Wednesday, December 23, 2015

America's Stubborn Poverty

Another gift from Laurie:
Probably nothing new related to fighting poverty will be said here, but here are a couple of links anyway:

America’s stubborn poverty

OPPORTUNITY, RESPONSIBILITY AND SECURITY: A CONSENSUS PLAN FOR REDUCING POVERTY AND RESTORING THE AMERICAN DREAM

The one thing I have picked up from following the election and commentary about voters this year is that most voters don't care about poverty or support government actions to reduce it. Two things that stuck out from the summary of this report is voters might support antipoverty programs that focus on more work requirements and also strenghtening two parent families.
Well her summary sounds excellent.  I'll check out the links later.  I am swamped at work preparing for Vacation/Holidays. :-)

18 comments:

John said...

That second linked document was very good and logical.

How to ensure people get married, stay married and raise children in a stable 2 parent household seems to be the biggest challenge?

jerrye92002 said...

First, much thanks to Laurie for that exhaustive study. I've read through much of it and bookmarked it to review in more depth later. My cursory impression is "too many progressive cooks spoil the broth." That is, while an excellent diagnosis of the problem and the correct high-level solutions (obvious from the statement of the problem), the detailed solutions all seem to stem from the idea that bigger government is the driver of these solutions, rather than the problem. That is most obvious in the final segment on "how do we pay for these things." My solution to most of these government-caused problems is for the government to QUIT trying to solve them, save the money, and the problems will solve themselves. Or at most, a little tinkering around the edges to encourage desirable and discourage undesirable behavior, mostly by refusing to subsidize the latter and again, saving the money. No specific examples until I read more thoroughly.

The biggest problem I see is actually political. The political class has for so long been telling us that they and only they can solve these problems, that we have forgotten how and ignore the reality that they have failed at it. Why should we take responsibility for ourselves, let alone others, when the politicians tell us "we've got this"? Why elect a politician who says they want US to solve our own problems?

John said...

I think the government does have role in reducing poverty. Possibly:
- Setting tax policy to reward being married, not punish it.
- Strengthening the punishments for women and families who are on public assistance who have more babies.
- Removing children from homes of negligent or incapable parents. And/or get those kids into whole day pre-K as early as possible.
- Tracking down dead beat dads and making them pay.
- Providing jobs training for people who want to work and conform with strict behavioral guidelines..
- Reduce "just because" public assistance so people are highly incented to learn and work.

John said...

Your idea of society just ignoring the problem and assuming these people will "pull themselves up by their boot straps" is naive and unrealistic.

America's desire to buy the lowest cost highest quality products no matter where they are made, and our willingness to allow ~11,000,000 illegal aliens to live/work here have decimated the low knowledge /low skill pay grades in the USA. Until this changes, getting ahead when you can barely pay your bills is nearly impossible.

John said...

Now the questions are:

Are the Conservatives willing to do what is necessary to make it is easier for poor people to ensure they don't get pregnant by accident? (free birth control, etc) And are they willing to ensure the poor parents and children have strong training to move them into the work force?

Are the Liberals willing to stop giving people "just because money"? Are they will strongly pressure poor people behave in a responsible manner? (ie married, good parents, work hard, not addicted, etc)

jerrye92002 said...

I suspected you would misunderstand. I'm not arguing for government doing "nothing." I'm arguing that government spends FAR too much, and on the wrong things.
From Heritage: "If converted into cash, current means-tested spending is five times what’s needed to eliminate all poverty in the United States." After 50 years of the War on Poverty and $22 Trillion spent, we know have MORE people in poverty! At what point do we declare failure and start over? Your list isn't bad, starting with this understanding. You said:

"I think the government does have role in reducing poverty. Possibly:
- Setting tax policy to reward being married, not punish it.
- Strengthening the punishments for women and families who are on public assistance who have more babies.
- Removing children from homes of negligent or incapable parents. And/or get those kids into whole day pre-K as early as possible.
- Tracking down dead beat dads and making them pay.
- Providing jobs training for people who want to work and conform with strict behavioral guidelines..
- Reduce 'just because' public assistance so people are highly incented to learn and work."

1. Absolutely. The marriage "penalty" has supposedly been eliminated, but there should be a "marriage incentive" in the tax code. It won't matter much, but it will re-establish the notion that government FAVORS marriage (and two-parent families).
2. I don't think "strengthening the punishment" for welfare pregnancies is the right statement. I think "not rewarding" is more correct, and the best way to do that is to go back to the old "man in the house" rules. You got welfare because there was no man in the house, but if you got pregnant there WAS a man in the house, and he is now responsible. That goes with #4 about deadbeat dads.
4. Some states have tried to deny welfare for a child unless the mother will name the father of the child, so the state can dun said father for the child support. Talk about promoting responsibility!
3. We already remove children from bad homes. I would hesitate, particularly as these other measures kick in, to define poverty as the criteria for "negligent or incapable parents." Now, parent education, like Laurie's cite, OK within reason, and the same for preschool VOUCHERS, not public, not required.
5. Here's where we disagree. Job training "for those who want to work" is the PROBLEM. My idea (and Lyndon Johnson's, BTW) was that you will have a job whether you WANT one or NOT. Federal job training has a terrible track record, too, with upwards to a million dollars spent per job produced. States, maybe, or just vouchers, again, to get a GED or go to vocational school.
6. Finally, while you are correct, there is no incentive unless the axe is visible and the pardon is available. Time limits and work requirements are crude instruments, but they work. Remember that Wisconsin's work requirement quickly and quietly reduced the welfare rolls 20%? People simply gave up the "free money" rather than work.

I still like the idea of a graduated negative income tax that would be barely enough to survive if you had zero income, but that let you keep much of what you earned until you were out of poverty. It would ONLY be paid, however, if you were signed up with a social worker helping you to get the parent education, child education, job training, (maybe father finding), whatever you needed, on a personal level. That's bound to be FAR less costly, and vastly more effective.

John said...

CATO's View
Economic Policy Institute's View
Forbes View

Heritage A Poor Way to Fight Poverty
DS We Have Spent 22 Trillion

John said...

How Cato and Heritage Over simplify.

jerrye92002 said...

Generous of Politifact to rate it "half true." So let's say we only gave the poor half of the $22 Trillion, and yet have more people in poverty. Is THAT a sign that the War on Poverty is a success? Of course not. I think the answer keeps coming back to "you get more of what you pay for." If we keep paying people who are in poverty to, in essence, not work, we are destroying the wealth of the country rather than increasing it, in both monetary and human terms. At some point we have to start expecting the poor to do "something" in return-- something that actually builds wealth, like getting educated or taking a job or, at absolute minimum, getting a better life for their kids. Poverty is stubborn because liberals refuse to "tough love" the poor, and prefer to simply stand back and throw other people's money at the "problem." Private and religious charities succeed because they engage with that tough love, and that's the difference. Just heard today about a woman living in a church-supported transition home, whose 5 kids are now all straight-A students. It can be done, but not by handing out government checks willy-nilly.

John said...

Oh come now, as I note above. The Conservative's are just as bad in enabling the bad Parents. Their fear of government trouncing on parental rights does little to help the unlucky kids.

Remember how much you disliked my idea to have Teachers grade Parents... And then having the Parent's tax credits or welfare payments tied to the grade. Responsible hard working Parents would get good grades and more support.

Bad grades could be another factor in deciding if the kids should be placed with better Parents.

jerrye92002 said...

I think not. Your premise seems to be that it is OK for YOU to decide who is a bad parent and who is not, and to take away their children as punishment. You don't seem to allow that the school environment might contribute to frustration, hopelessness, a lack of discipline and bad grades that are NOT the fault of the parents at all. I ask what opportunities and incentives have you offered that would make them BETTER parents? Before you punish, are you not required to offer the chance to do better?

jerrye92002 said...

By the way, if you take the kids away from these bad parents, who is going to take them in? Got a spare bedroom at your house?

John said...

You have so many excuses for leaving kids with the irresponsible dead beat Parents who had children they were unwilling or incapable of raising correctly.

jerrye92002 said...

And you have such a terrible opinion of your fellow human beings. Until you offer these people some hope and opportunity to make their and their children's lives better, you are just punishing them unnecessarily. Which would you rather have, productive citizens, or prison inmates?

I'm not denying it may be difficult in the most hard-core cases, but you cannot convince me that at least 75-80% of these kids, and parents, would do better if given the help and encouragement they need. I've seen it. The remaining 20% will be more difficult. I remember well the story of an 18-year-old when I was in Kansas City, on track to be in prison or dead before he was 25, being offered a chance to go to school, for anything he wanted, with a local charity picking up the full tab. He allowed as how he had always wanted to be a welder, but when told his admission was assured and asked to sign up, he reneged. He had been so beaten down by his environment that he couldn't accept what he needed most-- a way out. Let us get the easy 80% first, and then come back and concentrate on the rest. If you still find somebody not worth saving, let's just shoot them. >\sarc>

John said...

Now you do remember that the vast majority of the unlucky kids are in single parent homes, or homes where the adults in their lives change often. These are adults who are not responsible enough to not get pregnant.

Nor are they responsible enough to get / stay in a stable 2 adult relationship. And often they have more children than they have time, interest or money for.

John said...

And again you want to blame the schools because these dis functional folks continue to struggle.

jerrye92002 said...

So where is the societal structure that would convince them to be "responsible" by your definition? Where is the expectation that they will not have kids until they're ready, be married and be able to provide for their kids? All of those things used to be "societal norms" and the "enforcement" was that government didn't give them handouts. We didn't tolerate foolishness and worse in the schools in the name of tolerance or political correctness, and if you didn't have an education you didn't get ahead but you WERE expected to look after your family anyway.

Suppose we went back to a time when unwed motherhood was a shame and a route to lifelong poverty, or where unwed fatherhood resulted in a "shotgun wedding" (I'd settle for court-ordered child support these days)? Suppose we enforced the NCLB rules that gave vouchers to any child in a failing school and let those failing schools "go out of business" so that education again became the way OUT of poverty rather than a way of keeping people IN it?

Sure, we're in a predicament now because we have not only failed to do the right things, but we've made the situation worse by doing the WRONG things for these folks. You're going to have a heck of a time with some of them, but really, is that an excuse to keep doing what we're doing or is it time to break the cycle?

jerrye92002 said...

OK, I'll concede that these folks made "bad decisions" along the way in their lives, but what "societal expectations" would have lead them otherwise, what incentives did they have to choose those better decisions or were there actually incentives to choose wrongly? What other decisions could they have made that would have brought more reward? I mean, if you're not rewarded for having a job and you ARE rewarded for having another out-of-wedlock baby, are you irresponsible or just responding to the incentives government gives you? If your school district gives your kid a crappy education for free and you can't afford to move or send the kid elsewhere, are you irresponsible or just trapped?

Or are you really saying government and liberal society is "helping" these people out of poverty? Because it sure doesn't look like it.