In the past when I have asked students, mostly middle-class, "why are people poor?" they rattle off a list of answers ranging from poor money management to a failure to work hard enough to get ahead. My pointed response is to ask whether or not they believe it's possible for 47 million people, the current number of individuals impoverished in the U.S., to be poor money managers or lazy?
While I'd like to dismiss my students' answers as naïve or uniformed, they are more aligned than not with our nation's thinking about poverty and its cause. In a poll by the Harvard Kennedy School and NPR about the root causes of poverty, more than 50 percent of those surveyed said poor people lacked motivation or were morally corrupt. Even poor people, nearly to two-thirds of them, agreed blaming themselves for being impoverished or for not earning enough to make ends meet.
As the 2016 Presidential election nears, there has been a lot of talk about improving the middle-class, from protecting this coveted group from tax increases to helping students climb out from under onerous student loan debt. However, there has been virtually no discussion, from Republicans or Democrats, about how to improve the conditions of individuals and families in poverty who are striving to reach the middle class, but are not yet there. These are the individuals earning less than $12,000 annually, or $24,000 for a family of four. What about these people? Are they not entitled to any love on the debate stage?
Generally, when we talk about the middle-class, we are talking about tax cuts, tax increases, homeownership, and retirement and college saving plans. And when we talk about the poor and what it takes to be economically secure over the long haul, we are talking about social supports, an increase in the minimum wage, access to quality schools, affordable housing, and putting an end to mass incarceration. Both conversations can happen, but we need to know the difference between the two.
In the U.S., poverty is a four-letter word at odds with the American Dream. Specifically, the idea that regardless where one begins in life, if you work hard, you'll make it to the top. In this narrative, calling someone a hard-working, poor person seems like an oxymoron. The harsh truth is only 4 percent of those born into poverty, or in the bottom 20 percent of Americans economically, will ever make it to the top fifth of income earners.
Our collective silence about poverty or rather what it really takes to be move up the economic ladder is hurting us. Since the last big national conversation on poverty in the 1960s that spurred the "War on Poverty," the social safety net for families has essentially evaporated. Today, despite enormous need and the largest number of individuals in poverty in more than three decades, less than 7 percent of the U.S. population receives some form of cash assistance with the average monthly benefit $404--hardly enough to support a family or to survive financially.
We have to face facts: working 40 hours a weeks or even a solid post-secondary education won't spare you from poverty or catapult you into the middle class. Candidates seeking the highest office in the land will have to tell us how they plan to not only alleviate the middle-class squeeze, but how the lives and well-being of the most economically vulnerable among us will be improved.