Yeah. That reality is a major reason for my progressive politics. Plus the fact that my parents both grew up poor, obviously through no fault of their own, and I think a rich nation should do more to help it's poorest.
I'm trying not to sound flip, but I challenge you to a thought experiment -- perhaps with real money, if you like.
Take some of your own money. Go find a poor person. Use your money to make them less poor. It's easy, really. If the nation can do it, surely you or I could do it as well, right?
The goal of this experiment is to take away lofty ideals and ask practical questions: just what are we supposed to do that is going to help? Just what really helps and does not hurt poor people?
So pick a strategy and pay for it. Let's agree to come back in three years and see how they are doing.
You'll find that there are only three cases: 1) the person is poor because they continue to make poor choices, perhaps due to addiction, mental capacity, or emotional issues, 2) the person is temporarily poor due to circumstances outside of their control and is quite able to get ahead in the world if given time and left alone, 3) the person is somehow trapped by circumstances outside of their control which will not go away: medical bills, bad spouse, etc.
#1 and #3 aren't going anywhere -- by definition they have chronic issues which money will not fix. No amount of mental therapy is going to make a drug addict into a banker: recidivism for drug addiction is around 95%. No amount of money is going to take the wife of a crack addict wife-beater and turn her family into Oprah's.
For #2, those guys are going to do well anyway. Sure, if you want to lend a helping hand to make yourself feel better, go for it. But don't kid yourself that you're the one making the difference. The difference comes from inside, not from outside.
I'm not saying don't help people. I'm saying that lofty, praiseworthy feel-good rhetoric does not fix a damn thing. Instead everybody just smiles and nods and agrees to spend money. If you or I have a hell of a time fixing one poor person, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to do it for us. It's also a lazy man's morality -- I'd like to help people today, but I'd rather write a check (or even better, make the rich guy down the street write a huge check) and just go take care of it, okay?
Never underestimate the power of one well placed community center.
I know guys who have had the entire course of their lives altered by one mentor at one afterschool program. A lifetime of welfare checks could not have done so much.
As a participant in this thought experiment, you can (and should) use whatever resources you might have available. If volunteering at a community center is the thing, then you would go down there and do that. The question is: given whatever you want, what would you practically do?
I'll touched on the two follow-up questions, but they weren't the point 1) if you've got an answer, why aren't you doing that right now? and 2) do you feel it is moral to take your best guess for fixing poverty and push it on the rest of us? Would you mandate community center service, for instance, or do you think writing a check for somebody working at a community center has the same effect as somebody who has a life purpose for doing it? (and how would you tell the difference? What if there's simply not enough people who really care about working at community centers? What then?)
Those are great follow-ups, and the conversation should continue along those lines, but really, the point was what practically was supposed to make a difference if you personally had to do it. Not some generalities about some program that looked good on 60 minutes. What you would go do right now to make one person not poor. There's Bob. Bob is poor. Go make him not poor.
I have helped several people become less "poor" by:
1) Teaching money management skills. The payback for a poor person investing 20$ to avoid a late fee can be huge. Poor people are so used the "fees" that it often quietly crushes them.
2) Suggesting a change of vocation. Not all low skill jobs pay crap.
3) Loaning money for an unexpected expense that was going to cost someone their new job. Their pay bump was going to cover the cost but they need the money before they could get to work...
4) Convincing someone to stay on Methadone.
PS: Ok, in a thought experiment I guess you could hand them a million a week which would solve most peoples problems, but that does not really scale.
If volunteering at a community center is the thing, then you would go down there and do that. Can do. have done. But most of my volunteering has been fixing stupid "for want of $100" problems. Volunteers like the ones you speak of can line up but if there's no electricity, it doesn't matter.
do you feel it is moral to take your best guess for fixing poverty and push it on the rest of us? No. I feel its moral to use what science we can muster and use a results based approach to choose very wise uses of the limited resources we have.
There's Bob. Bob is poor. Go make him not poor. To help Bob (in this case) would require time travel. But Bob's son is a whole different matter. I can't cure stage 4 melanoma, but I can tell people to wear sunscreen.
I ran into him once a week, giving him as much as I could. $20 sometimes. Then I stopped seeing him. About six months later, I ran into him again, but it took me a while to recognize him. He looked great. A guy was reconstructing a house in the Berkeley hills and after meeting him, got him some work on the project. It was all he needed.
The U.S. spends a lot in taxes, and that money goes to such areas as defense, where "throwing money" at a situation is considered the norm, not the exception. Halliburton has gigantic, fat contracts in Iraq, for example.
I would rather we "throw money" at our neighbors when they're down on their luck, and donate money for tanks and B2 bombers. There's Iraq. Iraq is fucked. Go make it not fucked with your own money.
That's a really heartwarming story. Unfortunately, it's a single data point. We certainly can't expand that to cover all poor people, right?
After hearing people speak at RU meetings (and others), many of them had a single purpose in life: get high, gambling, etc (whatever said person's vice was). I've never personally heard of a perfectly fine individuals thrown out onto the streets, though I don't doubt it happens. However, where are the family members and friends? That would be the first place I turned - I'm not proud (not implying he was).
Side note: If someone is poor because they blew all their money on drugs, then lost their job and found themselves on the streets, I don't want to "throw" money at that problem. Sure, I'll buy a meal/gift card (or other necessities) as I've done in the past, but I'm not blindly trusting someone in that position. I wouldn't expect anyone to blindly trust me.
> The U.S. spends a lot in taxes, and that money goes to such areas as defense ...
Ok, we realize that number is about 20% - where is the other 80% going? There's a lot to fix other than just getting out of Iraq.
You want to know how to fix the problem of dealing with the poor? Change people's hearts. A caring, loving people will do more than any government sponsored program will. Unfortunately, the average US citizen is so far removed from the everday reality many others face. Their only insight into those struggles are the latest sob story drama of an American Idol contestant (or a Christian Children's Fund commercial). It's pathetic.
Sit quietly and really ask yourself if you think that was my point. Dan posted something that put the poor into three categories, all of which said, "You can't really help them." And that's a bullshit rationalization. America has little in the way of economic safety nets compared to most western industrialized countries and it shows. America also spends more on defense than every other nation in the world -- combined -- and it shows.
If you change your priorities, you change your results.
Everyone arguing in these threads on HN - a bastion of privilege - should come live in a place like Vienna for a couple months. I've always been an advocate of the idea that a society is only as strong as its weakest member, but you can't know what you're missing in the US until you really experience it.
See the lack of fear in the cashier's eyes. Experience what a society is like when not a single person in it is worrying that he or she might get fired if they miss days of work due to sickness or a child's sickness.
See the total lack of homeless people.
See how it can be when all the sick are cared for, and the poor have good housing -- very nice community housing, that anyone in the country can live in, with a waiting list (poor and needy have priority), keeping them from being slums.
Everything here is better. Everyone here may live with dignity. That makes an enormous difference.
I can think of two things the government could do that would help poor people, while not costing anything (this is in the UK, but most probably applies to other countries):
1. Housing. Housing is very expensive in the UK, mostly because of govmt policies (incidently the people making these policies personally profit from them, surprise surprise). Reverse these policies and the cost of a house could easily be reduced to £20,000. -- http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/housing-policy-and...
2. allow people on low incomes to set up a "microbusiness" that as long as its turnover is less than £2000 a year, doesn't reduce the benefits they get. Any such businesses that currently exist are part of the illegal economy and not paying tax anyway, so the govmt wouldn't lose any revenue. -- http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/reforming-the-bene...
You are essentially saying is that only addicted, mentally ill or people with abusive spouses are permanently poor, everyone else is just temporarily poor. I think that indicates a monumental disconnect with reality.
Fact is, someone can work full-time in this country and still not be able to feed their family. How are they going to get ahead when not working because you are looking for a better job (let alone getting more education) would mean not feeding your family in the meanwhile?
I thought it particularly telling that you think case #3, "trapped by circumstances like medical bills" can not be fixed by money. Universal health coverage would take care of that one, for sure.
I earned a B.S.M.E, worked as a professional engineer and then switched to IT, because I wanted to and because I could, partially as a result of having a degree. This improvement in my life also enabled me to develop a startup in my spare time. I know that it would have been 10,000 times more difficult or impossible to do it without that help and opportunity.
The great part for the good 'ol U.S.A. is that they now have an extremely productive, $30k+/yr. tax paying citizen who is giving and will continue to give a great return on their investment. Assuming I don't get hit by a bus. ;)
(Daniel) I'm not saying don't help people.
I'm asking you what you personally would do.
Stick to the topic, guys. If you don't like the 3 choices I presented, fine. Provide your own. I didn't say people couldn't move between scenarios. Still stick to the topic. What would you personally do to make one person stop being poor?
To say you're glad I wasn't in charge assumes you know me. You do not. I've made my way from homeless to a pretty good life as a consultant. But telling my story is not the point of this question. Neither is any of the other smoke that is getting thrown up.
You ask what I would personally do to make one person stop being poor? Well, it worked for me, so I would give that person the opportunity and the means to do so in the form of money for higher education. You can't personally teach the masses one on one.
I do agree with some of your points, but it seems that you are asserting that money isn't the answer. I disagree. If college were free then money wouldn't be the answer.
But college is free. MIT is free for people who make less than $100k/year. Stanford is free for people who make less than $100k/year. Amherst is free for people who make less than $60k/year. Most other private colleges will give full rides for people of the income level that this article is talking about.
Is money still the answer?
Also, this only extends to international students at, again, the best schools. When I applied for college several years back, I think it was only five schools that were need-blind to international students (they were also very generous with that aid). There might be more schools that do so now but I can't imagine it's substantially more.
I am in India. I too can't do anything to help the poor but my government sure as hell can (and the good thing, at least for the moment, is that it is doing so).
(For instance, tax money can be and should be spent on policies, subsidies, etc that make education cheaper for everyone and make usury extremely difficult to practice. These are the real ways in which rich nations can help their poor. Seriously, how much money did you give to AIG and friends and how much money would it take to provide free college education for everyone in the US who could get through the selection process?)
If you grow up in an environment where getting good grades is actively discouraged by your peer group, your parents have poor/counterproductive parenting skills, you consequently have low cognitive abilities, and you have every incentive to drop out and sell drugs, then it's possibly too late, and no amount of cash in your pocket is going to help you. But if you have good parents, grow up in an environment that values education and that's safe enough and free enough of distractions so that you can learn, then you'll likely be in your category #2 above. Small advantages that begin at infancy accrue and snowball over a lifetime, and that's one reason why middle/upper class kids _generally_ tend to grow up to be middle/upper class adults.
From http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/970417/mayer.shtml --
"Increasing parental income not enough, according to study Increasing parental income alone is not enough to break the cycle of poverty, according to a new study by Susan Mayer, Associate Professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.
Even if their incomes increase, parents who have experienced persistent periods of poverty often have such problems as chronic illness and low cognitive skills that make it difficult for them to help their children escape poverty, Mayer reports in her new book, What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances. . . . The study shows that non-monetary factors play a bigger role than previously thought in determining how children are able to overcome disadvantage, Mayer explained. "Parent-child interactions appear to be important for children's success, but the study shows little evidence that a parent's income has a large influence on parenting practices.""
So in answer to your question, what would I do to help the poor, I'd say it'd have nothing to do with spending my money and everything to do with spending my time, say, tutoring and hopefully inspiring a child.
Thanks. You are one of the few who have answered without spinning off somewhere else.
By the way, I do not know the answer to my question -- that's the reason I asked. I'm interested in hearing people's responses. I'm dubious as to your "creating institutions" statement -- it sounds wonkish, the type of thing to come out of a study or institute without being overly practical.
From observing myself and others who have come out of poverty, it is not intelligence, or money, or luck that makes the difference, most of the time. It's having personal one-on-one examples as a child, having a good attitude, and basically trying and not giving up. 90% of life is simply showing up.
I can observe, however, that western societies are creating multi-generational poverty. LBJ sat on a porch in Appalachia 40 years ago and declared a war on poverty. Since that time the U.S. has spent trillions and has the same basic poverty rate it had before. In fact, the same place LBJ stood is still an impoverished area.
I feel like there is a long, long, long way from where the politicians and spin doctors are, and what makes a real difference. I am also dubious that you can take the things that work and scale them. In the end, I think it comes down to religiously-motivated, local groups, personally trying to make a difference one person at a time. I don't think any of that scales very well. Although some people (mainly the ones looking for funding) would like us to believe it would. But that's just my opinion. I would like to do more -- hence my original comment.
I also think that money for eradicating poverty would be better spent on scouts who can spot people or groups or communities worth being helped instead of helping them all.
Some examples that may inspire some hope: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html (or for a more reputable but lengthier description of the same program, http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/hcz%204... )
I mean, seriously, "No, no, don't help this mother because her child has a chronic disability. It's not going to do anything in the long run." "This dude's poor and is manic-depressive, I don't think we should give him any psychiatric assistance because, seriously, he's not going to STOP being manic-depressive." "This guy over here lost his home because his house burnt down and his insurer is refusing to honor his claim. Don't worry about him! He'll just pick himself up by his bootstraps!"
Fuck off.
This seems like a worryingly general argument.
"If you or I have a hell of a time keeping out a gang of home invaders, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to handle policing or national defense for us."
"If you or I have a hell of a time educating someone in a wide array of subjects, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to handle schooling for us."
"If you or I have a hell of a time putting out a fire, with direct one-on-one involvement, it is completely ludicrous to expect an impersonal government to handle the fire service for us."
It seems like it could be used to argue for anarchy, effectively.
This is a reasonable point. But bear in mind that DBM's original point is subtly different: he effectively said that because it was hard to deal with poverty on an individual level, it would be silly to let government intervene. Your point looks to be different: that non-state groups can do things as well/better than the state. So the generality of my inference is unaffected.
We can safely assume that earl and other people in this thread arguing in favour of state support of the needy don't believe that private charity is adequate. (If they did, why would they argue for state intervention?) As such, your comment - which essentially just urges people to go out and commit acts of private charity - is hardly going to convince them otherwise.
2) Credentialism. From the Pendleton Civil Service Act to laws giving monopoly rights of practicing medicine to the AMA guild, the progressive movement towards credentialism gave government subsidies and monopolies to a class of people who could pass the civil service exam. These artificial barriers to entry result in a direct transfer of funds from the poor and working class to the college educated elite. For one example of many: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html
3) The Fed/Bretton Woods/Fiat currency. The progressive movement turned our financial system from a bottom up system (loans and banking happened at a community level) to a top down system ( all banking originates out of Fed guarantees and a government printed currency). This has resulted in insane profits for Wall St. At the same time, because the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. exports dollars, and then gets back real goods at a very cheap price. This is great for the civil service and for Wall St. But it sucks for those in manufacturing jobs, as they cannot compete when the currency is artificially priced so high.
4) Griggs Supreme Court case. The Griggs case basically banned the use of IQ tests by employers. So now bright young kids must spend lots of money on a 4 year long IQ test proxy, rather than getting a job directly.
5) Taxes. Overall tax burden has increased enormously since the early 1900's, even on the working classes. The working class has by no means received a corresponding increase in benefits. For example, poor people must now pay heavy education taxes. This is despite that after seventy years of massively increased taxes and longer hours at school, rates of vocab and numeracy have been flat (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-... ). The ROI on this education spending was zero. Yet we all continue to pay. Worse, progressive judges in the 1970 eliminated the ability of teachers to effectively discipline students. Now are schools have become Lord of the Flies hell holes, with the inner city schools being the worst. Taxes on the rich are bad for the poor too, if the government does not use the money any more effectively than the rich do ( as is often the case). The rich often invest in charity ( like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates or Buffet), or reinvest in companies and growth ( like Paul Graham or Marc Andressen). Either way, it increases the prosperity of the nation much more than government spending has.
6) Lax crime policies of the late 60's were primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in crime. This crime hit poor people the worst. It also drove the middle class, and the jobs, out of the inner cities.
7) Immigration. Whatever the other merits of immigration may be, it no doubt drives down the price of low skilled labor. Thus it is bad from the point of view of the American poor and working class.
8) Democracy promotion abroad. The U.S. has had the insane idea that simply by forcing elections in countries with 20% literacy rates, no judicial system, no institutions, no heritage of civic participation, and highly combustible tribal relations, that these countries would magically turn into replicas of America. In reality, the result has been civil war, coups, bad government, and corruption. U.S. imposed anti-imperialism and democracy promotion has been an unmitigated disaster for the third world. Read this article for one example, but there are many, many more: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country...
9) The interstate highway system. Created by progressives, it has increased the cost of living for everyone.
Re: #3 -- I assume you'd prefer the gold standard. Most (non-Austrian) economists believe that the gold standard actually exacerbated the great depression. I simply would recommend readers read the entire wikipedia article including the section on disadvantages. Or read this:
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa....
Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good.
Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives.
It's possible to run a sound currency regime using fiat dollars. But the U.S. has not done so. And the people pushing our decidedly unsound monetary policy were mostly progressive Keynesians.
As for the depression, the problem was that the government printed far more greenbacks than it could back with actual gold. As a result, people started trying to redeem their notes for gold. Since banks did not have enough gold to redeem, the banks failed. The government refused to devalue for many years, resulting in a catastrophic deflation. The depression could have been avoided by devaluing while still still maintaining the gold standard. If you step in front of a freight train and get run over, do you blame the freight train?
Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good.
The homicide rate in Baltimore, DC, and Philadelphia increased ten fold. Were there ten times the number of young men?
Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives.
By any historical standard, neoconservatives are progressives. They did not splinter off until the 1960's when they got upset with the excesses of the left. Before that, they were Trotskyites. They are only considered "conservative" because the country as a whole has moved so far left in the past century. Neoconservatives inherit the tradition of promoting democracy from progressives like TDR, Wilson, FDR, etc. If you read the Weekly Standard or any other neocon rag, you'll find that they hold TDR as their idol. TDR founded a party called, "the Progressive party", and was an original proponent of promoting democracy abroad. The neocons are very much a part of the progressive movement.
I have to address this point. Doesn't have to be a ten fold increase in people to account for a ten fold increase in crime. A much smaller, unemployed group can dramatically increase crime for lack of better stuff to do.
1) It killed the railroads. Rail is a fundamentally more efficient form of transportation than the truck, and thus adds less cost to pass on to consumers.
2) It allowed long commutes to become expected.
Pray tell, how?
It's important though that we teach people to fish along with simply feeding them.
I'd rather see more legislation to ensure that people get paid enough money to survive a normal life than more handouts that just make them more dependent on the government.
Life is a lot rougher in the US if you're poor, and I realize that.