The War on Poverty

Last week was the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty. Naturally, people of all political stripes had something to say about the occasion, with Republicans inexplicably trying to claim that their platform was aimed at ending poverty, while those leaning more to the left just as inexplicably claimed that the war on poverty has been some sort of a success.

I would counter both of these claims. For starters, the idea that the Republican party cares for the 47% is so out of touch with the policies they have championed for decades that it's almost not worth addressing. It does seem as though there are a few Republicans - primarily in the Senate - who have an idea of how flawed the system is, but the "rising tide lifts all boats" mantra has been emasculated by facts and data, and besides, we now know that in such a system the tide wanes as much as it waxes, and when that economic tide wanes it seems to hurt only the poor. Look no further than our most recent recession in which bankers got bailed out and are now profiting handsomely while unemployment remains stagnantly high. Republican policies got us here, so to claim to be the anti-poverty party would be a complete 180 from the group that gave us the economic failure that is Reaganomics.

How about the more liberal contention that the war on poverty has been a success, or at least somewhat successful. Both Nick Kristof and Paul Krugman made that claim last week and backed it up with some stats that suggest neither of them have spent a significant amount of time in a truly poor area, which - at least in Kristof's case - certainly is NOT true. Nevertheless, the contention that the war on poverty has been a success smacks of ivory tower liberalism. Anyone who believes we are winning the war on poverty clearly hasn't spent much of their time actually attacking the problem.

This is actually the perfect segue into what we should be doing to end the war on poverty, or rather, to end poverty. Despite Paul Krugman's frequent contentions that education is not the answer, I believe that investing in education is the only way to eradicate poverty and create a better society.

In order to make this claim, I will start by examining the problem that inequality poses for our society as well as the importance and limitations of safety net programs.

First, why bother to address poverty and inequality? We are taught that America is a meritocracy, and that our economic system produces winners and losers. The losers should have worked as hard as the winners. This profoundly naive view rests on the idea that America is a nation of equal opportunity, which in fact it is not, nor has it ever been. If in fact, America were a land of equal opportunity, and dire poverty was reserved only for those who were in fact lazy or had severe disabilities, we wouldn't have this conversation. But even Republicans acknowledge this is a fallacy, “Raising the minimum wage may poll well, but having a job that pays $10 an hour is not the American dream,” said Florida Republican Marco Rubio.

So we recognize that there are lots of hard working people who are stuck in poverty. Why do we care? Well, I'd like to think we have a collective sense of empathy, but even if we don't our entire economic and political system are built on the idea that this is a society for everyone. When a substantial portion of the population recognizes that the system is not working for them, it's hard to imagine they will partake in its preservation. Eradicating poverty (or at least substantially diminishing it) is not just a moral cause, it's important for the continued existence of our way of economic and political way of life.

Given that we have done a poor job of limiting poverty to date, we have come up with a variety of measures to help blunt its impact. We call these programs anti-poverty programs, and they are the ones cited as having been successful by Krugman and Kristof. No doubt these programs have mitigated poverty; it's undeniably true that without these programs the situation would be worse, but I don't think of Food Stamps and Welfare benefits as poverty-preventers, I see them as poverty-sustainers. Yes, they give our neediest citizens a lifeline to survival, but if $10 an hour isn't the American dream, I'd hardly think our vision for success would be government handouts. Safety net programs too often do nothing to end poverty, but a whole lot to prolong it by giving needy people just enough to eke out an existence. They are more of a way to assuage our collective conscious than they are a means of eliminating poverty.

Having said that I by no means accept the conservative narrative that poor Americans, the 47%, are a group of money-grubbing Cadillac Queens who only become a little bit more addicted to the sweetness of government subsidies with the arrival of each welfare check. That gross caricature isn't even a stereotype rooted in reality - it's a demonization of people that holds almost no validity. Inevitably there will be lazy people who decide not to work, but we only take offense to those people when they're poor. The jobless who live off their significant other's salary or their trust funds don't draw our collective ire. Laziness is only problematic when it costs us public dollars.

Of course, while we want to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that poor and lazy are synonymous, it is certainly true that we aren't putting our money to good use retroactively keeping people at subsistence levels. So while the Republican war on food stamps and unemployment benefits is rooted in a stereotypical fallacy, the idea that we should curtail these programs is the right way of thinking. However we must do this in a manner that doesn't harm the people who rely on these forms of support.

What does that leave us with? Education, of course. Despite Krugman's oft-repeated opinion that a good education isn't worth what it used to be (he might be right about part of this given the staggeringly out of reach cost of a higher education), the route out of poverty in an ever-evolving economy in which new fields are constantly opening up while old fields disappear is through education. Only by imbuing children with the skills and abilities to critically analyze information and pursue answers will we empower them to chase their dreams, support themselves, and not count on a public handout.

This isn't a groundbreaking idea. In fact, it's the foundation upon which American success of the 20th century was built. The world is different now than it was in the aftermath of World War II, but in the decades since America showed the world the value of a good public education many countries have emulated us and capitalized on that blueprint. South Korea - just one example of many - went from an impoverished and war-torn rural nation to a global economic force by investing in education.

The war on poverty can be won, but in order to do so, America will need to take a page from our old playbook and reinvest ourselves in the idea that education should be a national priority deserving of our resources. Doing so won't only help us create a more equitable society, it will prevent the collapse of the one in which we currently live. If America hopes to persist, education must become our national priority, a victory over poverty will be a nice byproduct of the better society we will build with such an investment.