Paul Krugman: Poverty Is Poison

Why don't we do more to reduce poverty, especially among children?:

Poverty Is Poison, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: “Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times... As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted ... to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

America’s failure to make progress in reducing poverty ... seems to provoke ... creativity in making excuses. Some of these excuses take the form of assertions that America’s poor really aren’t all that poor — a claim that always has me wondering whether those making it ... have ever looked around ... while visiting a major American city.

Mainly, however, excuses for poverty involve the assertion that the United States is a land of opportunity... But the fact of the matter is that Horatio Alger stories are rare... That’s not surprising. Growing up in poverty puts you at a disadvantage at every step.

I’d bracket those new studies on brain development ... with a study ... which ... found, roughly speaking, that ... parental status trumps ability: students who did very well on a standardized test but came from low-status families were slightly less likely to get through college than students who tested poorly but had well-off parents.

None of this is inevitable. Poverty rates are much lower in most European countries..., mainly because of government programs that help the poor and unlucky.

And governments that set their minds to it can reduce poverty. In Britain, the Labor government that came into office in 1997 ... has achieved a great deal. Child poverty, in particular, has been cut in half...

At the moment it’s hard to imagine anything comparable happening in this country...; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor. And for a variety of reasons, health care, not poverty, should be the first priority of a Democratic administration.

But ultimately, let’s hope that the nation turns back to the task it abandoned — that of ending the poverty that still poisons so many American lives.

Update: Krugman has more at "Other countries’ wars on poverty."

Comments

[Rob]

I find the following quote interesting given that LBJ's "War on Poverty" wasn't announced until 1964. Why would Krugman include 1963 and a portion of 1964 you ask? Perhaps it is because the poverty rate had already dropped from 23% to 19% prior to the introduction of the "War on Poverty".

"Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969."

[Mr. Liberal]

Rob,

Congratulations! You have just proven that child poverty is unimportant. Brilliant.

[Lafayette]

Now, not tomorrow

Article: let’s hope that the nation turns back to the task it abandoned — that of ending the poverty that still poisons so many American lives

Nice idea ... but I wonder if its time has come. It didn't get LBJ anywhere. It passed into nothingness after his leaving office.

It is not a fundamental part of the American mentality to "attack the roots of poverty". Individualism calls for "hard work and persistence" such that one bootstraps themselves out of misery and into the American Dream. Very altruistic, that. (Snicker, snicker ... in case one did not read the irony intended.)

This differs from the sense of Social Justice that prevails elsewhere. Oh, yes, we all know how Americans can rail about the "handouts" that Socialist governments employ in Europe. And about how Communism is dead, so Socialism can't be far behind. These are also favorite notions of the Idiot Right.

However, the notions are wrong. To consider that certain Public Services, like Health and Education, are birthrights and due throughout one's life is not a "handout". People willing accept higher tax rates to assure that these two factors provide the "level playing" field such that people can, indeed, take the escalator up to a decent Middle-class existence.

Poverty is an incarceration in ignorance, bad health, delinquency and crime. To break out of this jail, one does not do so easily just on their own. Which is why America breeds poverty in the suburban ghettoes of large cities. It has been that way since anyone can remember.

And, at the same time, its media glorifies the rich and famous celebrities ... those who "made it" by dint of hard work and, let's face, the affection of Lady Luck.

Chance is no way to build a society, however. If we wanted to get to the moon, we need a well-funded Moon Program. And, if we want Americans to once again enjoy, on average, a decent Middle-class existence without the constant fear of unemployment or sequestration of their house and home, then we need another such Moon Program, but this time closer to home.

We need to rebuild internal infrastructures, typically in Health Care and Education, but also in Energy Usage (meaning Transportation). Programs are needed to remove the blight and institute local Health Care clinics to attack the burgeoning Health Care disaster that the obesity pandemic will one day bring. Education needs investments to assure that children get not only the 3R's but the psychological help so many need in coping with a Mass Market Consumer society.

It would also help to develop an alternative to Private Television, the purpose of which is to appeal to the Least Common Denominator of the public's aspirations and sell spot commercials.

We need all this and more Now, not tomorrow. All the tomorrows have been already wasted. Now.

Such a Moon Program for America will give us a renewed purpose. It will institute a CAN DO mentality meaning for everybody and not just a few. It will take dedication and purpose as well as a good deal of time -- at least a decade, if not more. Like the Moon Program

Let's forget the notion that if a problem does not have a Quick Fix, then it aint a problem. That queer idea paves the path to disaster.

[wjd123]

As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.--Paul Krugman

Then wouldn't this be relative to how you relate to society. Plenty of people grew up poor in the depression in very poor families. However, I doubt if the experience brought with it a feeling of low social status. Was there much less stress on children in a much more stressful time because everyone felt that they were, more of less, in the same boat?

If this is true than the problem is as much to make people feel a part of society as to raise their income.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Child poverty is important.

A big driver of child poverty is teenage pregnancy. We have replaced morality with license and education and it hasn't worked.

Lest anyone think I am a wild-eyed right wing bigot, that demographic included my own daughter, who fortunately got her act together with considerable help from her family. It was tough for awhile even with plenty of financial resources.

By the way Lafayette, the idea that we do nothing for the poor is ludicrous. Could we do it better? Certainly.

[wjd123]

Just speculating. I wonder if there was less stress on black children who grew up in a time where separate but equal was enforced. They didn't get equal treatment but they knew in what society they belonged.

On the other hand even segragated society did have a pecking order. Were poor black children getting stress from a double wammy of low social status in a segregated society and living in a society where they were treated as second class citizens?

That I can't opine attest to the fact that I haven't read enough black literature.

[anne]

"I wonder if there was less stress on black children who grew up in a time where separate but equal was enforced."

The question is completely understandable and even important, the answer is absolutely no. Separate was never equal, but separate was desperately unequal. Separate meant denial of care and separate meant denial of opportunity to an extent that may be difficult to imagine even though so near in our history.

Separate meant unequal and an undermining of identity an denial of self in the extreme. Separate meant that from the comparatively trivial aspect of being able to sit in the white section of a bus to the dire deadly aspect of not having a community hospital that would treat a person regardless of the color of the person's skin there was the experience of repression.

Separate was not ever equal, which was the point of separate.

[Jay]

"But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted"

More post hoc ergo propter hoc bull**** from PK. The type of crap you'd expect from a political scientist, not an economist. Over the years PK has really done an admirable job of imitating the fear-mongering tactics of the neo-cons.

[anne]

"More post hoc ergo propter hoc bull**** from --."

Notice always the gutter thinking and gutter language; always designed to deceive and demean and intimidate.

[anne]

"The type of ---- you'd expect from a political scientist, not an economist."

Notice the gutter language, and the demeaning of a class of scholars, which is always the point in attemting to deceive and intimidate.

[Alex Tolley]

neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty.

I cannot locate the AAAS meeting paper, but I have some comments.

1. It is the stress hormones that cause the brain architecure changes.

2. Low social esteem caused by poverty is but one factor that raises these levels. Others are likely to be poor family conditions, e.g. alcoholic parent, violence etc.

Before rushing off into some program to aid the poor because OMG their kids brains are being damaged by being poor, I would like to see evidence that:

1. Being poor per se raises stress hormones relative to the rest of the population.
2. That it is poverty and not some other factor that is the cause.

If, as indicated, intervention and counseling reduce the problem, then we should tackle the real problem of poverty appropriately, rather than using this evidence to dramatise a problem as an aid to change policy opinions. I could easily see that one response to this work would be increased social worker involvement with possibly increased removal of children from abusive families to "protect the child" - not something I would like to see happen.

Poverty does harm to developing brains via poor nutrition. However one solution to overcome that in the UK back when I was a kid was to provide free milk and free school lunches for everyone. This guaranteed that all kids were adequately fed and removed any stigma associated with getting a free lunch because one was poor.

One thing that strikes me about American culture is the "devil take the hindmost" attitude while at the same time, charitable giving is very high. Why not just pay taxes and ensure poor families are helped adequately, or is charity less about helping the needy and more about the gains to the giver?

[Tim Worstall]

"In Britain, the Labor government that came into office in 1997 made reducing poverty a priority — and despite some setbacks, its program of income subsidies and other aid has achieved a great deal. Child poverty, in particular, has been cut in half by the measure that corresponds most closely to the U.S. definition."

Untrue. The UK has used tax credits (very similar to the EITC) to reduce child poverty. The US could not do the same. For when you calculate the number of children in poverty you do not include the effects of the EITC.

The problem is in the way that US measures poverty in general.

[reason]

Tim Worstall
The problem is in the way that US measures poverty in general.

Tim,
do you the problem, or a problem. If the former your premise is ludicrous.

[lcmslutheran]

Mr. Tolleys remarks are well taken. He will be as popular as are the climatologists around the world that are calling globull warming a scam.
Why don't you simply tie the poverty level line to inflation instead of holding the number constant and letting the numbers go up under it?

[anne]

"He will be as popular as are the climatologists around the world that are calling globull warming a scam."

Notice the gutter thinking and gutter language, always there must be hate-filled deceiving.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/health/18cancer.html?hp

February 18, 2008

Study Finds Cancer Diagnosis Linked to Insurance
By KEVIN SACK

ATLANTA — A nationwide study has found that the uninsured and those covered by Medicaid are more likely than those with private insurance to receive a diagnosis of cancer in late stages, often diminishing their chances of survival.

The study by researchers with the American Cancer Society also found that blacks had a higher risk of late diagnosis, even after accounting for their disproportionately high rates of being uninsured and underinsured. The study's authors speculated that the disparity might be caused by a lack of health literacy and an inadequate supply of providers in minority communities. The study is to be published online Monday in The Lancet Oncology.

Previous studies have shown a correlation between insurance status and the stage of diagnosis for particular cancers. The new research is the first to examine a dozen major cancer types and to do so nationally with the most current data. It mined the National Cancer Data Base, which began collecting information about insurance in the late 1990s, to analyze 3.7 million patients who received diagnoses from 1998 to 2004.

The widest disparities were noted in cancers that could be detected early through standard screening or assessment of symptoms, like breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and melanoma. For each, uninsured patients were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed in Stage III or Stage IV rather than Stage I. Smaller disparities were found for non-Hodgkins lymphoma and cancers of the bladder, kidney, prostate, thyroid, uterus, ovary and pancreas.

When comparing blacks to whites, the disparities in late-stage diagnosis were statistically significant for 10 of the 12 cancers. Hispanics also had a higher risk but less so than blacks.

The study's authors concluded that "individuals without private insurance are not receiving optimum care in terms of cancer screening or timely diagnosis and follow-up with health care providers." Advanced-stage diagnosis, they wrote, "leads to increased morbidity, decreased quality of life and survival and, often, increased costs."

The study cites previous research that shows patients receiving a diagnosis of colon cancer in Stage I have a five-year survival rate of 93 percent, compared with 44 percent at Stage III and 8 percent at Stage IV....

[Jay]

Anne:

I'm (not) sorry my use of free speech that seemingly offends you, but it is not designed to deceive nor demean nor intimidate. Ironically it has deceived you, as you completely ignore the obviously fallacious claim I point out and instead respond with your typical diversion from the subject to the language.

And last I checked PK has a degree in Economics not Political Science (although I really doubt the value added of the latter degree is much of anything). IMO Krugman is wasting his economics background and instead parading around as a fear-mongerer in attempts to direct the U.S. government to his unfounded personal utopia.

[anne]

We are a country in which 3.8 million needy children have just been repeately denied health care protection for a mere $7 billion when we are immorally spending $200 billion on the destruction of war and occupation. Poverty kills, as poverty and denial of the civil right to proper health care protection are astoundingly raising mortality in America.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/opinion/03thu3.html?ref=opinion

January 3, 2008

No Insurance, Poor Health

The case for providing health coverage for all Americans got even more compelling in the past week when two new studies presented the most comprehensive evidence yet that lack of health insurance is seriously harmful to a patient's health. The studies found that uninsured people suffer significantly worse outcomes from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer than those who have coverage.

One study by researchers at Harvard Medical School, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that uninsured near-elderly people got sicker at a faster rate than comparable people with insurance. Those disparities were sharply reduced when people turned 65 and became eligible for Medicare. Those who previously had insurance reported no significant change in their health as they transitioned to Medicare, but those with little or no prior coverage reported a substantial slowing of the decline of their health. It was strong proof of the value of Medicare's universal coverage for elderly Americans.

The value was particularly evident for previously uninsured individuals suffering from heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure or diabetes. Once on Medicare, they benefited greatly from medical management of blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels and quicker access to effective treatments and prescription drugs. They had 10 percent fewer major cardiac complications, such as heart attacks or heart failure, than would have been expected by age 72 based on their previous health trends.

A second study, by researchers at the American Cancer Society, found substantial evidence that lack of adequate health insurance coverage was associated with less access to care and poorer outcomes for cancer patients. The uninsured were less likely to receive recommended cancer screening tests and more likely to have their cancers diagnosed at a later stage, when they are less curable. They had lower survival rates than those with private insurance for several cancers for which there are screening tests and effective treatments, including breast and colorectal cancer.

The two studies leave little doubt that health improves when people gain insurance coverage. That coverage should be available to all Americans.

[anne]

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/04/falling_indicat.html

April 23, 2007

Falling Indicators of Human Development in Mississippi
By Brad DeLong

There are 2.8 million people in Mississippi. About 15% of the non-elderly population--make that 350,000--were on Medicaid.

Cut Medicaid enrollments by 50,000, by 1/7.

42,000 babies born in Mississippi each year.

For the share who die to jump from 0.97% to 1.14%... That's a less than 1/3000 chance.

That's worth saying.

[ken melvin]

LBJ knew from tar-paper shacks, he knew 6.3 million share croppers were losing their livelihoods to the cotton picker, he knew and understood southern America, and, I suspect, he knew and understood the theory of evolution. You see, LBJ was a big picture guy, not an ignorant ass.

Lafayette, and others, said all I would have said, and said it better than I could have. But, let me make the connection to the earlier piece on evolution. Much of the appeal of creationism is that it allows a certain ignorant part of the body politic to say we should do nothing, that being poor is the fault of the poor, … that those lying dead along side the road are but part of a grand survival of the fittest scheme.

The poor represent the inadequacies of our economic system. They aren’t poor because they didn’t go out and look for work. They are poor because there are not enough jobs, not even enough jobs that pay less than a subsistence wage like cotton picking once did. This, this is the starting point, and must be the beginning point of any discussion about poverty in America.

[ken melvin]

LBJ knew from tar-paper shacks, he knew 6.3 million share croppers were losing their livelihoods to the cotton picker, he knew and understood southern America, and, I suspect, he knew and understood the theory of evolution. You see, LBJ was a big picture guy, not an ignorant ass.

Lafayette, and others, said all I would have said, and said it better than I could have. But, let me make the connection to the earlier piece on evolution. Much of the appeal of creationism is that it allows a certain ignorant part of the body politic to say we should do nothing, that being poor is the fault of the poor, … that those lying dead along side the road are but part of a grand survival of the fittest scheme.

The poor represent the inadequacies of our economic system. They aren’t poor because they didn’t go out and look for work. They are poor because there are not enough jobs, not even enough jobs that pay less than a subsistence wage like cotton picking once did. This, this is the starting point, and must be the beginning point of any discussion about poverty in America.

[Alex Tolley]

anne: We are a country in which 3.8 million needy children have just been repeately denied health care protection for a mere $7 billion .... Poverty kills, as poverty and denial of the civil right to proper health care protection are astoundingly raising mortality in America.

Which is one reason why Krugman is right that a new administration should prioritize health care reform. We need to move towards the idea that access to good health care is a citizen's right, not a privilege. (As should be shelter, heat and nutrition). Welfare reform should focus less on "means testing" and denial, and more on removing poverty traps, creating mechanisms that allow access to low cost childcare and education.

A simple example of making life difficult:

Where I live, schools seem to have far too many "late start days", "in service days", not to mention holidays that businesses do not observe. How anyone is supposed to juggle this while trying to earn a living off a rigid time clocked job without help is beyond me. It just seems calculated to make life especially difficult for working families. Add in the usual medical and dental visits that have to be during a working day and it quickly becomes apparent how difficult it is manage a contemporary life unless one has a non-working spouse or a pool of friends who can help out. After all the platitudes have been expressed about the need to ensure our children's future, business as usual seems hell bent on making this as difficult as possible.

[Jay]

"We are a country in which 3.8 million needy children have just been repeately denied health care protection for a mere $7 billion when we are immorally spending $200 billion on the destruction of war and occupation."

Anne: I see why you and PK get along, with all your fallacious arguments. Weren't you ever taught that you shouldn't create false dichotomies and that mutually exclusive decisions need to be kept as such (note I agree that we need to stop wasting our money occupying foreign countries including Eastern Europe/Korea/Middle East/etc).

For example: Could a CEO get the boards approval to invest in a project with a ROI of 5%, solely by proving that some other project that is being implemented and is totally independent of the new proposal has an ROI of -2%?

[ken melvin]

There’s another point that needs be made, that of the sins of the past. Voltaire spoke to a Europe where only the lives of royalty had worth, where nothing was done for the unwashed masses of no value other than as a source for provision of food and defense for the court. Then, there was the bestial years of transition to the industrial age. In our own not so far distant history, we had the poverty of the post bellum south that extended into the sixties and persist today in states like Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, … In none of these cases was doing nothing the answer. Doing nothing doesn’t work. I suggest that the innovation and advances of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century have the lineage of the unwashed. Doing nothing is not the solution. The question is what needs be done and how best accomplish.

[Alex Tolley]

ken melvin: But, let me make the connection to the earlier piece on evolution. Much of the appeal of creationism is that it allows a certain ignorant part of the body politic to say we should do nothing, that being poor is the fault of the poor, … that those lying dead along side the road are but part of a grand survival of the fittest scheme.

I think you have the argument backwards. Creationists are religious. It is the claim of the religious that atheists use Darwinism as the entrez to the fallacious "social Darwinism" leading to do nothing. Christian teaching is supportive of helping the poor and this is exemplified by the high level of charitable giving via churches.

Personally, I would rather we reduce poverty because of the dysfunction to our society, rather than because it is believed to be necessary to get to the desired afterlife.

[Noni Mausa]

A useful reference for finding medical research is www.Medscape.com.

Between its News function and its Search function for old research, it keeps you on top of quite a lot of arcane but interesting advances in medicine.

Lower comparative socioeconomic status has a psychological and physical health effect even on well paid workers. I think this particular study was done among civil servants in the UK, none of whom were suffering from malnutrition. I assume the effect is enhanced in true poverty.

The effects of stress hormones on the brain and body, whether in a growing child or in an adult, have been detailed in many studies.

Wikipedia tells us (much truncated):

In normal release, cortisol ... has widespread actions which help restore homeostasis after stress. (These normal endogenous functions are the basis for the physiological consequences of chronic stress - prolonged cortisol secretion.).

--It acts as a physiological antagonist to insulin ... This leads to increased circulating glucose concentrations

--Cortisol stimulates gastric acid secretion.

--Cortisol can weaken the activity of the immune system.

--Cortisol lowers bone formation thus favoring development of osteoporosis in the long term.

--long-term exposure to cortisol results in damage to cells in the hippocampus. This damage results in impaired learning.

--It increases blood pressure

Most people intuitively understand what causes stress. Included are:

--pain, bright light, loud noises
--birth and deaths, marriage, and divorce
--lack of money, unemployment
--conflict, deception
--heavy drinking, insufficient sleep
--Early life exposure (e.g. child abuse) can permanently alter an individual's stress response
--Lack of control over environmental circumstances such as food, housing, health, freedom, or mobility
--Struggles with other individuals and social defeat can be potent sources of chronic stresses

It looks like poverty is practically designed to apply stress to people, making them susceptible to a host of chronic problems like heart disease, memory and learning problems, depression and anxiety conditions, diabetes, drug abuse and alcoholism, poor immunity, et cetera.

Add to this the US health system, and there you are.

Noni

[anne]

Jay:

"Weren't you ever taught that you shouldn't create false dichotomies and that mutually exclusive decisions need to be kept as such...?"

Here is a fair and important question and objection.

There is no reason why the cost of a supposely affordable war would having anything to do with our being able to afford a measure of health care insurnace. The costs of war are larger than the costs of the health care insurance being proposed, but this is not an argument for or against either war or health insurance.

There may be no connection between what is considered affordable military spending and social spending. Why then repeatedly contrast the spending for types of what can be assumed unrelated programs? Though economists may have written of guns and butter choices traditionally, we could presumably have all sorts of combinations of both with little if any strain. After all, we even had a budget surplus a few years ago.

Why then the contrast?

[Noni Mausa]

And here is the real question: cui bono?

Who benefits from having a large number of citizens live damaged and vulnerable lives?

Does anyone thing America is stronger if a large segment of its population is fundamentally impaired?

Or is it just neglect?

Noni

[Alex Tolley]

jay: Could a CEO get the boards approval to invest in a project with a ROI of 5%, solely by proving that some other project that is being implemented and is totally independent of the new proposal has an ROI of -2%?

Now why did the board approve a project with -ve ROI? Maybe the CEO and the board should resign? If the board only has projects that return 5% and -2% and other options like doing nothing or returning the assets to shareholders is not an option, then the 5% option should be chosen. Thus not funding child healthcare in favor of a war is a poor choice. Even more damning is the relatively small sums that are being denied in the face of the huge sums being squandered in the war. But of course, neither decision is being made on economic grounds, but rather ideological.

[robertdfeinman]

There is an important point behind the findings that there is a relationship between mental development and poverty (or other childhood stress). Where it best reveals itself currently is in the formulation of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) program.

The underlying premise of this program is that the lack of progress in educating the weakest students is due to failings in the schools and/or the teachers. The testing is supposed to "scientifically" reveal the schools that are under performing and then force the system to take draconian steps like closing the schools and replacing the teachers.

As I've been saying, since the law was proposed, the entire program was a thinly disguised effort to eliminate the teacher's unions, and, if possible, discredit public education so as to allow the wedge of government support for parochial education to expand. Charter schools, vouchers, payment for "non educational" expenses in religious schools all become more plausible if one can demonstrate that public education is failing.

So far the propaganda aspect isn't working, the overwhelming majority of people still favor public education, but the need to make schools meet the standards of NCLB has distorted the curriculum in most of the lower grades just as educators predicted it would.

Educational ideological fantasy is just as damaging as other fantasies of the right including reproductive education, climate change, "terrorism", and various economic axioms.

Unrealistic ideas are not just eccentric fads when they become embodied in public policy and end up making bad situations worse.

[anne]

What I do not understand, really do not understand, is why social spending is so difficult to gain even when critical needs are involved, as repeatedly shown by health care studies relating ready access to care even to life let alone reasonable health, while military projects are afforded so readily almost beyond consideration of resources given over to military projects. I draw the contrast between social and military spending simply to show the differences for which I have no explanation.

[Jay]

Alex: I hope you really aren't as dense as those first few sentences make you out to be. Being a hypothetical situation I was more concerned about making the numbers follow logically than their actual values.

First, "Now why did the board approve a project with -ve ROI? "

Well if you notice the plan is being implemented. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of this wierd phenomenon called "variance" but the implication of my example was that the board previously approved a project that had a postitive NPV but it turned out to be negative (which is an apt generalization for the arguments made for the Iraq invasion and the point we are at right now with regards to the project).

"But of course, neither decision is being made on economic grounds, but rather ideological."

Which is the biggest problem with an authoritarian government (either the left or the right variety), it only serves to shift decisions from logical (economic) to the emotional (idealogical).

[anne]

"The UK has used tax credits (very similar to the EITC) to reduce child poverty. The US could not do the same. For when you calculate the number of children in poverty you do not include the effects of the EITC."

I do not understand this, but as far as I understand measures of poverty in the US do include transfer payments. However, this is completely unsupported until there is a precise reference supplied. I will assume the absence of reference reflects bias until proper refence is supplied.

[Alex Tolley]

Jay: ... but the implication of my example was that the board previously approved a project that had a positive NPV but it turned out to be negative (which is an apt generalization for the arguments made for the Iraq invasion and the point we are at right now with regards to the project).

Once an investment has -ve ROI and realistically cannot return to +ve territory, then assets spent should be considered as a sunk cost and the investment abandoned. Comparative returns should always be on a forward looking basis. Thus perhaps I should rephrase my comment as "Maybe the CEO and the board should resign after failing to kill the project with -ve ROI"? Wars generally have a -ve NPV. Strange to even think that the Iraq war was ever considered an economic decision (sarcasm). But if it was, then this would be the logic of Imperialism, and of course, like empires before us, we are experiencing "imperial overstretch".

[hammerhead]

My wife is an administrator at a rural NC middle school. It is a newer school, but its culture is that of poverty. Teaching students, with parents that own next to nothing, how to pass state tests to satisfy the NCLB mandates, gives these children little reason to want to attend. This kind of "education" doesn't really prepare them for life in the real world.

An hour south, in another part of NC, where John, who builds my docks, grew up, is a place called Varnamtown. The same families have lived there for a few hundred years. The town is on a beautiful stretch of the river with intracoastal views. The town's people speak with a unique accent. The town has five commercial fish houses, but no retail. It is a prime area for high-end residential development, but those who run the town have kept development out. Even with foreign sea food farming competition, the town's way of life has survived. Now, because of the school system, that way of life is being threatened.

John grew up poor. His parents split up, and left him living on his own in a trailer on an acre of land, when he was 14. The community middle shcool, at that time, taught a commercial fishing class on the river. In high school, he learned how to fix a car and build a house. If he were in school today, he would learn how to pass a state test.

John is no longer poor, and, when he was poor, he never knew it. A faily new 2,400 sq ft house has replaced John's trailer. John, his wife and three kids live there. He has to leave Varnamtown to find jobs. He has no idea what his 15 year old daughter will be prepared to do. She hasn't learned any life skills in school

When John was young, even though he had to work odd jobs to survive, he had a reason to come to school every day. Kids, who live in poverty, today, do not. The kids leave school here with few skills. If we didn't have "guest workers" to fill the vacuum, I'm not sure how our community could function.

[anne]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=08&year=2006&base_name=why_the_eitc_works

August 30, 2006

Why The EITC Works
By Ezra Klein

This'll be a little wonky, but I'll try and make it short. Every once in awhile, you hear conservatives argue that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) can't lift folks out of poverty because it's not counted in the Federal Poverty Rate. Tim Worstall, thinking he had a "gotcha," made this argument in the comments to the "Apples and Manatees" thread:

"Please Ezra, learn something about the statistics you are commenting upon. The calculation of the Federal Poverty Rate (that 12.6% that everyone is commenting upon at present) cannot be affected in any way whatsoever by the expansion or even the abolition of the EITC. Because the EITC is not included in the calculation of the Federal Poverty Rate."

Condescension will getcha everywhere, Tim. This argument, made routinely by conservatives seeking to ascribe welfare reform panacea status, is ridiculous. The EITC is a refundable tax credit that's calculated as a percentage of your income. In other words, it makes your job pay more. Which makes low wage jobs more attractive economic prospects. Which spurs more people to take them. Which lowers the poverty rate (surely conservatives agree compensated labor lifts folks out of poverty).

The reason Clinton's expansion of the EITC mattered for the poverty rate, in other words, is that it compelled folks whose available employment options were below their reservation wage to take the job anyway, secure in the knowledge that their EITC credit would make up the difference. Sure enough, research shows that the EITC did indeed boost labor participation, particularly among single mothers. And while the EITC isn't factored into the poverty rate, the salary from the job they took is -- which lowers the poverty rate. But hey, don't take it from me: Ronald Reagan famously called the EITC the "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress." Speaking of which, it's about time we pumped that sucker up again.

[anne]

"The UK has used tax credits (very similar to the EITC) to reduce child poverty. The US could not do the same. For when you calculate the number of children in poverty you do not include the effects of the EITC."

This is deceit by a deceiver; imagine my surprise.

[anne]

Hammerhead:

"John grew up poor. His parents split up, and left him living on his own in a trailer on an acre of land, when he was 14. The community middle shcool, at that time, taught a commercial fishing class on the river. In high school, he learned how to fix a car and build a house. If he were in school today, he would learn how to pass a state test."

I know nothing of vocational education, but when the bridge collapsed in Minnesota there was a young man who was working as a summer activities superviser for children who happened to be on a bus that was leaning on falling to the river. The young man was collected and brave enough to smash out a bus window and rescue a bus of children and other supervisers.

Later it turned out the young man has dropped out of a vocational school for automobile mechanics for lack of tuition which was startlingly high. Of course a scholarship was subsequently provided to just this young man, but I was startled at the tuition.

[Denis Drew]

Paul Krugman (justifiably world famous progressive economist, NYT op-ed writer) says (unbelievably): "[over 40 years] most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line HAS NOT." (my emphasis)

Denis Drew (high school educated, out of work -- rarely more than part time -- cabdriver and SSI recipient says (much more believably): the official poverty line has ACTUALLY DROPPED 60% over 40 years -- in real dollars.

The official poverty rate has been adjusted for the price of food only for 40 years now. A more accurate poverty rate (described as a minimum needs level) for a family of three in my 2001 version of the book Raise the Floor is $43,345 (in 2008 dollars) including $10,000 for today's typical family health insurance policy. The official poverty rate for a family of three is $17,000.

This means that the official poverty rate has been discounted over time to now represent only 40% of the actual rate -- and w/o any improving standards stuff.

I very simply calculated* that $43,345 is 38 percentile American family income (on Census family income tables) -- meaning the incomes of 38% of American families may be below a more accurately drawn poverty line, at least without food stamps and other helps.

*http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com
/2008/02/are-38-of-american-
families-living.html
********************************
There is no mystery to why Americans (working 50% more hours per capita) endure so much poverty while Europeans (working 33% fewer hours per capita) see so little -- and why Europe's lower 90 percentile families get a much fairer share of the economic pie -- EUROPEAN WORKERS TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.

Progressive economists are to first to jump and point out that Europe has the same or better productivity and access to technology as we do. The difference in pay levels can only be due to lack of broadly accepted cultural understanding in America of how absolutely vital it is for labor to actively look after its own interests (too simple).

Looking after its own interests means wide awake to the need for checks and balances in the labor market which with today's super bean counter ownership means labor law set up to mandate sector-wide labor agreements, a sensible minimum wage (HIGHER than than the nearly $10/hr of 40 years ago -- reflecting that average income DOUBLED since), setting up universal health care, etc., etc. ...
...all the things that European workers have set up for themselves; nobody did it for them...
while American workers have slept complacently at the bargaining switch only to wake up and go to work for whatever is shoveled in front of them (notice: I am not blaming any big, oppressive capitalists here).

I may blame our progressive economists -- the only folks in our economically deaf and dumb nation who understand what is going on -- for not telling everybody else how low their pay has gone (they have no idea): beginning with shouting far and wide that the official federal poverty rate has been based on three times the price of an emergency diet (dried beans, no canned) for 40 years now and now might be the time to stop quoting it without qualification.

Krugman likes to complain that if the Republicans asserted that the world was flat that the next day the media would treat the assertion evenly and try to quote both sides. Well, when he -- and the rest of his progressive pro friends -- continue to quote the official poverty line as gospel, he and his progressive friends ARE asserting the equivalent of "the world is flat" in their field of study.

As in Columbus' time, the false assertion make fewer waves than explaining truth -- and informed people know otherwise. But, in Columbus' time it did no harm for most people to believe the world is flat. In America today the greatest hindrance of all to alleviating poverty (a.k.a., paying American workers like other modern O.E.C.D. workers) may be endlessly under reporting the official poverty line by what may be as much as 24%!

[Alex Tolley]

hammerhead: John is no longer poor, and, when he was poor, he never knew it. A faily new 2,400 sq ft house has replaced John's trailer. John, his wife and three kids live there. He has to leave Varnamtown to find jobs. He has no idea what his 15 year old daughter will be prepared to do. She hasn't learned any life skills in school

When John was young, even though he had to work odd jobs to survive, he had a reason to come to school every day. Kids, who live in poverty, today, do not. The kids leave school here with few skills.

Are you arguing that school tests are bad, that schooling is not useful, or schooling is not useful for poor people?

Is John in your story really better off because he learned to build a house (did the high school teach him, or was this extra-curricular?) rather than getting a qualification and a job? Is his daughter really not learning "life skills" in school? Reading, writing, math, civics etc. While school education may not be for everyone, you seem to be suggesting that it is not useful at all, compared to some other undefined "life skills".

[anne]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/other-countries-wars-on-poverty/

February 18, 2008

Other Countries’ Wars on Poverty
By Paul Krugman

A lot of today’s column was based on two sources.

One was Tim Smeeding’s "Poor people in rich countries," * which has a lot of information both on the specifics of how government policies affect poverty and on the broad overall relationship between government spending and poverty:

[Chart] Policies and poverty

[Chart] Spending and poverty

The other was the IFS report ** on inequality and poverty in Britain. Here’s the table on child poverty; "relative" poverty measures the % of children in families with incomes below 60% of median, while “absolute” has a poverty line with fixed purchasing power, more or less the US standard.

[Table] Child poverty in Britain

* http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/smeeding/pdf/JEP%20V5_2006.pdf

** http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications.php?publication_id=3932

[bob]

>> Why don't we do more to reduce poverty

Many of the dirtbags that inhabit the world of business love poverty.

Would you rather have somebody working for you that is desperate or somebody that could tell you to take your job and shove it if you put too much pressure on them.

[Lafayette]

Mission Impossible?

Jay: Could a CEO get the boards approval to invest in a project with a ROI of 5%, solely by proving that some other project that is being implemented and is totally independent of the new proposal has an ROI of -2%?

Are you assuming that Public Service must be run like a for-profit service industry?

It doesn't. A Public Service is managed along the premise that the Most Service must be performed for the Most People, particularly when that service is not handled property by natural Market Forces.

The ROI calculation of a Public Service is almost always negative, because you are measuring it in monetary terms. Poor mothers will pay the going-rate for child Day Care on their minimum-wage salary? No way, José.

What is the ROI on a partially subsidized kindergarten that allows working mothers to deposit the child in the morning, return to see them at noon, and then take them home in the evening? How do you measure that in terms of “contentment” that a mother can contribute to the family revenue without being shackled to the house and child. (Ditto secondary schools that serve meals and keep in the children at lunch time, for those mothers that may want to work.)

For the moment, there is no ROI on earth that measures contentment. So, please, let’s forget the conventional ROI-idiocy by which Social Capital Investments should be decided … unless, of course, you would be willing to change the metrics by which ROI is measured.

NB: "Puericulture" (the fancy word for Child Care) is a profession. People get a diploma having mastered the art/techniques. Why not have state/city establish such Centers, paid for by the State, the Employer and the Worker (exempted by a Means Test, if necessary). Why not, even, have Private Enterprise quote the contract, which is supervised by a state agency. Is this Mission Impossible?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/us/07hero.html?hp

August 7, 2007

Bridge Hero Gets Offer: Paid Tuition
By ELLEN BARRY

Among the dozens of wrenching accounts to come out of the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, the actions of 20-year-old Jeremy Hernandez were a bright spot: Trapped in a tipping school bus with 50 children, he kicked open the back door and began helping them one by one to safety.

Within a day, news outlets across the country were repeating the story of the school bus, along with a sad footnote — that Mr. Hernandez had recently been forced to drop out of an automotive repair program because he could not afford the $15,000 tuition.

That has changed. On Saturday, Mr. Hernandez learned that Dunwoody College of Technology had offered him a full scholarship toward a degree in applied science. He has also received offers of help from dozens of strangers across the country, said Molly Schwartz, communications director for Pillsbury United Communities, which employed him as a gym coordinator for one of its summer programs.

"We're all very emotional about this," Ms. Schwartz said. When she sat with Mr. Hernandez on Friday and read him e-mail messages from across the country, she said, "His eyes are just getting bigger and bigger — 'California. You're kidding.' When we told him about the Dunwoody thing his eyes just got really wide." ...

[Lafayette]

AT: While school education may not be for everyone, you seem to be suggesting that it is not useful at all, compared to some other undefined "life skills".

Are we making enough of the effort to teach them? Are children so stupid that they cannot be taught, or are we not applying the appropriate methods/techniques to teach them? (I'm no secondary school expert, so I cannot answer those questions.)

In a word, is there a lack of discipline in education today after the generation that was told to "be all they Wanabee". This Wanabee fallacy has caught up with us ... we have as a consequence a Lost Generation who are uniquely fit, skills wise, for flipping hamburgers.

If we do not invest the necessary monies to develop a first rate Secondary School System that graduates students into either a Professional Training or University, then we are lost.

And, if the OECD Pisa Scores are any indication, we'd better pull a finger out. Read some of those results, here. The US is nowhere in the top six, since we ranked somewhere around 14th, tieing with France.

Still, look who IS in the top Six. Then, ask yourself why the US has fallen so far behind.

[Alex Tolley]

bob: Many of the dirtbags that inhabit the world of business love poverty.

Would you rather have somebody working for you that is desperate or somebody that could tell you to take your job and shove it if you put too much pressure on them.

On that basis, I suppose those same "dirtbags" would love a return of slavery.

But didn't we find that slavery was less productive than free labor? Isn't the one thing that corporations complain about is the need for an educated workforce (provided by someone else) because education and skills are what makes people productive and contribute to the bottom line?

I have had relatively little work experience with the poorly educated, but what little I have suggests that lack of basic education is a severe handicap. Unable to comprehend written instructions, unable to do simple calculations can really create low productivity at even simple jobs and make them ineffective at more complex ones. I cannot imagine how a person who has not been educated can manage to get ahead without a lot of help. Is it any wonder why the wealthy use their connections to give their offspring a leg up?

[dale]

Societies tolerate, even encourage poverty, because it is one of the signifiers of social status and hierarchy. We seem to be hardwired to notice status distinctions. Studies in England have shown that even seeminly minor differences in bureaucratic rank and pay have measurable effects on longevity and well being. See the works of Wilkinsen and Marmot.

Those with high social status live longer- but it also seems to be true that the longevity of high status persons is shorter in societies with wider gaps in social status. So status hierarchies kill and distort life chances- more so for those on the lower levels- but eventually- even for those on the top.

Fortunately, we humans also seem to be wired for equality, compassion and mutual understanding. The trick is to create social structures that enhance these qualities and at the same time attenuate our drives towards status hierarchies.

Along with the works of the above mentioned authors, I find Sidanius and Pratto's book, Social Dominance, to be of great value in this area.

[ECONOMISTA NON GRATA]

It's all so academic. Americans don't know what poverty is. You don't have the slightest idea. So cut the BS.

You wanna see poverty...? I'll show you poverty....

"If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put the children who live in poverty on the moon also...?"

Econolicious

[anne]

Alex Tolley:

"But didn't we find that slavery was less productive than free labor?"

Please set down a refenrece if possible, though the very question is saddening to consider.

I know there are growing studies showing that forced labor in a colonial setting is damaging beyond the colonial period, but is colonial labor enforcement damaging to the colonizer beyond the immorality?

[anne]

Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga have been doing important and interesting work on the lingering effects of forced labor through colonialism in southern Africa. What of the effects on the colonizers?

[Peter Schaeffer]

If Krugamn was being honest he would have mentioned immigration as a key driver of poverty in America. Note that the entire post-WWII decline in poverty occurred while we still enforced our immigration laws. Since then the poverty rate has remained essentialy unchanged even though the economy has grown enormously.

For a more honest article see

"Importing Poverty" by Robert J. Samuelson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090401623.html

"The government last week released its annual statistical report on poverty and household income. As usual, we -- meaning the public, the media and politicians -- missed a big part of the story. It is this: The stubborn persistence of poverty, at least as measured by the government, is increasingly a problem associated with immigration. As more poor Hispanics enter the country, poverty goes up. This is not complicated, but it is widely ignored."

[Alex Tolley]

Lafeyette: Are we making enough of the effort to teach them? Are children so stupid that they cannot be taught, or are we not applying the appropriate methods/techniques to teach them?

Educational methods seem to have their cyclical fashions. Currently it seems to be "test, test, test", so much so that it is interfering with actual learning time. It could definitely use some improvement.

I was educated in Britain during the 1960's and it was clearly a different pattern to my contemporaries in the US and different again to my children's US education. I think the US does some things very well in education - it is less academic and much broader than my experience. But it comes at a cost of some dumbing down. Math education in particular seems quite simple in the US. The science books are almost pathetic - even allowing for the limited discussion of evolution in bilogy text books (and that is in "liberal" California!).

I think international standardized tests measure a very narrow level of skill, and as a result, does not capture the breadth of US educational model. For example, when I have employed Chinese programmers, whilst they are often technically quite adept, they seem quite lacking in other skills that one takes for granted in Americans or Europeans of similar educational level.

But clearly there are some counterproductive things done in US education. My gripes are:

1. Over emphasis on remedial teaching resources.
2. Lack of good quality text books (who writes them?), and 3. this weird idea that they should be very expensive and not always purchasable by parents to have a copy for home as well as school.
4. I think that multiple choice answers for most fact based schoolwork is not a good idea.

But these are personal gripes and will differ depending on experiences and beliefs.

[anne]

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/links/publications/en/index.html

Publications on social determinants of health

[Referring and linking to the work of R. Wilkinson and M. Marmot.]

[Worker]

I wonder how a return to the check-writing great-society entitlement ethos will improve the "low social status" that causes stress here.

In a society comprised of workers and a welfare recipients, the workers inherently have "higher social status" than the welfare recipients because the non-worker's welfare check does not cash without the worker.

However, if the worker is convinced that the welfare recipients are "deserving" and/or that the worker might avail himself of the welfare services, then worker might not consider himself deserving of higher social status being the breadwinner for the welfare recipient. But since entitlement systems have no little room for such discriminatory value judgements, it is unlikely the welfare recipients will ever acheive anything more than "low social status".

I would expect Krugman to recognize that the only way to support redistribution is to recouch the debate in terms of broad "middle-class" entitlements and security, as the Democrats have done.

Possibly the academic world blinds Krugman to the political reality? Partly from its role as arbitrer of social status, an academic community generally and Princeton in particular, is immune from any disdain expressed by taxpayers, donors, or tuition payers who support their institutions (the workers). That power is not held by welfare recipients.

[anne]

"If ------- was being honest he would have mentioned immigration as a key driver of poverty in America."

Of course, things worked out differently for my immigrant grandparents who always went out of their way not to drive poverty, and actually found keys enough to drive away lots of poverty but that's just my grandparents (and only on my mother's side probably, since most of my father's side of the family have never learned to drive) while other immigrants have been driving us perversely through the generations. I guess we could always leave though, the grass really being greener in Ireland.

[anne]

Forgive me, I forgot to add "open borders." I never know which letters to capitalize, though. Who was it who sung "Don't Fence Me In?" I think we sang that at Girl Scout camp, though I assure you we were all fenced in for fear of boys coming around the lake. Open Borders!

[anne]

http://www.lyrics007.com/Bing%20Crosby%20Lyrics/Dont%20Fence%20Me%20In%20Lyrics.html

1934

Dont Fence Me In
By Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in.

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in.

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
Ba boo ba ba boo.

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in.
No.
Poppa, don't you fence me in

[Alex Tolley]

Anne, the free labor vs slavery argument goes back to Adam Smith. However, it turns out I may have been wrong to believe this was established. The reference below suggests that slavery was as productive as free labor in the antibellum South and thus abolition became a moral rather than economic concern.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/
is_2_37/ai_111897858/pg_1

Having said that, contemporary motivated workers are probably more productive than "wage slaves".

[robertdfeinman]

Random replies:

Slavery
The economic inefficiency of slavery was thoroughly analyzed by Frederick Douglass. Having been on both sides of the social system (slave and free) he could cite personal observation as well as the research he did later in life. He also pointed out how the "red neck" prejudice against blacks was fostered by the slave owners as a way to distract the poor whites from noticing that they were also being exploited. As Douglass put it the poor whites were competing for jobs against people who were being paid nothing. The existence of the overseer system shows that the slave owners understood how little work they could expect from slaves unless they were forced to work.

Educational Testing
NCLB requires that students be tested, but the test results have no impact on their own educational experience. The scores are not used to determine individual performance, nor to decide who should be promoted to the next grade, nor to decide who is in need of remedial help. In many districts the results aren't even available until the next year when the students have already moved on. The students have no reason to study for the test or try to do well. Those who suffer from low scores are the school officials and the teachers. If that doesn't tell you what the true intent of the program is, I don't know what other evidence is required.

Vocational Education
NCLB makes no allowance for vocational education. Even handicapped children (with certain exceptions) are supposed to follow the standard curriculum. This is a disservice to the students as the anecdote cited above illustrates. Other countries do a better job of fitting students into their capabilities and interests. One size does not fit all.

Pedagogy
Education is one of those areas where everyone thinks they are an expert. So every generation or so, those with no background rediscover some educational fad of the past. There are only two schools of education. The first is the learn-by-doing school which was started by Socrates (the Socratic method) and formalized to be compatible with the scientific age by John Dewey. The premise is that education provides the tools for life long learning. This includes continually questioning received opinion.

The other school considers education as stuffing a set group of factoids into the heads of students. It favors learning by rote, studying a core set of key people, their ideas and their historical importance and disapproves of questioning authority. This group currently has the upper hand in the US and the results speak for themselves.

[chris]

Poverty in the US is linked to race or ethnicity. A disproportionate number of the poor are black or Hispanic. Before you tackle poverty you need to tackle US racism. Lotsa luck with that!

[anne]

Alex Tolley importantly reminds me that as WEB Du Bois pointed out early on there was a denial that slavery was a meaningful institution before the Civil War, as though the Civil War was fought for wholly other reasons than slavery. There is recently literature that records and studies slavery as an economic institution that shows how meaningful the institution was. I do not know the literature in any detail, but will keep the moral-economic dichotomy in mind.

[anne]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/62c45126-dc1f-11dc-bc82-0000779fd2ac.html

February 16, 2008

Poverty Mars Formation of Infant Brains
By Clive Cookson

Boston

Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain, the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston heard on Friday.

Neuroscientists said many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development. That effect is on top of any damage caused by inadequate nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins.

Studies by several US universities have revealed the pervasive harm done to the brain, particularly between the ages of six months and three years, from low socio-economic status.

Martha Farah, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s centre for cognitive neuroscience, said: “The biggest effects are on language and memory. The finding about memory impairment – the ability to encounter a pattern and remember it – really surprised us.”

Jack Shonkoff, director of Harvard University’s centre on the developing child, said policymakers had to take note of the research because “the foundation of all social problems later in life takes place in the early years”.

“The earlier you intervene [to counteract the impact of poverty], the better the outcome in the end, because the brain loses its plasticity [adaptability] as the child becomes older,” he said.

Stress hormone levels tend to be higher in young children from poor families than in children growing up in middle-class and wealthy families, said Prof Shonkoff. Excessive levels of these hormones disrupt the formation of synaptic connections between cells in the developing brain – and even affect its blood supply. “They literally disrupt the brain architecture,” he said.

The findings explain why relatively unfocused programmes to prepare poor children for school, such as Head Start in the US, have produced only modest results, the scientists said.

More focused interventions could give more substantial benefits, said Courtney Stevens of the University of Oregon. She gave the preliminary results of an eight-week programme aimed at poor parents of pre-school children in Oregon....

[Richard A.]

anne -- its amazing what you can find on youtube.

Don't Fence Me In (Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Dr9Ypayd4
triple click if necessary

[Lafayette]

White males

chris: Before you tackle poverty you need to tackle US racism. Lotsa luck with that!

Then electing a black as PotUS should have a salutary effect!

In fact, electing either candidate will show that world that America is not run exclusively by white males. That, of itself, is a good start to regaining our credibility.

If either could do any real good, it would be an unexpected bonus.

[hammerhead]

RobertFeinman, I was going to respond to Alex Tolley on education, but you already did that. You nailed it. I doubt it is an accident, that in Bush's state of Texas, where NCLB was endemic before it went nationwide, the state test scores went up as the SAT scores went down.

Chris, child poverty in the US knows no race. You need only to spend some time in rural NC, to appreciate the poverty and dejection of the white poor. The laissez fair black, urban-gang capitalist has a much stronger identity than the poor, white rural trailer-raised teenager. Hip-hop Teenage fashion in America is ethnic, and it is emulated across racial lines. Nobody's emulates teenage PWT. They make redneck jokes about them. The sad thing is, that the amount of poverty among all races has been growing exponentially under Bush. And, I'm afraid, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[anne]

Richard A., that was swell and you are right.

[Noni Mausa]

dale said: Societies tolerate, even encourage poverty, because it is one of the signifiers of social status and hierarchy.... plus the rest of his post.

Thanks, Dale.

[Bruce Wilder]

Noni asks: Who benefits from having a large number of citizens live damaged and vulnerable lives?

Does anyone thing America is stronger if a large segment of its population is fundamentally impaired?

Well, some people prefer that large numbers of others live damaged and vulnerable lives, free of financial assistance paid for by tax dollars, and think that they prefer an America where their preferences are implemented. And, bonus answer: that is a policy of neglect.

For thirty years, now, the U.S. has seen one political Party champion measures aimed at increasingly aggressive upward redistribution of income. That Party has its strongest political base in States, where public policy actually aims at maintaining a large part of the population in poverty, States like Mississippi and Alabama.

I think there are two fundamental political obstacles to dealing with poverty effectively. One is the split in the liberal mindset, which asserts that the poor are poor simply because they do not have enough money. The other is the failure to recognize clearly that powerful political factions favor poverty and promote poverty. These twin political tendencies come together in variously pernicious political compromises, which are not really very effective in dealing with poverty, ranging from the empty gestures of the feel-good, faith-based initiatives of an allegedly compassionate conservatism to the fraud of No Child Left Behind to that subsidy for low-wage employers called the EITC.

The general impression in America is that vast sums are spent in well-intentioned efforts to aid the poor, with little effect. The reality is very limited funding for a lot of ill-intentioned programs, deliberately structuted to be of little or no help.

The political reality is that a large part of the economic, political and media elite believe that the "strength" of the economy depends on the availability of large pools of compliant, low-wage labor, and a government that does little to aid anyone other than the very rich and large business corporations. In roughly half the States, the balance of political power is firmly in the hands of such people, and the economies of such States are structured as zero-sum games, and neglect becomes active deprivation and punishment.

Even in the highly urbanized parts of the country, where more liberal ideas hold some sway, and economic opportunities are broader, poverty is ghettoized, maintained by social structures that isolate and ignore. The minimum wage might be higher, and some social services available, but liberal ideology still resists facing the reality that poverty is partly sustained by disability and partly sustained by dysfunction.

Punishing the poor is the preferred strategy of a political majority; it doesn't reduce poverty, but it is what that majority wants.

[hari]

@Bruce W -

You make an incredible claim without evidence of any sort, so one can really accept your generalized statement for what it means.

If what you claim, from your long experience (Michigan-Calif), I'd be surprised if there is not a disclaimer!

[Alex Tolley]

rdf: The other school considers education as stuffing a set group of factoids into the heads of students. It favors learning by rote, studying a core set of key people, their ideas and their historical importance and disapproves of questioning authority. This group currently has the upper hand in the US and the results speak for themselves.

What evidence do you have for that - at what age group? What comparisons are you making to what historical period or country x-sections? My direct experiences with my childrens' education, currently Middle and High School is that rote learning is far less used than I was accustomed to. There is far more "learning by doing", often made into "fun stuff" or "play". Of course this may be the result of the local School board's involvement, but I wonder how much this is also reflected in the national experience.

Another comment to make is that against all the doom and gloom about falling SAT scores, apparently children's IQs are rising (Flynn Effect) and have been since at the least the 1970's. Some of this may be nutrition, better environments and, maybe, even better schooling(?).

When I hear "life skills" are more important than formal education, I tend to think that espousers of this viewpoint prefer the learning of traditional skills - farming, huntings and crafts. Whilst I may lament my lack of skills in farming and hunting, even building houses, those skills are of little use for most people in a modern post industrial setting. Whilst formal education does not guarantee elevation out of poverty, eshewing that education will most definitely hamper any escape from poverty.

One of the great things about the California system, is that adults can get educated or re-educated even after failing in school. This choice that allows correcting mistakes later in life is much harder to do in other countries.

[Tom]

The middle class and rich do more than their fair share to aid those who can’t do for themselves, at least when private donations are also considered. That’s not to say we cannot do more. In fact, I believe we should, through private donations. Individuals, non-profit organizations, churches, and others give to those with less. I, however, do not support unconstitutional welfare programs that compel people to relinquish the fruits of labor (i.e. I favor voluntary action of individuals and freedom to state coercion). State welfare programs just crowd out private charities. Like President Bush said in his last State of the Union Address: people like Krugman are free to send checks and money orders to the IRS if they want to do more. Better yet, send it directly to the poor to avoid overhead expenses.

Let me just say, Krugman is not innocent himself; he takes more than his just share. One only need look at him to understand this. He’s a good 25% to 30% body fat. If he went on a reasonable diet, we could use that extra food to feed half the poor children west of the Mississippi. There is nothing I loath more than hearing a morbidly obese liberal tell me how I can help others by either living on less or giving more (same thing).

[anne]

"There is nothing I loath more than hearing a morbidly obese liberal tell me how I can help others by either living on less or giving more (same thing)."

Notice the language, notice the crazed viciousness, and possibly try to understand the crazed lying and viciousness though who knows whether it's worth the effort.

[Worker]

Bruce's argument swings bi-partisan. If anyone benefits from poverty, it is status-quo interests generally.

Here in Balto MD, damaged and vulnerable lives begin with a faux-education in a factory-style public school. Yet our supposedly "liberal" rulers (Republicans have less than 1/3 of either statehouse) are more interested in protecting the monopoly interests that benefit from the current system than providing educational opportunity to the impoverished.

It is sad that the most "liberal" reps, most of whom hail from very wealthy DC suburbs with quality schools, will oppose any reform efforts in Baltimore City that threatens these status quo interests.

And the poverty of Baltimore City residents gives cover to these pols and their status quo interests since they can blame poverty generally, rather than their own deliberate neglect and incompetence.

Don't know how it is in Mississippi, but here it is the Dem machine, as the status quo force, that benefits from poverty.

[Tom]

Yes Krugman, poverty is poison, and so is that box of glazed donuts you wolfed down this morning. Don’t tell me how much you care about those in poverty, not when your butt is as wide as a dump truck.

Your personal eating and excercise habits are a strain on society's resources. Maybe the state should coerce you to change your food consumption habits and start hitting the gym. You obviously cannot do it yourself, so the government should force you. Is this not the progressive's prospective on solving all our problems--state coercion?

[evagrius]

The best antidote to child poverty is a combination of health care and income subsidies for children. These would be available to all members of society from poor to rich.
Those who are rich would be taxed at a higher rate than the poor, in effect, giving back the subsidy.
This type of approach is prevalent in Europe. Everyone receives a child allowance, even the rich. General health care is available to all.

Poverty is both physical and psychological/mental. The main attribute of poverty is a lack of stability, ( where the next meal is coming from, where the next roof is, etc;). The stress from instability is what lies bhind the results of the reports quoted above.

[Lafayette]

tom: not when your butt is as wide as a dump truck.

You're trolling. Please go away, rather than clutter the forum.

[NLS]

I don't think Tom read the article.

[hammerhead]

Alex Tolley, the US may be entering a period when finding someone who can fix your plumbing, electrical system or your house's foundation may be more important to you than those Chinese programmers you hire. Being in the building trade, I'm finding that there are fewer Americans who have grown up with that skill set. We seem to have far more financial engineers than civil engineers. Our country has suffered greatly for it.

I would be thrilled, if my kids could graduate high school with a modicum of real world financial intelligence, and a boat load of survival skills (and I'm not talking about hunting, fishing or, in your neck of the woods, being an expert in picking the right baked bree or adroitly proving their worth as wine coniseurs).

[Lafayette]

evg: The best antidote to child poverty is a combination of health care and income subsidies for children. These would be available to all members of society from poor to rich.

This may be necessary, but is hardly sufficient. Handouts take the stress of instability out one's life, but it gives them no clear options. They remain incarcerated in poverty, just living off the handouts. Such welfare may be a necessary palliative, but it is not a durable solution.

Welfare must be accompanied by an "exit door" and a path to that door. The path may be parental training or, even, volunteer work that can be claimed on a résumé - in exchange for the Welfare.

How the assistance is configured depends upon the counselor, but someone must be pointing a finger in the right direction and encouraging the person to get started on it. If the child is schooled then another counselor should be looking closely at their progress.

The child is poor because the parents are poor, so the long-term solution must be found with the parents.

[Tom]

Krugman says the poverty rate among children dropped from 23% in 1963 to 14% in 1969, thanks to the LBJ’s war on poverty, of course. But wait one second, what was the trend? Data on the poverty rate dates back to 1959. (See the data for yourself at:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html)

Looking at the data, we see the trend in child poverty and overall poverty was dropping since 1959. Child poverty had been closer to 30% in 1959. So it looks to be an expanding economy had more to do with removing children from poverty than did poverty programs, although I’m sure these programs did create dependency for some of the poor–and a reason for them to vote for their caregivers.

I encourage everyone to learn more about poverty and how people like Krugman punish the data to reach the conclusion they are looking for. Krugman never mentions how poverty is measured and how government transfer income is excluded from the calculation. If it were included, the poverty rate would be lower. He never mentions that the poverty rate is calculated on income, and accumulated wealth is not a factor. A very wealthy entrepreneur could have a bad year, and he/she could be included in the poverty statistics. Of course, his/her $10,000,000 in the bank is ignored.

Krugman also does not differentiate between situational and generational poverty. Generational poverty is long term. It’s the type of poverty we should be worried about. The other type of poverty–situational–arises from an individual or family going through a transition. For instance, a banker or engineer loses his job and it takes several months for him to find another one. This can place someone in poverty, but it’s short term. I, like many others, have lived in situational poverty. For example, I was technically living in poverty when I went back to obtain my masters degree. There is also cyclical poverty, but I believe that’s self explanatory. The point is that the poverty rate is not a good measure of people in real, long-term poverty. We are mostly concerned with generational–long term–poverty, and that rate is much lower than the official poverty rate.

Remember, the poor are doing better than they ever have. And income mobility is alive and well in America. A poor man is free to dream and fulfill those dreams in the United States, which is something a poor man or women could not do in the type of society Krugman desires. Our rising tide has lifted all boats. The “poor” today, even the truely poor, enjoy much better housing than existed for even the richest of noblemen hundreds of years ago. They have microwaves, freezers, indoor plumbing, computers, Internet, TVs, DVD players, and much more (yes, even the poorest among us have many of these things–people like Krugman would suggest otherwise but people like Krugman have never known poverty or spent much time around it). These poor people have cars and other transporation means the richest noblemen of hundrends of years ago could have never imagined. The poor also have access the health care (maybe not health insurance), and the equipment used to treat them is the same high-tech equipment used to treat the richest guy in town.

We are living better than humanity has ever lived, and even the poorest in this country are doing better than many of the richest people did just 100 to 150 years ago.

[James Killus]

Krugman's columns here have become primarily a means of troll watching, meaning no offense to the usual set of sensible commenters here.

I notice, for example, that the usual suspects, the self-identified libertarians and the knee-jerk Conservative Movement locksteppers are being slowly replaced by outright nut jobs and goon squad wannabes. Both the pot and kettle are on the boil and in a screaming match for which can scream "Black!" more loudly.

You guys do realize that with all the spiffy powers available to the government, none of you are really anonymous, right? So your names will be known to the Clinton or Obama adminstration. I'm just saying.

[NLS]

Corrected, Tom read some Heritage Foundation BS.

[Tom]

You progressives just don't want to live in reality. You prefer your utopian dreams. The best path to prosperity for these poor people is free-market capitalism, not another government program. Just read the data on income mobility in America. Go ahead. Don't make excuses. Do it. Here it is:

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/incomemobilitystudyfinal.pdf

It comes from the government, an institution that you love and cherish, so I'm sure you'll place more faith in it than the opinions of one man--Krugman.

[Dutton]

I think we have a special challenge in dealing with poverty in America because of the legacy of racial prejudice and discrimination in this country. Guilt and denial around slavery only compound this problem, making people talk in half truths when they discuss the issues, lying even to themselves, it seems.

A few people have debated in these comments whether "we" benefit when there is an economic underclass or not. Both sides make great points so it seems a stalemate, until you factor in racial prejudice. It seems to me that white upper and upper middle class business owners acknowledge they need educated workers, but really wish those workers would be kids who look just like their kids. They may grumble about having to outsource to Eastern Europe, but they will do it before they will vote for candidates who in their minds represent the interests of the "other" -- blacks and Mexicans.

We forget the Republican party was the party that ended slavery. That is because they changed their tactics in the "Republican Revolution" to make race a divisive strategy to get poor Southern whites siding with them against the Democrats who they tried to associate with blacks in everyone's mind. It seems to continue to be working. I bet McCain will even win in November, so deep is prejudice against blacks and women in this country. And so thoroughly silenced has been the opposition to both forms of oppression within public discourse, PC being used as a dirty word to dismiss any protest of oppressive acts, let alone speech.

And then of course there are the powers of extreme wealth, the international wealth elite with no real national allegiances (which includes the Bush family) that DOES have an investment in continued poverty within each nation. Their best interests ARE served by keeping a large group of disenfranchised non-voters who can barely keep a roof over their heads and their kids fed, let alone take an active and informed interest in politics and perhaps... oh, I don't know... maybe launch another democratic class revolution. More babies (no access to family planning information, let alone birth control or god forbid abortion services) just makes this control easier, because dual income childless couples can get ahead econonically and have spare time to engage these matters even for their entire lives, not just after the kids are out of the house when they are tired and yearning for golden years and worried about their retirement now.

The system could be changed by those who control the purse strings of the world economy, easily so. That it does not happen should tell you clearly that what is happening is working for those in power. So if you want something different, you are going to need to start talking about revolution and asking yourself if your commitment to change is at that level.

[Bruce Wilder]

hari: "You make an incredible claim without evidence of any sort, so one can really accept your generalized statement for what it means."

Care to be specific about exactly which "claim" of mine you find so "incredible"?

I did not offer a compendium of evidence cum footnotes, because I was writing a blog comment. I was interested in drawing some connections, forming some interesting or useful abstractions concerning why it is difficult to arrive at a political consensus in favor of doing effective things about poverty on an effective scale.

Worker seemed to understand very well, part of what I was getting at.

Lafayette, though replying to Evagrius, takes up the importance of social structure and real opportunity, as a complement to writing checks and providing health care. This goes right to the point I would like to find a way to make more clearly: that the compromise antipoverty policies we adopt are ineffective by design, however absent-minded that design may be.

Tom has provided ample evidence concerning one set of political hostility.

[Alex Tolley]

hammerhead: the US may be entering a period when finding someone who can fix your plumbing, electrical system or your house's foundation may be more important to you than those Chinese programmers you hire. Being in the building trade, I'm finding that there are fewer Americans who have grown up with that skill set.

I think that it has always been a problem finding good plumbers and electricians. Plumbers seem particularly prone to error. My last remodel had the plumber install one shower with the hot and cold pipes reversed. I can put that down to recent lack of skill, but the house I currently live in, built c. 1949, also has a shower with incorrectly installed hot and cold lines. So maybe plumbers never were that skilled? Electricians may be a somewhat better, but again, even our local guys seem to have trouble reading plans, and correctly wiring up circuits. I've had to diagnose and correct plenty of wiring errors in several houses. But maybe that is just Silicon Valley.

In my neck of the woods, a good golf handicap seems to be a good skill to have, picking a good Brie and being a wine connoisseur less so. But one is expected to have good spelling and grammar, the stuff they are supposed to teach you in school. And who knows, you may just have to be really nice to the geeky kid next door to keep your internet connected computer running smoothly.

[Tom]

Bruce Wilder says: Tom has provided ample evidence concerning one set of political hostility.

I'm not the one being hostile. I am expounding the virtues of personal autonomy and individualism. Collectivists are the ones who are hostile. They propose using the violent, aggressive powers of the state to force their viewpoints on others. I want to help others help themselves, you want to force people, via threats of government, to do your bidding. That's not compassion, that's evil.

[anne]

"There is nothing I loath more than hearing a morbidly obese liberal tell me how I can help others by either living on less or giving more (same thing)."

Please stop trolling; time to just stop the trolling. Geti it?

[Denis Drew]

Tom,
"...So it looks to be an expanding economy had more to do with removing children from poverty than did poverty programs."

Today the expanding economy does not remove children from poverty. The big difference -- which seems to be just as hard to get through to the progressives around here -- is that the distribution of the ever expanding production all goes to the top today. YOU ARE RIGHT Tom -- we don't need poverty programs -- we need TO GET PAID fairly again.

[anne]

Notice the dramatic effectiveness of the effort to reduce poverty:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov4.html

Poverty Status of Families: 1959 to 1973

(Numbers in thousands. Families as of March of the following year.)

Families----In Poverty----%

1973...... 30,977 3,520 11.4
1972...... 30,807 3,621 11.8
1971...... 30,725 3,683 12.0
1970...... 30,070 3,491 11.6
1969...... 29,827 3,226 10.8
1968...... 29,325 3,347 11.4
1967...... 29,032 3,586 12.4
1966...... 28,592 3,734 13.4
1965...... 28,100 4,379 15.6
1964...... 28,277 4,771 16.9
1963...... 28,317 4,991 17.6
1962...... 28,174 5,460 19.4
1961...... 27,600 5,500 19.9
1960...... 27,102 5,328 19.7
1959...... 26,992 5,443 20.3

[anne]

The poverty rate was recorded as 20.3% in March 1959. By March 1963, the poverty rate was 19.4%. Notice then the dramatic decline in the rate of poverty to 10.8% in March 1970, a level never regained.

[anne]

Paul Krugman rightfully shows just how much progress was made just how fast when a dramatic effort was made to reduce poverty from 1963 on. Martin Luther King feared as the decade progressed however, that the thrust of effort against poverty would be lost in the wake of the war in Vietnam, so it was lost, and the myth perpetuated from then that poverty could not be reduced largely because of the perverse qualities of the poor. Lyndon Johnson and King were right however, poverty is subject to dramatic by economic policy.

[anne]

Please understand that Paul Krugman was completely right, no matter the terrible bashing, no matter the distortions that claim we do not meausre poverty properly so that it is comparable to Britain's. Poverty rates have risen and poverty rates are needlessly high and poverty is actually life-destroying, and poverty is amenable to economic policy. Martin Luther King understood well, and died struggling for a living wage for Memphis sanitation workerts. There was never a reason to have abused Memphis sanitation workers, and there is no reason to do similar slective harm to people still.

[anne]

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov4.html

Poverty Status of Families: 1959 to 1973

(% in poverty as of March of the following year.)

1973...... 11.4
1972...... 11.8
1971...... 12.0
1970...... 11.6
1969...... 10.8
1968...... 11.4
1967...... 12.4
1966...... 13.4
1965...... 15.6
1964...... 16.9
1963...... 17.6
1962...... 19.4
1961...... 19.9
1960...... 19.7
1959...... 20.3

[Patricia Shannon]

If I didn't know from experience that there are plenty of people around who are aggressively devoted to ignorance and stupidity, I would assume that Icarus has started signing his comments as Jay, to keep people from wasting time reading their silly drivel.

[mp]

Meantime, the argument here and elsewhere continues to provide an excuse to DO nothing.

[Patricia Shannon]

Tom,

When we depend on individual charity to provide benefits that are beneficial to society as a whole, we are supporting parasites.

A few years ago, a supposedly Christian church (I think Baptist) in my country closed their food pantry because the minister said he didn't see what it had to do with the "business of the church."

[Patricia Shannon]

To make it clear, the parasites I am referring to are those haves who don't help others, but who benefit from living in a society where others do help.

[Patricia Shannon]

One strong barrier for improving the prospects of the poor (of any race) is legally enforced class segregation, caused by zoning laws.