Transcript Document

Poverty
In most areas of the U.S., a family of four must
have an annual income of $36,000 to afford the
basic necessities of life like food and housing.
This is double the federal poverty level.
Source: (Low-Income Children in the United States, 2003, National Center for
Children in Poverty)
Individual Choice,
Responsibility
&
Free - Will?
Social Circumstances
Beyond One’s
Control?
Losing Ground: American
Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
Charles Murray
According to Murray, America has a permanent underclass of
unproductive citizens who prefer to live on welfare. They are
unwilling to make the effort to hold a responsible job and get
ahead in life. They remain in poverty by choice. Since their
children receive little educational encouragement at home and
become mired in a cultural setting that destroys the work ethic,
they grow up to be copies of their parents thereby perpetuating
the existence of an underclass.
Such people do exist - in the millions - 3 to 6 million. They are
the toughest challenge for policymakers because almost nothing
about their lives equips them to escape from poverty and the
circumstances that surround them.
Poverty in the United States
But -- recent estimates indicate that the “underclass” make up
only 10 to 20 percent of the roughly 36 million - one in eight
Americans - who live below the poverty line.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor
Statistics, for the year 2000, 6.4 million people - 20.7 percent of
all poor people - were classified as the “working poor”: individuals
who spent at least 27 weeks in the labor force (working or looking
for work), but whose incomes fell below the official poverty level.
The majority of the working poor—three-fifths— were full-time
workers
[14.8% off all poor people]
Among those in the labor force for 27 weeks or more in 2000, about
6.4 million were classified as the working poor.
The working poor thus made up 4.7 percent of all persons who spent at
least 27 weeks working or looking for work.
Persons employed in occupations that usually do not require high levels of
education and that are characterized by relatively low earnings were more
likely to be among the working poor. For example, 10.3 percent of service
workers were classified as working poor in 2002. Service occupations, with
2.2 million working poor, accounted for 29.3 percent of all those classified
as the working poor.
Poverty in the United States
Despite working, these people remain poor because they hold
menial, dead-end jobs that have no benefits and pay the
minimum wage or below.
The federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour adds up to only
$10,712 for full-time work (before taxes).
It takes $8.20 an hour for a full-time worker to earn enough
money to reach the poverty level for a family of four.
The two million Americans working in nursing homes earn,
on average, between $7 and $8 an hour.
The median wage of the estimated 2.3 million child-care
workers is $6.60 an hour, usually without benefits.
Nearly one quarter of all workers – more
than 28 million in all -- earn less than
$8.78 an hour, the amount needed to lift
a family of four above the poverty line
with full-time work (about $18,200 a
year).
(Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working
America 2002-03, p. 355)
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html
Which is the bigger cause of poverty today — that people are not
doing enough to help themselves out of poverty, or that
circumstances beyond their control cause them to be poor?
TOTAL
DEMOCRAT
REPUBLICAN
INDEPENDENT
People not doing enough
48
37
63
48
Circumstances
45
57
31
46
If the government were willing to spend whatever it thought was
necessary to eliminate poverty in the United States, do you think
that this is something that could be accomplished, or not?
Yes
47
56
34
47
No
49
40
61
50
Which of the following statements comes closer to your own views:
Poor people today have it easy because they can get government
benefits without doing anything in return, or poor people have
hard lives because government benefits don’t go far enough to
help them live decently?
TOTAL
DEMOCRAT
REPUBLICAN
INDEPENDENT
Easy
46
38
60
45
Hard
43
55
28
45
Do you think that most welfare recipients today really want to
work or not?
Work
47
55
37
48
Not Work
44
38
55
41
Michael O. Emerson
Professor of Sociology
Rice University
Christian Smith
Professor of Sociology
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Explaining Racial Economic Equality: The Interviews
(N=117)
The large majority – nearly three-quarters -- answered in
terms of “lack of motivation” and “cultural” deficiencies (i.e.,
bad choices, bad relationships) which are seen in terms of
individual decisions, not culturally rooted values.
“Black Americans lack hope and vision; they lack ability to see
what is truly possible.”
African Americans – according to many of the respondents – are
not true accountable free-will individualists, are relationally
dysfunctional, and sin both in relying on programs rather than
themselves, and by shifting blame to structurally based reasons
for inequality.
Anti-structuralism
Since race problems are seen essentially as individually
based, such social structural explanations as unequal access
to resources, segregation, or institutional discrimination are
deemed by many White evangelicals as either irrelevant or
simply wrongheaded.
Moreover, evangelicals generally believe that sinful individuals
typically deny their own personal sin by shifting blame
somewhere else, such as on “the system.”
Evangelicals are selectively aware of social institutions – they see
those that both impact them in their own social location and tend
to undermine accountable free-will individualism; ie. affirmative
action programs.
Blaming the Victim
William Ryan
There is a marked tendency in our society for people in fortunate
circumstances to “blame” people in less fortunate circumstances for
their plight. Rather than focus on broader social factors—factors
that are often beyond the immediate control of individuals—that
might contribute to ones’ situation, people seek to explain it by
referring to some sort of character failing. The poor, for example,
are often thought of as defective personalities or deficient moral
types. They are people who do not share “our” values; they are not
“like” us. Their impoverishment is their own fault. They are
“deserving” of their situation and thus “undeserving” of our society’s
aid. “If only they worked harder. . . .”
Blaming the Victim
William Ryan
According to Ryan, blaming the victim involves
four simple steps:
1.
Pick a social problem.
2.
Decide how people who suffer from the problem
differ from everyone else.
3. Define these differences as the cause of the problem.
4. Respond to the problem by trying to change the
victims, not the larger society.
Blaming the Victim
William Ryan
Blaming those who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances for their
situations serves to reduce others’ psychic discomfort. “Could it happen to
me, too?”
“Blaming the victim” reinforces the consoling notion – for those in fortunate
circumstances – that life is fair. People get what they deserve. Bad things
happen to bad people.
“That couldn’t happen to me because I am not like them. I’m responsible.
I work hard. Bad things happen to bad people”
Blaming the Victim
William Ryan
How consoling is the converse: Bad things happen to good people.
“Even though I work hard and do everything right, I, too—because of
circumstances beyond my control—could end up like them?”
The fact that the overwhelming majority of the poor are also loving
parents, churchgoers, law-abiding citizens, and good neighbors seems
immaterial.
There is considerable evidence that, when asked about their values,
poor people sound as much or more mainstream than most
better-off Americans.
Maximum Monthly Benefits
TEXAS
(Family of 3, no income reported)
1996 (AFDC)
1998 (TANF)
2000 (TANF)
[48% of median]
Monthly Food Stamp Allotment
Per Person (2000)
US (Median)
$ 188
188
201
$ 415
421
421
$ 75.98
$ 72.78
For the year 2000:
$75.98 x 3 = $227.94
$72.78x3= $218.34
+ $201.00
+$421.00
monthly allowance
$428.94
$639.34
$13,738
x 12
x 12
yearly payment
$5,147.28 37.5% - 55.9% $7,672.08
“Getting Something for Nothing”
Yearly Payment
TANF + FS
TEXAS
$5,147.28
U.S. Median
$7,672.08
Tax Deduction for interest payments on mortgage
7% mortgage - 30% tax bracket
Interest Payment
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
$350,000
$400,000
$450,000
$500,000
$10,602
$14,136
$17,670
$21,204
$24,738
$28,272
$31,806
$35,340
Tax Refund
$ 3,181
$ 4,241
$ 5,301
$ 6,361
$ 7,421
$ 8,482
$ 9,542
$10,602
Absolving the Rich
Demonizing the Poor
“Governor Declares Welfare Fraud Program a Major Success”
In 1996 New York Gov. Pataki: “finger imaging” to weed out welfare cheats.
Roughly 25,000 of cheating were detected – 3.4% of the 747,000 cases
Texas TANF Fraud – 1998
According to testimony presented to the Senate Committee on Human
Services the Texas Department of Human Services disqualified only 3.2%
of its entire TANF caseload for fraud in FY 1998.
Money involved amounted to 1% of the TANF + Food Stamp program.
Much of Food Stamp fraud is perpetrated by retailers. The biggest fraud
case in Texas [February 1998 – March 31, 1999] involved six store owners
in Houston defrauding the FS program of more than $2 million.
Absolving the Rich
Demonizing the Poor
According to the latest Roper Poll conducted for the IRS
Oversight Board
24%
OK to cheat
11%
OK to cheat “a little here and there”
5%
cheat “as much as possible”
According to IRS figures, 17 cents of every dollar owed in federal taxes is
never paid
IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti testified at Senate Finance
Committee Hearings that taxpayer non-compliance – underreporting
income and fabrication of deductions –costs the federal government –
not including offshore funds.
2000
1998
1996
$250 billion
$195 billion
$170 billion
Texas rates second in the
nation for hungry families.
It is estimated that 1.1 million
children in Texas are hungry
or at risk of hunger. This is
32% of all Texas children.
Source: Center for Public Priorities 2002
and America’s Second Harvest 2003
Families and Children in Texas
In Texas, there are 2,947,658 families, with 5,722,847 children.
Low-Income Families: 41% (1,214,809) of families with children are low-income (National: 34%).
Families in Poverty: 17% (500,898) of families with children are poor (National: 14%).
Low-Income Children: 46% (2,628,237) of children live in low-income families (National: 37%).
Children in Poverty: 20% (1,170,325) of children live in poor families (National: 16%).
Many low-income parents in Texas families are employed
63% (771,338) of low-income families include at least one parent who is employed
full-time/ year-round.
25% (305,379) of low-income families include only parent(s) who are employed
either part-year or part-time.
Just 11% (138,093) of low-income families have no employed parents.
In Texas, parents with limited education are more likely to be low-income
36% (433,507) of low-income families are headed by parent(s) who do not have
a high school degree.
Only 7% (120,689) of all other families are headed by parent(s) who do not
have a high school degree.
Low-income families in Texas are more likely to be headed by a single parent
43% (520,969) of low-income families are headed by a single parent.
19% (321,192) of all other families are headed by a single parent.
In Texas, black and Latino children are more likely to live in low-income families
22% of white children live in low-income families.
51% of black children live in low-income families.
66% of Latino children live in low-income families.
In Texas, young children are more likely to live in low-income families
50% of children under age 6 live in low-income families.
43% of children age 6 or older live in low-income families.