Poverty is Unaffordable. Really.

Warning! This will be a recurring theme…all of the things we can no longer afford. But we’ll start with poverty, because it has the happiest outcome. No more poverty!

Some people tolerate poverty because the Bible said so. I’ve always wondered whether Jesus’ comment was actually a comment on humankind. There will always be poverty because human beings are too self-centered to end it. Those with money, that is. Why give up a good thing?

Then there’s the belief (deeply held but hardly conscious and certainly not spoken) that poor people are poor because they deserve it. They are stupid or lazy or incompetent or something like that. Correspondingly, rich people earn the money they make. Every last cent.

I have two aunts who will tell you so. Both were (very) small town girls with minds and futures to match. They married men from slightly larger towns, and these men happened to have slightly larger minds. They became millionaires. Unfortunately, the women’s hearts did not increase with their pocketbooks. They believe the homeless deserve to sleep under bridges and every last immigrant should be shipped back (except the ones that clean their pools in Arizona of course). In their defense, their attitudes are not so different from those on Wall Street, who are convinced that their paychecks match their skills.

Research has clearly shown that income is related to all sorts of outcomes—health status, educational achievement, crime and incarceration. It is easy to see how my aunts could fall into the trap of thinking that the poor only have themselves to blame. But research has also shown that a tiny bit of money (gumball money for my aunts)—on the order of $50 a month-- can make a huge difference in the lives of the poor. For example, their children learn better in school, and the incidence of domestic violence decline.

Why might that be? Simplistic as is sounds…stress. One study showed that stress in school children (which can be measured physiologically) diminishes their short term memory skills. These skills are essential for learning. And here researchers talk about another factor of stress: demands on one’s attention. Researchers tracked air traffic controllers and found a direct relationship to the hecticness of their work day and the way they treated their children and spouse and home.

It is stressful to be poor in our society! And I would argue that we can no longer afford to keep people stressful. I don’t know about you, but I no longer want to pay for the costs in lost educational achievement, incarceration, welfare, and poor health.

Here’s an idea. Instead of paying people not to work (welfare or unemployment) how about paying them to work by giving them a wage supplement? They’re better off, our businesses will be more competitive, and the costs to society will drop. Besides, it costs $800 million in Minnesota to process income supports in Minnesota. Last I looked, we had a huge budget problem. And counting. Any chance it's related to this graph?

thanks to Trout Lowen for sending along the video clip