MoJo: What If Everything You Knew About Poverty Was Wrong?

[hootinholler]

Last edited Sun Nov 9, 2014, 02:06 PM - Edit history (1)

What I think is an important article that confirms what many of us already know and informs even more.

Four paragraphs do not suffice! Go read it for yourselves.

A sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, Edin is one of the nation's preeminent poverty researchers. She has spent much of the past several decades studying some of the country's most dangerous, impoverished neighborhoods. But unlike academics who draw conclusions about poverty from the ivory tower, Edin has gotten up close and personal with the people she studies—and in the process has shattered many myths about the poor, rocking sociology and public-policy circles.

===%<----

Unwed black fathers continue to be singled out for special scorn by everyone from conservative gadfly Gary Bauer (who blames them for crime among NFL players) to President Obama, who in 2008 told black churchgoers in Chicago that "what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child" and pledged to address the "national epidemic of absentee fathers."

Over the past two decades, such views helped unleash a torrent of punitive policies aimed at raising the cost of unwed fatherhood. Yet the share of those having kids out of wedlock has continued to soar. In 1990, 28 percent of American births were to unmarried women. Today, it's a record 41 percent, with much of the increase coming among low-income whites. More than a third of all children with single mothers live below the poverty line, four times the rate of those with married parents.

===%<----

But Edin documented that most moms on welfare were already working under the table or in the underground economy, and that lovers, friends, family, and the fathers of their children were pitching in to help. They didn't get legal jobs because of a straightforward economic calculus: Low wages drained by child care, transportation, and other expenses would have left them poorer than they were on welfare.

In a foreword to the book, Jencks notes that this simple math had been kept out of the political debate for years, as conservatives refused to admit that welfare benefits couldn't support a family, and liberals were reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the deceptions. Edin's work forced that discussion out into the open. "I don't think we realize how difficult it is for low-income families living on minimum wage or less than minimum wage to survive," says William Julius Wilson. "That's why that book was so important—it documented what we should have known."

Now watch this drop like a rock.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. What, are you nuts, Hoot?

Trying to contaminate the board with toxic levels of reality?

The Turd Way will get you for this. Liberalism, at least in its palatable form, is all about gay rights, legal abortions, decrying traitorous whistle blowers, reforming social security with chained CPI, giving lip service to climate change while deregulating fossil energy, and keeping taxes down for the Job Creators.

[hootinholler]

5. Let them come for me!

At least this thread will be kicked.

BTW, I actually laughed at the "toxic levels of reality" comment. I'll be snickering all day on that one.

Thanks for all you do JR!

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. Of course it will ...

because the fight against income inequality is not about poor people ... so stuff about poor people is only of passing interest.

[Hortensis]

3. Title eminds me of a study meant to measure the contribution of poverty to higher rates of illness

among the poor. There very much is one, of course, but what they also found again and again was that those high rates included surprising numbers of people driven into poverty by illness. Many were insured, but were still left hopelessly in debt, even after selling their homes -- people who worked hard and did well for decades losing everything they had and becoming destitute or near destitute.

Also, many of those who are poor from unfortunate reverses have managed to hold onto their homes, so that often suburban tract home facades hide people who are flooded with debt and just another little reverse or two away from losing the last of the life they once had.

In so many ways the poor are not who they're made out to be.

[daredtowork]

14. What I discovered through my own situation is

that people often have to turn to welfare because it takes many years to get on to SSI for disability. However, welfare is not designed to keep people afloat. It's designed to punish people and pull the rug out from them and terrorize them with homelessness so "work" will be the better option. It's such a stressful and untenable situation, that I would be surprised if many people who weren't "mentally ill" before can't add that to their SSI claim three years down the road when their case finally comes up.

It's also a problem among rural white folk that they stereotype welfare recipients as "lazy" urban people of color trying to live off their tax dollars, when the actual picture of their recipient is shaping up to be their neighbor with a gradual onset disorder (difficult to pin down for SSI purposes) like Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy.

[Hortensis]

22. That's an interesting observation, Daredtowork. We're living in mean times for sure, but the

but the destructive, immoral branding of all needy as shiftless has its basis in not only a fairly new bigotry toward the needy of all backgrounds, but an honorable ideology of hard work and personal responsibility. Tragically, that's been twisted for their purposes by the big-money interests that have infiltrated our governments at all levels.

I also have a gradual-onset disorder but can still work, thank goodness, and haven't learned personally what you have. Just the thought of having to try to get on "welfare" for lack of Medicaid, say, or the SSI I've paid into for decades makes me stress and take some quick sips from my wine. , but truly. Best wishes. The wheel's welded in place, as well as rusting, but I believe it is starting to turn once again.

[ReRe]

31. [phone]

I know a lady (age about 45) who is waiting for her next hearing for SSI. I can't believe how long it has taken her. A couple years ago, she had a spell with her spine and they didn't think she would ever walk again. She went to the rehab hospital after her long stay in the hospital and with much time they did get her walking again, or at least taking painful baby steps. She never has a good day. Sometimes I don't think she'll live much longer, but she keeps on chugging along. She has no support from the few relatives she has, and a friend has taken her under her wing.

[smokey nj]

4. Very important article, hoot. Thank you for sharing. I hope people read it.

[Live and Learn]

6. K&R nt

[proReality]

7. K&R n/t

[MadrasT]

8. K&R

[riderinthestorm]

9. No way is this allowed to drop! Big K&R!!nt

[suffragette]

10. People need and want connection and community

But our assistance programs have been engineered to inhibit that. And people then work around that as best they can.
It doesn't need to and shouldn't be this way.

Interesting to note from the article that whether the administration was Reagan or Clinton that the people engineering the policy were Republican:


NOT EVERYONE COMES to the same conclusions. Ron Haskins, a Republican architect of the Clinton-era welfare reform, is an old friend of Edin's but thinks she's being too kind to her subjects. Her book, he says, is "extremely valuable. But I think she put the best possible face on these young men. I think it's possible to be much less sympathetic than she is. Someone has to start demanding that these guys shape up."


Explains much about why it has kept getting worse.

[hootinholler]

23. Not just that

The consequences of these policies aren't discussed either. For example, my sister was on public assistance which she needed to continue to qualify for pell grants while in school. Because of that she had to turn over child support payments which exceeded what she got in assistance.

The system is designed to make people fail.

[suffragette]

43. Very true. Experienced that when I was a child on welfare.

There's a punitive side to much of how it works.

On an unrelated personal note, my supervisor recently told me they are eliminating my job. This after 15 years. My last day is Dec 23.

[Mnemosyne]

11. K&R for more visibility. nt

[daredtowork]

12. This ties in to my post yesterday

There was a Duke study that showed politicians won't acknowledge a solution that doesn't fit into their ideology:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/shad-plank-blog/dp-duke-study-solution-aversion-not-science-denial-on-climate-change-20141106-post.html

Hence, as Jencks notes:

simple math had been kept out of the political debate for years, as conservatives refused to admit that welfare benefits couldn't support a family, and liberals were reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the deceptions. Edin's work forced that discussion out into the open. "I don't think we realize how difficult it is for low-income families living on minimum wage or less than minimum wage to survive,"

How is this for simple math: in Oakland, CA - which is notable for its huge crime rate (we like to blame the "criminals&quot , general assistance welfare is, at maximum, $336 a month. That money is a LOAN, not a grant. You get that money only THREE MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR if you're not disabled. The amount of that money gets varied or cut off all together for all sorts of reasons. And, worst of all, until I made a great big huge fuss about it over the last few months, it went directly to your landlord, so there was NO DIRECT CASH AT ALL to pay for basic needs that weren't covered by food stamps! But even if paid in cash, it's still a fraction of the rent for even a "low income" apartment in the Bay Area - which seem to be mythical unicorns anyway - so it's still all going to go to your landlord, leaving N.O.T.H.I.N.G. left for heat/electricity, phone, transportation, hygiene products, toilet paper, light bulbs, band aids, laundry, etc.

And the politicians are still running their campaigns on "welfare queens" while scratching their heads and wondering where all the crime, prostitution, and under-the-table "welfare cheating" is coming from? FOR GOD'S SAKE GET REAL HERE!!! Gitmo was more humane than Oakland.

[deurbano]

13. I did this, too, as a white mother of a child with a disability.

My daughter is severely disabled and I started out with her as a 19-year-old single mother. My now-husband and I got together when she was six, but we didn't marry until she was 21. I didn't want to sacrifice the benefits (mainly MediCal) necessary to address her expensive needs (power wheelchair, etc.), so I had to remain low income. There were some additional benefits that didn't end until she was 21, and that's when we got married. (Mind you, this meant I went without health coverage most of that time, so I was relieved to be added to my husband's policy when we got married.)

My daughter's biological father-- who never paid a dime of child support-- is a white Ditto-head. (Or at least he was the last time she saw him--twenty years ago-- which was only about the third time she had ever seen him.)

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. Must read.

Getting here hasn't been easy. At one point, his first son's mother, who now has two more kids, applied for welfare benefits. Even though White had always supported his son, the state automatically took him to court for child support, just as he got laid off from his truck-driving job.

His unemployment benefits were slow to come, so for about four months he had no income. The state threatened to revoke his commercial driver's license. "My driving privilege was my job," he says. He was able to pay in time to save his license, but the experience reinforced his sense that the welfare system "discourages a lot of guys from wanting to do the right thing. I've got family members right now who don't even want to go work, because once child support gets done with their paycheck they've got $45, and that's not enough to pay their bills," he says.

Instead, they're driven into the underground economy. "Don't get me wrong," White says. "There are some deadbeats out there that deserve that treatment. I'm not defending those guys. I'm defending the guys who actually take care of their kids regardless of a court order."

As an academic, Edin generally shies away from policy recommendations. But she says the way to reunify families is not by beating up on men—particularly when the child support system doesn't recognize the realities of the labor market. "To establish a set of policies that require you to be a superhero doesn't make sense," she says. "These men have a tremendous amount to contribute if we can just find a way."

[malaise]

16. It won't drop like a rock

Rec

[scarletwoman]

17. I won't let this drop if I can help it!

I don't have time right now to read the article at the link, but I've got this thread bookmarked for later.

[surrealAmerican]

18. k & r

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. K&R

[MrScorpio]

20. Kickage

[ReRe]

21. We don't know nothing about poverty

K&R I must come back to this, but will kick it now!

Poverty is more of a killer than I knew? Holey moley! You know... at one time in this country, a person could work their way out of poverty, if they didn't give up because it took so damn long. But the Big Dawg put an end to that. It's my main complaint about the system of Capitalism and of those that knock themselves out of a moral conscience to support it. If capitalism was so GD wonderful, we would have no poverty, and everyone in the world would be fed, clothed and housed.

Back later.

[scarletwoman]

24. Kicking again, as promised. nt

[hootinholler]

30. Thank you! n/t

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

25. .

[Starry Messenger]

26. k&r

[bravenak]

27. Their work programs steer the low income to terrible jobs.

Mostly under ten dollars and trying to get job training for better jobs is nearly impossible.

[historylovr]

28. K & R

[JimDandy]

29. K and R because we need to implement a real solution to this problem.

[ReRe]

32. Rekicking!

[Recursion]

33. Damn good article (nt)

[sibelian]

34. Excellent, K+R. MORE like this please,

s

x

[salin]

35. another K&R

[handmade34]

36. must read

...also because I will be working in Camden in a few weeks!

thanks for the link!

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

37. K&R so it doesn't drop

Great article.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. Great, great article

I'm going to read it again later when I am more awake....

[fasttense]

39. I blame the right of life crowd

For the huge rise in unwed mothers. Not that I think unwed mothers are an evil but the right of lifers are the same group that complains about the immorality of out of wedlock births. Yet by declaring every fetus a person with rights that even supersede the life of the mother, they have made out of wedlock motherhood almost a saintly happening.

Their Constant drumming that an almost routine medical procedure is murder and that women who give up a childfree young adulthood are sacrificing their greedy Nature for the life of a baby, Encourages women to avoid abortions and sacrifice their futures for motherhood.

But when they released their propaganda against abortions, they also unleashed a very strong pro out of wedlock motherhood message. Now they decry The results of their own doing.

[just us]

40. The beginnings

After WWII even blacks that served were not given access to the V.A. benefits and was one of many gripes coming out of the poor blacks. This was the era where the US tried to start a process to help the poor.

The white men after the war were given benefits from mortgages to business loans. It became the wealth base for the white middle class. Money to send your kids to college, start or expand a business, buy a home.
Also their voting power got them good wages for the time.

The only way that the poor could survive was to work around the system. But out of context its very easy for the right to sell this as corruption.

The big cover-up the right is hiding is that whites out numberBlacks,Latinos and Asian.

[bread_and_roses]

41. Yes. Those of us who are poor or know those who are poor

know this, have known this for years. The data has also been available for years. And the data on the failure of Clinton's Welfare Deform has been out there for years. It was bad but marginally manageable for years before Clinton - after, it was far, far worse.

We need a guaranteed national income. Period. Enough of this punitive parsing of need/disability/worthiness. It is stupid, inefficient, expensive, and literally killing people.

[Warpy]

42. Good time for this to come along

since white suburbanites are falling into the same poverty, made even worse by being stuck out in happy never-never land with yards and no public transportation to speak of, certainly no transportation that takes people to jobs in a neighboring suburb without spending 3 hours each way on a bus to go through a city center and back out to a job just five miles away.

Since nice, suburban white folks are now living in poverty, maybe the booboisie will listen to someone who says the fat slattern with five kids by five different baby daddies is the exception, just like it's always been, just like it assumes that raising children isn't work.

...nah, the stereotype's too comfortable, "it can't happen here, not to us."

Except it can and it does.

[myrna minx]

44. I missed this yesterday. Thanks for posting. K&r nt

[progressoid]

45. Rec!