Overcoming Poverty in America

Holidays like Christmas bring together generations of family and friends from a variety of geographic areas. Every person present at these gatherings brings a perspective unique to their age, upbringing, and place in history. What an environment for learning! What an opportunity for heated arguments! One can be actively engaged on the end of one's seat, eyes riveted on the current speaker; one may slouch low in a corner, sipping a plastic glass of red wine; or one can be passively chirping in with witty comments. Whatever the role one takes, family discussions on holidays can bring a lively conversation.

One such conversation occurred at my family Christmas celebration this year. It was fleeting but raised a series of questions about poverty in America, our relation to it, and what could be done to improve it.

It began with my grandmother claiming there are too many charities advertising around the holidays asking for too many donations all benefiting too many people. Too many families benefit from these charities, she claimed, and these beneficiaries were not "poor" but were just as well off as those who were not "poor" when she was growing up. My grandfather agreed with her, explaining the localized, private method of social welfare present in their small farming community of Western Massachusetts in the 1930s.

A quick rebuttal by my uncle was challenged by my grandparents who insisted charities were too common and that too many people were asking for handouts. Among the many reasons why welfare was too generous today according to my grandparents:

- Extra money from the state per child born into poverty (a dis-incentive to not have more children than one can afford)
- Offers from charities to clothe a newborn for a full year
- Not just state subsidies for apartments but full payments for single family homes
- EBT food stamp cards from various programs are too generous and applicants are not properly screened

My grandparents explained how when they were growing up during the Great Depression social welfare came from private individuals in local communities. Their own parents made clothing, grew food, worked long hours at menial jobs, and sold crops. If a family in the community was less fortunate it was known by all and those who had more would voluntarily drop off food, clothing, or some other form of help.

My grandparents are no strangers to poverty. Their parents worked the land in Western Massachusetts on farms during an era of widespread economic hardship in America. Everyone went without in some form. By a combination of hard work and determination, my grandparents worked their way through college, started businesses, raised a family, and have lived long enough to tell the story. It is truly an inspiring story.

But they were living in a different time when families lived closer to the land. In the absence of a state welfare program a community had no choice but to band together to help those less fortunate. Many families lived on farms where they could work the land to grow their own food, raise livestock, benefiting from the land as a source of nourishment and trade.

Aside from homeless people sleeping on city sidewalks, today's poor have been tacitly or explicitly accepted as those who do not work and need financial assistance. These people live in subsidized housing, receive a social security welfare check, a state health program, and food stamps. When I say they have been "accepted as those who do not work and need financial assistance" I am saying that is the 2014 standard of what is considered living as a poor person in America.

In my grandparents' time there was either no social welfare or very little so a poor family's survival depended on what little they could produce on their own plus what the community could offer as charity. There was no social safety net guaranteeing a monthly income provided by the taxed income of all working people. Out of this system arose many self-made, successful people like my grandparents. Of course, it also produced many dead people from those who could not survive.

Today we have fewer people living on farms, a higher population living in poverty (in terms of total numbers due to the increase in population over time by roughly 100 million since 1935), and those poor people are born into a system which includes the welfare checks, health care, and food stamps. Reversing the current welfare system to the situation experience by my grandparents in the 1930s would be so impractical it is not even worth considering. My grandparents' argument against the current welfare system in the US should be criticized on its merits, but their own upbringing should not be used as a comparison because the times were too different.

Tossing the 1930s self-made argument as a lesson to current poverty-stricken Americans out the window, we may address my grandparents' other criticisms of the current welfare situation they brought up in our lively holiday discussion:

- Extra money from the state per child born into poverty

This gets into the debate of how ethical it is for the state to tell poor people how many children they can have.
- Offers from charities to clothe a newborn for a full year

Any donation to charity should not be automatic. Charities must be held accountable for the percentage of their donations going to administration vs their primary mission.
- Not just state subsidies for apartments but full payments for single family homes

For the state to pay for a house for a poor person is unacceptable in my opinion. Apartments are perfectly fine for a family. I have not read anything about this situation though so I don't know how common it is.
- Overly generous EBT food stamp cards from various programs

I have personally seen this system being abused. I can't help but be suspicious of a well dressed person using the blue EBT card at the grocery store.

Again, it forces us to answer the question about minimum standards of living. How much are we willing to pay someone as they work their way out of poverty? And what can someone currently on welfare expect to make working 40 hours per week at a low skilled job? They must exchange a social security check, health insurance, subsidize rent, and food stamps for $8 per hour.  $8 per hour is $1280 per month before taxes and benefits are taken out.  No wonder so many low wage full time workers still get state benefits.  How can anyone raise a family on $1280 per month.