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Is personal responsibility the key to ending poverty?
People walk past a homeless woman. Two commentators on both sides of the political spectrum talk about why people are poor and what they can do about it.
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Melissa Boteach is the Director of the Poverty and Prosperity Program for the Center for American Progress.
Charles Murray is an economist and author of the 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve
How do you fix poverty? It's a question many people have struggled to answer. Poverty experts Charles Murray and Melissa Boteach have very different views. Murray, of the American Enterprise Institute, believes that making the right personal decisions is the key to curbing poverty in America.
“In a good job market, to be poor -- if you are physically able -- is a choice. Right now the government subsidizes bad decisions; it masks the consequences of doing things at a young age that will blight the rest of your life," said Murray.
Murray says these three rules must be met to not end up in poverty:
- Finish high school.
- If you’re a woman, don’t have a baby if you don’t have a husband.
- Get into the labor force and stay there.
Murray says that the thought process in America used to be that if you were a male, you worked or you looked for work. He said the thought of not doing this was socially unacceptable. He claims that has changed and is a sign of a fundamental shift in basic American values.
"If you're a middle class kid, if you you're an upper-middle class kid, mom and dad will rescue you. Does that mean we shouldn't hold the poor to the same standards?" Murray asked. "Why is it that middle class and upper middle class kids have much higher rates of getting into the labor market, such lower rates of having babies without husbands? They have been told this is the way you're supposed to live your life" said Murray.
Murray argues that society should do a better job of telling kids from disadvantaged backgrounds that certain decisions have to be made in order to obtain a better life.
Boteach, director of the Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, sees the problem of poverty differently. She said that progressives and conservatives agree that personal responsibility -- mixed with public and private initiatives to lift people up -- is a key strategy in fighting poverty.
“The best ticket out of poverty is a good job. For working age adults, people have a responsibility to look for work and support themselves. In turn, we have a responsibility to make sure there are opportunities to do that and that we’re removing barriers to work," she said.
Boteach believes that opportunities need to be created for people to succeed. She said that it’s not only personal responsibility, but it is also the government’s job to create pathways to opportunity.
“Poor people’s needs, ambitions and desires are not different from the middle class. They want a job that has living wages so they can support their family. There are a lot of barriers in the way from moving from their situation to the middle class. They’re willing to work hard, try and put in that personal responsibility and we need to meet them halfway," she said.
It is absurd that any airtime was ever given to Charles Murray. The idea that the poor choose to poor isn't just ethically wrong and disproved by the fact that our society doesn't remotely resemble a meritocracy, but it's also literally impossible. If every single poor person suddenly became very hard-working and responsible, does he think that every low paying that they're currently working would work itself?
This is actually the reason why any opinion that issues related to poverty can be resolved by the poor behaving more responsibly is wrong. The job market is effectively a zero sum game in the sense that a significant portion of jobs are relatively unskilled and will always have a large labor pool to draw from, forcing down wages. Every single poor person could be a hyper-responsible genius, but it wouldn't change the fact that someone needs to work these jobs for society to function. And those jobs will never pay well (without pressure from the government, at least), because, under our economic system, there will always be an army of reserve labor to draw from (the unemployed).
It makes me very angry when I see these opinions expressed and taken seriously by public radio. The people who promote them deserve no respect. Not only are they demonstrably wrong at a fundamental level, but they're also morally repulsive because of what they imply - that the poor are somehow inferior and deserve their situation, which in turn encourages less social welfare and ultimately results in atrocities like food insecurity among children in the wealthiest nation on the planet. People like Murray should not be treated as people who you happen to disagree with politically; they're scum and should be treated as such. Not only should their voices not be heard on the radio or television, but they should be ostracized by society until they realize how repugnant their views are.
Gee, Mr. Murray, why don't we listen to you?
Because all women have to do is not have babies. But -wait, are women now able to get pregnant by themselves?
Oh, and of course, middle class kids don't get pregnant the same way lower class kids do - is it because they're not having sex?
No, it's not. It's because middle and upper class kids have access to birth control and abortion without conservative hypocrites like Charles Murray preaching at them - a luxury denied poor kids or poor women.
So here's a thought, Mr. Murray - why doesn't the American Enterprise Institute start promoting more birth control for teenagers? Why doesn't it fight every effort in this country to limit abortions? Hell, why doesn't it push for a national database of men who have fathered children and yet don't pay child support? Because even women who have waited to have children and have been married still fall into poverty when they get divorced and dad skips out on child support.
Because that by your own sanctimonious preachings might help reduce poverty in this country - but of course, it would also upset your conservative base.
How about this, a jobs mandate. If you are recieving assistance and a job opens up that you can do then you have to take it or lose all of your benefits. Second create a public private non profit that not only teaches people a trade but gives them a house of their own when they complete the program. Third, stop demolishing houses in this country instead give them to the nonprofit. Use the money that is currently being used to demolish houses, 1.8 Billion a year, and use that money to pay salaries to the unemployed. Take other government wasted money and add it to the project as well. Instead of talking about the FISCAL CLIFF let's start talking about the FISCAL LIFT. Use the tax money that comes in to create more of these jobs. No one would complain about creating more jobs, re. customers would they? Just doing this one idea would create several million jobs yearly, be revenue nuetral, train millions in the trades, take most people off of all government assistance. PS. if anyone wants to see if this would work for you then place this ad in the classifieds, FREE Demolition, call you. Buy the salvage rights for the entire house for $1.00. Now you have a whole house for $1.00 To bad there isn't a training mandate in the country to show what to do next. If you want the answer to what to do next call me, 4342285357. At least I'll get some people out of poverty.
Not having a job is a choice. It may not be the best choice, but it is a choice. I choose to take a job that pays less than "a living wage", and took another job that pays less than a living wage, and a third job that pays less than a living wage. Three part time jobs in a city where people tell me "there are no jobs". My highest pay is $10.48 an hour. If I quit my jobs my family would qualify for Medicaid, SNAP, and help with the utility bills among other things. then I could stay at home and play WoW all day long like my neighbor.
He has two less kids than we do, his girlfriend works while he stays at home and watches their kid. I get to see them a lot because I watch my kids in the day while the wife works, then she watches them while I work at night.
One of my employers was looking for drivers, you just had to have a mostly clean driving record and not use drugs. Started at $10 an hour, had benefits for part timers too. He was not interested because "it did not pay enough to make it worth doing". He would lose access to several of the aid programs they were on, and the only way he could stay on Medicaid would be to marry the mother of his kid he lived with.
He made a choice. I made a choice. Why is it that we never hear about homeless illegal immigrants? Instead we hear about immigrants working three jobs, running businesses, sleeping in the back of the store they run, everyone in the family working 60 hours a week.
If you are physically able, you can find a job. There are lots of programs, government and private, that offer training to get those "good" jobs. Paramedic programs cost less than $3,500 and jobs start at $15 an hour (close to what Ford is paying new hires in the area, $16 hour). The cost of a used car. (something most "poor" have, along with LCD TV's, $500 smart phones, eating out three times a week, etc)
Everytime I see a self-righteous blow-hard like Murray, I want to scream. I finished HS and I have a 4 year degree in IT. I've never smoked, done drugs, drank excessively, nor do I have a criminal record. Staying in the workforce is the really hard part. As if being unemployed and under great financial stress were not enough, there are many people that consider unemployment benefits an unacceptable drain on the economy that must not be tolerated. The psychological damage done by lengthy unemployment can only be understood by those who have experienced it. Being judged by the GOP in general, and the Tea Party in particular as being lazy, unmotivated, and even more insulting words, adds to that damage, even when you are past that lengthy unemployment.
Personal responsibility is a huge part of financial success. The photo has a poor woman smoking a cigarette. It may be a stereotype but it is probably the primary sign of someone who makes poor decisions. When I see people who have jobs but don't invest, Who have children but no Life insurance, Who have jobs but constantly use credit cards instead of saving. When I see people who refuse to pay themselves first and build an emergency fund and then cry when their company has to down size and they are let go. Why not have a spare career as a backup to a full time job? Why not teach in schools and colleges that a salary is an expense for a business. Why not teach people that banks are for savings not investments. I feel sorry for them but I don't blame the government.
Your system ate my original scholarly objection to appealing to Mr. Murray as a moral authority, given his highly controversial and scientifically bogus contributions to the field of eugenics: "In the last chapter they say they will be pleased if the book brings a discussion of how to "manipulate the fertility of people with high and low I.Q.'s." So I'll just say a rigged system, not greater or lesser measures of personal responsibility, is the biggest determiner of success. Until and unless we change the rules that allocate resources and reward financialization at the expense of human need, more and more of us are going to find ourselves on the wrong side of Mr. Murray's disapproval...
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/magazine/daring-research-or-social-sci...
Interesting.
What do you attribute to people like myself that have worked in the high technology arena for decades earning in the top 15 percent of salaries who can no longer buy an interview?
Do you think it could be discrimination because:
1. We went into the military at a young age.
2. We are over 50 now
3. Aw hell, I could go on and on, but what is the use.
If you have your mind made up that people are useless, nothing on heaven and earth can change your mind.
For myself, I will continue to fight these things so that I can do my part to Keep America At Work
