Man-in-american-poverty1.jpg

(http://handsonblog.org/2012/01/18/10-ways-to-fight-poverty-in-america/)

Everyone is talking about poverty after Oxfam released a study a couple of weeks ago cataloging the completely unsurprising revelation that 85 very rich people own as much as half of the world's population in terms of wealth.

I'm happy to see that the discussion has opened wide here in Alabama. Birmingham editorial powerhouse John Archibald and economics guru Alex Walsh, in a follow up to last week's State of the State address, are reporting on the conditions of Wilcox County, Alabama. I'm looking forward to that coverage and the discussion that will surround it.

Regarding the discussion, I think we should all take a quick refresher course on some of the facts, figures, and historical fallacies revolving around the huge, multigenerational issue of poverty and perhaps find some common ground on which to make a stand.

The American ethos supports the idea of equal opportunity.

This proposition says nothing about equal wealth, redistribution, or government regulation. Equal opportunity only requires that through hard work and perseverance anyone can improve their position (economic or otherwise). This is, after all, the definition of the American Dream and we all still support the American Dream, right?

In this Gallup poll from last year, it was noted that a declining portion of the population believes that it is possible to "get ahead" in the U.S. economy and only half said that the U.S. economic system is fair. That number, too, is trending downward.

In the first draft of this post, I discussed John Rawls' incredible thought experiment, the "Original Position." If you're interested in a nearly water-tight argument for equal opportunity, you should check it out.

Just because someone is poor does not mean that they are lazy, unemployed or addled with drugs and alcohol.

In fact, according to this 2010 study of the working-poor by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a large portion of those living below the poverty line have at least one person in the house working full time. Two thirds of children living in poverty have at least one person in the house working.

Furthermore, over 90 percent of money from entitlement spending goes to elderly, disabled, or working households. Non-working households receive just 9% of social program spending (welfare, in one form or another). Most able-bodied people receiving aid from the federal government work.

The argument that all wealth is earned through hard work and dedication was flawed from the very beginning, really. All we need to do is point out a couple of counterexamples (1) a person with a lot of wealth but has never worked hard and (2) a person that works very hard but has no wealth. Moving on.

Concerning the rates of substance abuse among welfare recipients: Well, they're not much different from the rest of us. This NIH report from the late 90s showed that, with a few exceptions, those enrolled in federal welfare programs are about as likely to regularly imbibe as the rest of us living comfortably in our suburban homes. Stop complaining that most poor people spend their money on drugs and alcohol, because you're wrong.

Poverty is cyclical.

That is, if you were born poor, you are much more likely to remain poor. This has to do with lots of factors which sociologists, political scientists, and medical doctors have been attempting to pin down for decades. This paper from 2002 lists a few of the possible factors that could affect the impoverished from generation to generation. Among these factors are genetic disadvantages, differences in human capitol (networks, education, etc.), and monetary inheritance.

It is common for us to pity the hungry, disadvantaged children living in poverty and to blame the adults' bad decisions for their plight. Often, though, we forget that it wasn't long ago that those adults were hungry, disadvantaged children, surrounded by parents who were deemed leeches by society.

Sure, there are examples of people pulling themselves out of the cycle of poverty (maybe you are one of those people). There are even examples of people with lots of money dramatically losing their wealth through a series of bad decisions. At first glance, these seem like counterexamples to some of the complicated notions surrounding poverty. This leads me to my final and perhaps most important point...

Your personal anecdotes don't matter.

This is hard for many people to stomach, but it needs to be said. Stories about you or someone you know working hard to eventually attain middle class status are not adequate to disprove decades of statistical analysis and careful, academic research.

This goes for both sides of the debate. Stories about poor people (or being poor) do nothing to add to legitimate and productive discussion of a large topic like this.

What makes the examination of these large trends important and especially descriptive is their distillation of the real happenings within a group of people. This is the closest to truth we are going to get, so we ought to argue on these grounds*.

These are just a few facts and figures that we all ought to keep in mind as the discussion on poverty and inequality in the State of Alabama and the United States continues.

What else ought to be considered in a discussion on poverty? Let me know in the comments below.

*You'll find that (most of) the links in the post above will take you to either peer-reviewed publications or secondary works that reference the academic article directly.