Like many Americans, I struggle to understand why a country as rich in resources and opportunities as the U.S. still has one of the highest poverty rates of any advanced country. So when I spotted Matthew Desmond's Poverty by America on bookshelves, I immediately bought myself a copy, not willing to wait the 2+ months to obtain one of the copies stocked by our local library system. (Because apparently I'm not the only one with similar questions!) Figured Desmond's credentials as an award winning author (his Evicted won a Pulitzer Prize), in addition to the book's hefty 76 pages of annotated footnotes, was likely to ensure a reasoned and data-supported analysis of the issue.
As I'd hoped, the first half of the book spoke directly to my question, addressing the various reasons that poverty persists in the U.S. These chapters left me appropriately enlightened and appalled. The second half of the book then went on to propose realistic solutions, one of which is, basically, "get the word out!" Desmond strongly believes that ongoing politic rhetoric, ignorance, and disinformation mask the fact that poverty reduction unites and benefits us all. For this reason, I'm hoping he won't mind if I use this blog post as a way to "spread the word" about the actual factors that contribute to endemic poverty in this nation, with an eye towards creating an informed populace that will demand that our elected officials support initiatives that lead to actual, lasting poverty emancipation.
To be clear, the prose below is mine (I've summarized Desmond's main ideas in my own, much less artful/precise words), but the ideas and references are all Desmond's. If this topic intrigues you, I strongly urge you to go to the primary source, his Poverty by America, in order to access a wider, deeper, and much more informed analysis of the issues presented below.
As the title suggests, am dedicating this blog post to a discussion of some of the factors that perpetuate poverty in the U.S. Look for my next blog post, in which I'll lay out "10+ Initiatives for Reducing Poverty in the United States," inspired by the latter chapter's of Desmond's narrative. A little hope to leaven the bleakness of the list below!
10+ reasons that poverty is endemic in the U.S.:
- It's profitable. The first thing to understand is that, here in the U.S., poverty is a profit industry. A partial list of some of the folks who profit:
- Landlords, who exploit the desperation of their impoverished customers, lackadaisical oversight, and laws very clearly weighted in their favor to charge above-market rates for often substandard housing. Turns out people will put up with a lot of inequality when their only other option is homelessness.
- Banks, who profit from overdraft and other fees.
- Predatory lenders (payday loan companies, pawnshops) that exploit the fact that many poor people don't have sufficient cash flow to maintain bank accounts and are desperate enough to entangle themselves in loans with interest rates of up to 500%.
- Lawyers hired by the poor in order to obtain the government aid (SSDI, SSI) that they are legally entitled to - lawyers only too happy to provide their services on spec in exchange a portion of the funds their clients are awarded.
- Politicians, who divert federal funding meant for the poor to fund their own pork projects (ex: concerts, stadiums) or to forward their own political agendas (ex: abstinence education in schools). (Do a quick internet search on how Mississippi used welfare money to pay for a volleyball complex and concerts by a gospel singer!)
- Employers, who understand that the easiest way to motivate workers to accept unacceptable jobs (low pay, ruinous hours, unpaid overtime, unsafe conditions) is to make sure their only other choice is hunger and homelessness.
- "Sin industries" such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and the lottery, that exploit the self-destructive behaviours of desperate populations.
- Predatory housing. Many poor in America pay more in rent than they would in mortgage payments. So why aren't they buying homes - one of the most reliable paths to wealth generation in this country? One reason: banks don't make enough profit off of small mortgages to make it worth their while. Another reason: many poor are required to conduct their transactions in cash (landlords/purchasers won't accept any other form of payment), making it difficult for them to establish credit.
- Exclusionary zoning laws. When redlining was nixed, many cities simply switched to exclusionary zoning, figuring that if they couldn't keep "undesirable elements" out, then they could at least exclude the types of housing that attract "undesirable elements" - apartments, subsidized housing. These zoning laws have the effect of concentrating people living in poverty in neighborhoods that are underserved by commercial and public infrastructure, which in turn exposes them to factors that perpetuate poverty, including:
- Over-priced food. In neighborhoods with no grocery stores, people can't leverage warehouse pricing or comparison shop for good deals. And dollar stores, despite their name, are no bargain, forcing people to pay $1 for products that cost much less in other outlets.
- Under-performing schools. Schools in poor neighborhoods have difficulty attracting the programs, funding, and teachers that schools in wealthier neighborhoods insist upon.
- We make accessing benefits too hard. Contrary to the opinion of many Americans, our country's poor are actually pretty bad at being welfare dependent. Every year, billions of dollars remain unclaimed by people who are qualified for the benefits. Why?
- We make it extremely hard for people to apply for benefits. Forms are complicated, directions are wordy, guidance is contradictory, and the process often requires access to the internet, overlooking the fact that poor populations often have limited access to the web (no computers, cellphones with expensive data plans).
- Our current administrative processes are so inefficient, underfunded, and overwhelmed, qualified applicants are often required to reapply multiple times before being found eligible. All too often, the only recourse the poor have is to hire a lawyer to advocate for them, which means forking over 25% of what they win to lawyers who are most definitely *not* poor.
- Companies are incented to exploit workers. Shareholders and the stock markets reward profit without much caring how that profit is extracted. One of the easiest ways to increase profit? Reduce labor costs, a process that is facilitated by:
- A minimum wage that ensures workers remain susceptible to hunger and homelessness, incenting them to continue working no matter how difficult/unjust the conditions.
- Exploitation of workers (often ELLs or undereducated) either unfamiliar with their legally protected rights or unwilling/unable to demand them.
- Mandatory non-compete clauses that limit the ability of workers to sell their skills to the highest bidder. Your employer at Jiffy Lube is cheating you out of overtime? That non-compete agreement they forced you to sign as a condition of employment means you can't apply for a similar job with a competitor. To be clear, we're not talking about tech workers here: we're talking about hair stylists, factory workers, fast food workers, car salesmen, and nurses. These employers aren't concerned about proprietary information; they're using non-competes as a way to trap employees and limit wage competition.
- A legal system that is designed to discourage collective action through laws that give employers wide scope to discourage unionization and punish potential organizers.
- Unfair taxation policies. While our income tax is ostensibly "progressive" (based on income level), many taxes - sales taxes, property taxes - are not. In fact, the % of overall income that poor people pay in taxes ends up being almost as high as what our wealthiest citizens pay. (If you're thinking that it feels counterproductive to give poor people public assistance and then collect 25% of it back in taxes, then you're right.)
- Our health care situation. Obamacare and Medicare provide some coverage, but few of these policies are free or comprehensive, and people who live on the margins of poverty - just enough to get by - often don't qualify for the subsidies they need. Exacerbating this situation is the fact that people who live in poverty often have more extreme, endemic health issues, due to (among other factors) poor nutrition, lack of appropriate preventative care, and inability to pay for prescriptions over time.
- Our child care situation. It's impossible to overestimate the impact of our country's child care system on the poor. Child care can consume up to 50% of the take home earnings generated by a typical minimum wage job. Assistance programs that require single parents to work in order to qualify for benefits are ensuring that those single parents will remain impoverished. (Meanwhile, due to our broken and politicized healthcare system, women who wish to delay pregnancy often lack the means to maintain sustained access to birth control.)
- The way we do jail. Jail may or may not rehabilitate prisoners, but it does pretty much doom them to lives of poverty. Untrained in any usable skills, disqualified by employers reluctant to hire them, often disconnected from the support system of their families by policies that house prisoners in jails far removed from their homes & restrict phone calls ... these individuals face often insurmountable odds when it comes to building wealth.
- Programs that accommodate poverty without alleviating it. Too many of our social programs - including food stamps, housing assistance, and health care - are designed to help the poor survive rather than help them build wealth.
- Absence of choice. One of the least understood but most insidious factors trapping people in poverty: absence of choice. A huge part of being an efficient consumer is being able to avail oneself of choice: the choice to join a discount warehouse, to visit a doctor that's preapproved by your insurance, to select a bank that doesn't impose steep fees, to shop for bargains utilizing information accessible via the internet. But these options often aren't available to people who lack access to reliable transportation and/or internet access, who can't afford to take time off work, or who are simply too exhausted after their 60-80hr work weeks to engaged in informed consumerism.
