John Edwards' Poverty Reduction Program

An article in the Washington Post on John Edwards' poverty reduction program brought this reaction from Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute:

The Post Gets It Wrong: Edwards' Poverty Policy is Just What’s Needed, by Jared Bernstein, TPM Cafe: The article criticizes Edwards for not bringing any new ideas to his signature issue: ... poverty reduction. But as someone who has studied this issue for decades, I can assure you of two things. First, there simply is no amazingly effective silver-bullet idea out there that we’ve somehow overlooked. And second, we know that some, not all, of the "old" ideas work. ... (Full disclosure: I’m not working with his campaign in any capacity, but I did write a chapter for a new book on these issues that Edwards edited.)

What’s particularly upsetting about the Post article is that they ignore a new, important report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty that emphasizes many of the same ideas Edwards has been promoting...

Re political will, both the Edwards anti-poverty campaign and the CAP report support a poverty-reduction target, a tangible goal that will focus policy makers on the steps that need to be taken... This strategy of setting a poverty target has been highly effective in the UK.

Then there are the policies. Among others, Edwards stresses higher minimum wages, expanding the Earned Income Credit (a wage subsidy for low-income workers), second chance educational opportunities, an ambitious housing policy, and direct job creation for those whose boats don’t get a lift even in a strong economy.

That’s right, these are old ideas, but they work (and Edwards has some new ones too, like the poverty target and some asset-building ideas). In the 1990s, amidst truly tight job markets, a big EITC expansion, higher minimum wages, and welfare reform that spent more, not less, on training and work supports, we made huge progress against poverty. CAP did a careful analysis of the impact of their ideas, and found that they would reduce poverty by half, at a cost of $90 billion per year (hey, you don’t get something for nothin’ and, anyway, that’s about the value of Bush tax cuts to the top 1%). ...

Here’s what [Edwards] gets. It’s not just that those baking the pie ought to get fair slices. It’s not even the simple fact that too many poor people are playing by the rules yet still struggling to make ends meet... Nor is it the glaringly obvious fact that kids who grow up poor have tremendous disadvantages that it is in all of our interests to avoid. ...

[W]hat Edwards gets ... is that these inequities undermine America. ... So, don’t be moved be this critique of Edwards poverty policy. To the contrary, when it comes to this issue, he’s the guy to watch.

Greg Anrig follows up with an explanation of why Edwards supports housing vouchers, but not school vouchers:

More Piling on The Post's Edwards and Poverty Article, by Greg Anrig, Jr.: ...[W]hen we read an ill-informed piece like the one in today’s Washington Post dismissing John Edwards’ anti-poverty proposals, we get ... infuriated. ... In addition to Jared’s criticisms of the Post article, I’d add these (and I don’t have any connection to Edwards’ campaign either):

The Post says Edwards’ proposals "do not challenge liberal orthodoxies by, for instance, exploring private-school vouchers, even though ... the idea ... is justified by the same logic as Edwards’s housing voucher program: giving poor families a choice." But housing vouchers and school vouchers, as implemented in the real world, aren’t remotely analogous.

The whole purpose of housing vouchers is to enable people living in high-poverty neighborhoods to move to low-poverty locations (where schools also have low numbers of students from impoverished families). Abundant research has shown that the section 8 housing voucher program, for example, has produced a variety of successful outcomes. In contrast, school vouchers, as they have been carried out in cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland, shift students from high-poverty public schools to high-poverty private schools. No valid evidence exists to demonstrate that school vouchers have done any good. What’s important from a policy standpoints isn’t vouchers or "choice" per se, it’s providing a mechanism that can effectively get families and students out of high poverty settings. ...

Research is abundant showing that when families and children are able to move from high-poverty neighborhoods and high-poverty schools to middle-class neighborhoods and middle-class schools, they do much better by a variety of measures without imposing costs on those already in the middle-class setting (as long as large numbers of the poor don’t move to the same place). John Edwards understands that, but unfortunately the Washington Post reporter writing about his proposals doesn’t. ...