yardstick.
Public assistance, or Welfare, has a history of mis-management, of discriminating against users, and of having policy and procedure changed so erratically that employees and recipients cannot easily follow the system. And yet, the stereotypes generated about Welfare focus on the poor people, not on the inadequacy of the program. Katz says, (1986. In the shadow of the Poorhouse, Basic Books, NY. p. ix)
Nobody likes welfare. Conservatives worry that it erodes the work ethic, retards productivity, and rewards the lazy. Liberals view the American welfare system as incomplete, inadequate, and punitive. Poor people, who rely on it, find it degrading, demoralizing, and mean. None of these complaints are new; they echo nearly two centuries of criticism. In truth, American welfare hardly qualifies as a system. Diffused through every layer of government; partly public, party private, partly mixed; incomplete and still not universal; defeating its own objectives, American welfare practice is incoherent and irrational.
Katz’s book is a fundamental historical look at how America has treated poor people. He acknowledges that over the last one to two hundred years our collective viewpoints of what and who children are, the value of unmarried women, and concepts about labor all impact our practices. While I do not want to delve into the history, an effective policy maker would take the time to gain historical footing in order to better understand the current situation. An ethical policy maker would also examine their own assumptions regarding the value of children, women, and labor.
A policy to eradicate Poverty would acknowledge the history of Poverty policy and practice within the States; and in specifically analyzing cultural viewpoints toward the poor: namely women and children, could perhaps stop moralizing and supporting punitive measures.
The war against poor people seems to have been around forever. A risk in looking at history is that we must apply some sort of critical rigor or reflection, to keep us from congratulating ourselves over how far we’ve come, rather than seeing how rocky and long the road before us lies. Let us briefly revisit the 1800s wherein the popular theories of eugenics justified immigration restriction and harsh, punitive treatment of paupers (p. 188). Viewed at different times as promiscuous, criminals, mental defectives, and/or immoral, eugenics arrived to offer an explanation for the poor problem. Instead of blaming the inefficiency of the prisons and workhouse, and of the social institutions working toward eradicating poverty, eugenics pointed to origins ineradicably deep within the dependent people themselves. But can we gloat over our ancestor’s ignorance? While we know now, that eugenics was not a scientific theory, and that it lost favor, fortunately, by it’s associations with Hitler, we cannot comfort ourselves by saying that such practices are of a by-gone day, for the hatred and the class and race and gender distinctions continue to thread through modern-day policy showing up in their own unique expressions.
A policy to eradicate Poverty would confront the impact of sexism, racism, and classism upon the poor. While it is unlikely we can legislate inclusive thinking, we can find ways to offer restitution and to raise the platform so that the marginalized and maligned can have opportunity for education and assistance into this capitalist rat-race, that is, until we are ready to re-think the American Dream as something other than material consumerism.
Make ‘em Work
In 2002, Congress began the process of reauthorizing the 1996 Welfare reform law. The agenda calls to strengthen families and to help recipients work toward independence and self-reliance. On the surface, and to individuals entrenched in the middle-class, these two items sound pretty good. Under scrutiny one can see that they are punitive against single-mothers and their children. The plan requires that welfare recipients work forty hours a week. It doesn’t take into consideration the pay on the job, how much of that money will be swallowed by day car and transportation. When I was pregnant, I had to calculate all that out and determine at what pay rate it would worth working instead of staying home. I found it was cheaper to stay home and if I hadn’t been married, I would have had to consider Welfare too, (although the horror of looking like I couldn’t be self-reliant may have stopped me).
John Edwards, who will be throwing in a bid for presidency in 2008, has as a campaign theme: “We must keep America’s promise of opportunity for all. We must build a working society — an America where everyone who works hard finally has the rewards to show for it.” This is similar to Bill Clinton’s campaign theme that, “Any American willing to work hard and play by the rules should have a chance to get ahead.” Although working and middle class people may resonate with this thought, it is nonetheless frames poverty as a moral issue. Again, too, it doesn’t define what is meant by work, leaves out all mention of living wages, and doesn’t ask whether or not “the rules” are in themselves worth our on-going social investment.
Edwards says,” It is wrong when boys and young men father children, but don’t care for them. It is wrong when girls and young women bear children that they aren’t ready to care for…And it is wrong when all Americans see this happening and do nothing to stop it.” (http://www.alternet.org/story/35849/) I have some personal outrage at the far too many cases of men who father children and disappear to let the woman bear the cost. Still, I am finding myself skeptical. I am not sure where racism and where sexism necessarily thread in to Edwards’ policy. He supports actions that I, too, would support, such as increasing the national minimum wage and leveling the playing field between business and unions, but would these extend to all people, and what motivates his policy? I am suddenly aware of my ignorance of the political machine, and become wary of any rhetoric. The motive, whatever it is, will influence how policy plays out on the poor.
To eradicate poverty, we must quit spending our tax dollars on the war machine and re-invest it into the citizens.
Who Are The Poor?
The poor are women: “Two out of three poor adults are women and one out of five children is poor. Women head half of all poor families and over half the children in female-headed households are poor: 50 percent of while children; 68 percent of black and Latin children. A woman over 60 years of age is almost twice as likely as her male counterpart to be impoverished. One-fifth of all elderly women are poor. For elderly black women the poverty rate in 1981 was 43.5 percent; for elderly Latina women, 27.4 percent. Among black women over 65 living alone the 1982 poverty rate was about 82 percent.” (Katz, p. 284).
A policy to eradicate Poverty would not moralize, and would take the blame for being poor off of women and children. Additionally, it would provide for childcare costs, it would provide free contraceptives, make contraceptives a private decision between women and their doctors and would provide child-planning education. A policy would include mechanisms to assist the father in being identified and in helping cover the costs associated with his child’s daily living.
The poor include those who are psychiatrically disturbed: “All societies at all times and places inevitably harbor large numbers of psychiatrically disturbed individuals. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the United States dealt with this issue through large state mental hospitals where homeless people were housed, treated, warehoused, ignored—take your pick. For various reasons, the mental health community—among others—decided that these large mental hospitals did not provide optimal conditions…and thus began the move to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill…(M)ost communities proved ultimately to lack the services mentally ill people living outside institutions would need. Thus, many of the mentally ill became homeless and will remain homeless until the necessary mental health services are created.” (Wright, p 11).
To eradicate Poverty we need to find ways to provide treatment, resources, and housing for the mentally disturbed and for the physically disabled as needed.
The poor also consists of immigrants who speak English as a second language. It consists of drug addicts and substance abusers. It contains elderly people whose social security payments can not compete with the horrific cost of living. The poor includes people who don’t want to abide by the culturally accepted rules, and people who did abide and who never thought they would be poor. The poor is composed of people who work hard, people who hardly work, people who can not work and of displaced workers.
To eradicate Poverty we need to think more clearly on what types of jobs need to be done and to educate those who are already citizens to do those jobs rather than going outside our borders. We need to require all corporations pay citizens a living wage. This would, of course, require that we actually invest in our existing public schools, bringing them up to date in technology, repairing the facilities themselves and the infrastructures, as well as re-incorporating art and bringing in competent therapists with orientations in family-models and systems skills.
To eradicate poverty, after we repair our social systems that make people vulnerable for falling into addiction, then we can begin treating the various substance abusers, providing places that are safe for the transition from one way of living to another.
Summary
How to best address the problems of poverty in our country is no easy task. Those most willing to be vocal are the politicians, which clearly is why creating good policy is an important task citizens should be involved in and speaking out to. After reflecting upon Poverty, however briefly, I can not state which obstacle to good policy daunts us more: general apathy, political manipulation and greed, mis-placed values as evidenced in where our tax dollars go, or widespread ignorance. A good policy, then, would not just correct the current ails, but would also focus on preventative measures. Also, while the government is now not doing enough, it is also true that they can not do everything. We need to determine what a sufficient response is, and what our own responsible response should be. We need to legislate what can be legislated, and find what spiritual solace we can for those things that can not be legislated through the use of our voices.
Bibliography
Books
Funiciello, Theresa. (1993). Tyranny of Kindness; Dismantling the Welfare System to End Poverty in America. The Atlantic Monthly Press, NY.
Katz, Michael B. (1986) In the Shadow of the Poorhouse; A Social History of Welfare in America. Basic Books, NY.
O’Connor, Alice. (2001). Poverty knowledge; Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ.
Payne, Ruby K, PH.D. and DeVol, Philip et al. (2001). Bridges Out of Poverty; Strategies for Professionals and Communities. Aha! Process, Inc. Highlands, TX.
Payne, Ruby K, Ph.D. and Krabill, Don L. (2002) Hidden Rules of Class at Work. Aha! Process, Inc. Highlands, TX.
Sachs, Jeffrey D (2005). The End of Poverty; Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Penguin, New York.
Wright, James D and Rubin, Beth and Devine, Joel; (1998). Beside the Golden Door; Policy, Politics, and the Homeless. Aldine De Gruyter. New York.
Web Resources
John Edwards: Poverty is Personal” by Peter Dreier and John Atlas, AlterNet May 8, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/35849/)
The White House, President George W. Bush, Fact Sheet; President Calls for Action on Welfare Reform. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/print/20030114.html
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