The Myth of the Lazy Poor

The Trump administration has recently suggested that recipients of Medicaid – health insurance for the poor – be forced to have a job or go to school if they want to retain their health insurance, however limited. This revives a theme which has been current in American mythology for a long time. The story is that the poor are to be blamed for their own poverty. They are poor because they refuse to work. Poverty is not anyone's fault except for the poor and their laziness.

People actually believe this, however incredible that may seem. But look at the plain facts: Beginning January 1, 2018 workers on federal contracts must be paid at least $10.35 an hour. If someone works a 40 hour week that amounts to $414. On an annual basis this would amount to $20,700.00. Federal guidelines defined a family of three persons as poor if they are earned $20,780 or less. If two parents have one child and one partner works 40 hours a week all year they are still poor. If two parents both go to work who will take care of their child and how much will that cost them? But what if they want two children?

Disneyland in Anaheim, CA employs more than 30,000 workers. Half of them earn $15.00 an hour or less. In Anaheim, in Orange County, the cost of living is exceptionally high. It takes $33,000.00 for a single person to live, to pay rent, buy food, insurance and maintain a car. If you earn $ 15.00 an hour your annual income is $ 30,000.00. Many Disneyland employees live in their cars or trucks.

People are not poor because they are too lazy to work. They are poor because their earnings are very low. This story about the poor who only have themselves to blame is a myth propagated by employers who pay minimum wage. "It's not our fault" they say, "it's the fault of the poor people themselves." But as we can see there is no truth to this.

Some time ago, I published a blog that dealt with an aspect of these questions. I pointed out that making poor people work for public housing, or Medicare, or food stamps or what have you is often defended on the grounds that everyone ought to work. Against that I argued that it matters a lot what sort of work people are made to do. There is work that is mind numbing and destroys the soul. No one should be forced to do that sort of work. In fact no one should have to do that sort of work. If people were offered work that is interesting, that makes one happy, few would have to be forced to do that.

But now an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Aaron E. Carroll, MD "The Problem with Work Requirements for Medicaid" February 20, 2018, page 646) examines the facts bearing on this project.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 80% of Medicaid recipients "are from working families." This breaks down as follows: 42% work full time, 18% work part-time, 14% do not work at all because they are disabled or ill, 6% attend school. That leaves 19% of Medicaid recipients who do not work at all. Of those 12% are caregivers for ill or disabled family members. Of all Medicaid recipients 7% are not working at all. Among those remaining 7%, some are looking for work and can't find any, and others are retired and or elderly. There remain about 3% of Medicaid recipients who could be described as "able-bodied adults" who choose not to work. This is a very different picture from the "lazy poor" narrative promoted by employers and their advocates among politicians.

Dr. Carroll's article quotes two other studies which find a higher numbers of able-bodied non-working Medicare recipients but those usually include older Americans or Americans who are in some way disabled. There is no evidence that there are a large numbers of poor people who refuse to work. In fact, there are probably more rich people who inherited large fortunes from their parents and grandparents, who are not working than people who live at the edge of poverty. Why allow the rich to be idle and keep bearing down on the hard working people who get paid so poorly that they remain in poverty?

The wealthy who can leave large fortunes to their children and grandchildren often acquire those fortunes by paying poverty wages to their workers. That is a pretty shameful way of making money. Instead of recognizing the immorality of that and paying workers a living wage, many employers use some of the money made by paying too little to live on to get politicians to repeat the myth of the lazy poor.

Do not be taken in by their lies!

Why we do good?

 
In our dealings with each other, human beings make assumptions about what others are interested in, what they will react to. We need to have some ideas of how we can get others to respond to our needs and desires. Say, we live in the same apartment building and you like to play your music really loud at 3 AM. How can I make you be quiet in the middle of the night? I could come upstairs at 3 AM with my assault rifle and threaten or actually shoot you. I could come upstairs with a plate of cookies hoping that that will make you turn the music down. I could come and ask you what I could do for you so that you would let me sleep.

Human beings have different theories about this. Some people believe that all relationships are about power and violence is an effective way of being powerful. Some believe, on the other hand, that being kind and generous will persuade others to be kind in their turn. Then there are the believers in social life as a grand bargain. You will choose to do what I want if I give you something in return.

Different people are inclined to different theories about human interactions. It is a common belief that if you want something from someone else you have to pay them in some way to get what you want. People will only work if they get paid – that's a piece of common wisdom. With that goes the opinion that we value only things we pay for. But this bit of common sense is very incomplete. Men and women who believe strongly that everyone needs to get paid in order to work, still spend many hours generously playing with their children or caring for their elderly parents. They never notice how their actions are not consistent with their beliefs about human interactions. Their belief that everyone needs to get paid for working, is modified by the other belief that some things should be given without payment. Different human beings have different rights. Children are entitled to loving care. The elderly, the parents that raised you with considerable effort, are now entitled to have as comfortable an old age as possible.

Between conservatives and people on the left of the political spectrum there are disagreements of what sorts of things our fellow citizens are entitled to without working for them. Most Americans, left or right, believe that everyone should work and should contribute to the society. (Some of us believe that work should be fulfilling, but that is definitely a minority opinion.) But there is considerable disagreement as to how much everyone needs to work in order to have a reasonably comfortable life.

We all agree that children should not have to work and should receive good care without paying for that care. There is widespread agreement that children are entitled to a secondary education to age 18. There is disagreement as to whether they should pay for their college education or whether it should be available free of charge to anyone who wants it and is qualified. Children should have enough to eat. They should have a clean and comfortable space to live. Most agree that children are entitled to health care without payment. When we come to adults disagreements are more serious. What are homeless people, who have no jobs, entitled to? Should those of us with some money pay for health care for the poor or should they simply work longer hours to earn their keep as you and I earn ours? Should taxpayers pay the rent for people who are unable to pay for their own apartment? The poor have done nothing for me, why should I help them?

The obvious answer is: your children have done nothing for you either. Your infants eat and sleep and soil their diapers. But you take care of them anyway. To that you reply: "that is different." But whether it really is different and in what way is a matter of permanent controversy. Some rewards should be earned, we tend to agree and others we receive without making any effort or earning the rewards we get. What belongs in each category is open to serious disagreement.

These reflections lead up to another question. It being the end of another year, I am inundated with requests for charitable contributions. My Congressman promises to change the balance of Democrats and Republicans in Congress in the new year if I give him five dollars. Well meaning Americans offer to get justice for Palestinians if I send money to their specific non-profit. Some other organization will help country folk in India or in Africa to dig wells or build schools for their children.

Should I respond to all these requests even though I know the promises are extravagant? My car is fifteen years old and shows its age. I can keep my money and buy a new car and look more respectable when I drive down the street, not to mention be more comfortable. What reasons do I have for giving my money to others, however well-meaning their efforts might be, rather than spending it on myself? I earned this money. I worked for it. I should be allowed to enjoy it.

I have no problem supporting my Congressman. He provides faithful and reliable service and, given our political system, I need to pay for the possibility of retaining him in his job. He works for me. I pay him. But what right do Palestinians have to ask me for money? What have they ever done for me? Every so often they attack my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel. Why in the world should I pay for wells or schools in places I have no connection to, places I would not even be able to find on a map. When I am old and in need of help will these country people come and feed me, or help me to the bathroom? Fat chance.

How I decide these quandaries depends very much on how I think human beings function in relation to each other. If I believe that most human transactions are bargains of one sort or another, where you do something for me and I reward you for that, I will not give any money to dig wells in India or in Africa. If I believe, on the other hand, that all human beings are entitled to decent lives including a source of potable water, I might put off buying a new car and send some money in this nonprofit that deals with water problems in faraway places.
How can we settle this disagreement?

We could try to take the easy way out and say that everyone should follow their best wisdom and leave this controversy unresolved. But we need some sort of accord when it comes to passing legislation and deciding what amount of public monies will be used to care for the indigent, the sick and the old. We could try to persuade those who are reluctant to spend taxpayer money on charity of one sort or another by accusing them of being racist, of violating the supreme maxim of Judeo-Christian morality, love your neighbor as you love yourself. We could ask our opponents what sort of world they would want to live in. Would they not prefer a world of little suffering as possible? They would respond by opting for a just world where people are rewarded for their efforts, not allowed to be lazy and of indulgent. Efforts at persuasion are not promising.

These reflections recall us to reality. After a season of sending each other cards calling for peace, calling for goodwill towards all men and women, we need to remind ourselves that this goodwill is actually in short supply. Love of their neighbor is not valued by all. Advocates for a world where everything needs to be paid for ridicule proponents of neighborly love as "bleeding heart liberals."

Welcome to 2018.

Today I am reprinting a blog from Harry Targ's Diary of a Heartland Radical reporting on the widespread misery in Indiana, thanks to more than ten years of hard right government. It illustrates the terrible price we have to pay for the millionaire ideologues that are running the country.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INDIANA 2017

Harry Targ

Social and Economic Wellbeing Survey Shows No Progress

A flurry of newspaper stories appeared the first week of February in The Wall Street Journal and several Indiana newspapers reporting on data from a “health and wellness” national survey about the performance of the 50 states. Indiana according to several measures was ranked as the fourth “worst state” in the country. The national survey consisted of data from 177,281 people interviewed by the Gallup and Healthways organizations. Data included responses to questions about feelings of community support and pride, physical health, and financial security. 

According to the survey The Times of Northwest Indiana, (February 8, 2017) reported, “31.3 percent of Indiana residents are obese, 30.6 smoke, and 29.4 percent don’t exercise at all.” Only 24.9 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree (one of the lowest percentages of any state).  The NWIT article indicated that median household income of Hoosiers was $5,000 less than the national median income.

As The Wall Street Journal put it: “Indiana is one of just a handful of states to rank worse in every category of well-being--sense of purpose, social life, financial health, community pride, and physical fitness--than most other states…”  On all these measures combined Indiana’s rank was only ahead of Oklahoma, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Previous Data on the Indiana Economy

The centerpiece of Indiana public policy since 2004 has been corporate and individual tax cuts and reduced budgets for education, health care, and other public services. Indiana was one of the first states to begin the privatization of the public sector, including transferring educational funds from public to charter schools. It established a voucher system to encourage parents to send their children to private schools. Also Indiana sold public roads; privatized public services; and recruited controversial corporations such as Duke Power to support research at the state’s flagship research universities. Meanwhile the manufacturing base of the state shifted from higher paying and unionized industrial labor (automobiles, steel, and durable goods) to lower paying service jobs and non-union work such as at the Amazon distribution center.

The narrative about Indiana economic growth presented by the former Governor Mike Pence varied greatly from data gathered between 2012 and 2014. For example, between 2013 and 2014, despite enticements to business, Indiana grew at a 0.4 percent pace while the nation at large experienced 2.2 percent growth.

Indiana’s economy historically was based on manufacturing but has experienced declines since the 1980s (with only modest increases in recent years).  However, newer manufacturing between 2014 and 2016 has been mostly in low-wage non-unionized sectors.   For example, the Indiana Institute for Working Families reported on data from a study of work and poverty in Marion County, which includes the state’s largest city, Indianapolis.  Four of five of the largest growing industries in the county paid wages at or below family sustainability ($798 per week for a family of three) and individual and household wages declined significantly between 2008 and 2012 (Derek Thomas, “Inequality in Indy - A Rising Problem With Ready Solutions,” August 13, 2014, (www.iiwf.blogspot.com).

Further, Thomas quoted a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ report on wages and income:  “…wage inequality grew twice as rapidly in the Indianapolis metro area as in the rest of the nation since the recession.” This is so because new jobs created paid less on average than the jobs that were lost since the recession started.

Thomas pointed out that the mayors’ report had several concrete proposals that could address declining real wages and stimulate job growth. These included “raising the minimum wage, strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit, public programs to retrain displaced workers,” and developing universal pre-kindergarten and programs to rebuild the state’s crumbling infrastructure. They may have added that declining real wages also relates to attacks on unions in both the private and public sectors and the dramatic reduction in public sector employment.

Thomas recommended in 2012 that Indianapolis (and Indiana) should have taken these data seriously because in Marion County “poverty is still rising, the minimum wage is less than half of what it takes for a single-mother with an infant to be economically self-sufficient; 47 percent of workers do not have access to a paid sick day from work, and a full 32 percent are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines ($29,685 for a family of three).” 

More recently, November 10, 2014, the Indiana Association of United Ways issued a 250 page report on the state called the “Study of Financial Hardship.” The study, parallel to similar studies in five other states and prepared by a research team at Rutgers University, introduced the concept of  Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed or (ALICE). ALICE refers to households with incomes that are above the poverty rate but below “the basic cost of living.” The startling data revealed that:

-a third of Hoosier households cannot afford adequate housing, food, health care, child care, and transportation.

-specifically, 14 percent of households are below the poverty line and 23 percent above poverty but below the threshold out of ALICE, or earning enough to provide for the basic cost of living.

-570,000 households are within the ALICE status and 353,000 below the poverty line.

-over 21 percent of households in every Indiana county are above poverty but below the capacity to provide for basic sustenance.

Referring to those within the ALICE category of wage earners who have struggled to survive but earn less than what it takes to meet basic needs, Kathy Ertel, Board Chairperson of Indiana Association of United Ways said: “ALICE is our child care worker, our retail clerk, the CAN who cares for our grandparents, and our delivery driver” (Roger L. Frick, “Groundbreaking Study Reveals 37% of Hoosier Households Struggle With the Basics,” Indiana Association of United Ways, November 10, 2014, Roger.Frick@iauw.org).

Indiana Politics

Perhaps the starkest fact to note in reference to the growing economic insecurity in the state of Indiana over time is that in 1970 forty percent of Hoosier workers were in unions, then the state with the third highest union density. By the dawn of the second decade of the twenty-first century only 11 percent of workers were in trade unions. Recent legislation has disadvantaged Hoosier workers including passage of a Right to Work law and repeal of the state version of prevailing wage. The Mitch Daniels/Mike Pence administrations (2004-2016) have used charter schools and vouchers to weaken teachers unions. In addition, in his first day in office in January, 2004, newly elected Governor Mitch Daniels signed an executive order abolishing the right of state employees to form unions. 

In 2005 the Indiana state government (legislature and governor) passed the first and most extreme voter identification law. Voters were required to secure voter identification photos. Michael Macdonald a University of Florida political scientist estimated that requiring voter IDs reduces voter participation by 4-5 percent, hitting the poor and elderly the hardest. In addition, Indiana law ended voter registration in the state one month before election day. And polls close at 6 p.m. election day, among the earliest closing times in the country. Finally, requests for absentee ballots require written excuses. 

Traditionally when Democrats were in the Governor’s mansion and/or controlled a branch of the legislature, they too tended to support neoliberal economic policies, but less draconian, and had been more moderate on social policy questions. In recent years, many legislators and the two most recent governors have been friends of or received support from the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC) funded by major corporations and the Koch brothers. 

With ALEC money, some active Tea Party organizations, the growth of rightwing Republican power, and centrist Democrats, Indiana government has been able to initiate some of the most regressive policies in reference to voting rights, education, taxing, and deregulation in the country. And as the data above suggests, the political economy of Indiana has increased the suffering of the vast majority of working families in the state. Other data suggests that the quality of health care, education, the environment, and transportation have declined as well.

In sum, the working people of Indiana enter the coming period with little economic hope, a politics of red state dominance, and the number two person in the White House who bears some responsibility for the economics and politics left behind. Social change in Indiana, as with the nation at large, will require a vibrant, active progressive program in the electoral arena, the 2018 elections for example, at the same time that mass movements direct their attention to improving the lives of the 99 percent.

http://www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com

“Racist Cops”

When the Black Panthers first organized in Oakland in 1966—close to 50 years ago—their Ten Point Program called for an end to (white) police brutality in black neighborhoods. “ 7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people, other people of color and all oppressed people inside the United States.”

Fast forward to Ferguson and we see the same demand, louder to be sure, but still the same demand.

Nothing has changed in the last 59 years. How can we have a Black president, a Black Attorney General, a Black Supreme Court Justice but nothing is changed for the Black kids on the block?

How can we explain this to ourselves? What lessons can we draw for changing this disgraceful situation?

Many people give a two-word answer: “Racist Cops” thereby oversimplifying a complex situation. They make it impossible to make change because they are not willing to think carefully about why police rampages continue in Black communities.

“Racist Cops” is as biased a statement as what many whites say or think about young Black men being unwilling to work, being unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. The one statement, as much as the other accuses large numbers of people of negative attitudes. As long as each sides parades its prejudices, we cannot move forward.

It has struck me for a while that when policemen shoot at young Black men they appear to shoot to kill, not to disable, not to throw off their presumed attackers. Individual policemen do not make up the rules. Their shooting to kill must be approved by police chiefs, by the mayors and city councils to whom the police chief answers. The racism here is not limited to the police but to the people who run our cities and towns.

Some of these people, for instance city councilors, are elected. The permission for policemen to shoot to kill has not to my knowledge ever been an issue in city elections. How many citizens have quizzed their city-council candidates on that issue? Ordinary voters are involved, however peripherally, in making rules for police conduct. White liberals who say “Racist Cops” are evading their own complicity.

Michelle Alexander has been writing and speaking eloquently about the mass incarceration of young Black men. Studies show that among young men, Whites are as often involved in trading and/or using marijuana than Blacks. But Blacks are six times as likely to be incarcerated as whites.

Here is where the “racist cops” explanation is seriously incomplete. Policemen make the arrest. But it is the prosecutor who asks for a long prison sentence, preferably for a felony conviction. A judge instead of chastising the prosecutorial staff, cooperates and sends the young man away for five years.

Prisons are often private enterprises whose profits go up with every additional prisoner. Prison corporations are known to lobby legislature for increasing mandatory sentences, and legislatures cooperate. The main motivations are familiar capitalist desires to increase profits; racism is not the main issue.

Prisoners come under the care of parole officers at the end of their terms.

Here are prosecutors, judges, legislatures and the parole system—all of whom see every day the overwhelming preponderance of prisoners of color, but no one raises an alarm. The entire judicial and the entire criminal justice system cooperate in perpetrating gross injustices. If we were satisfied to blame the policemen's racism we would miss completely the pervasive injustices encountered at every turn in our system of legislation, law enforcement and “corrections.”

But there is more.

It is a commonplace that “everyone commits crimes—only the poor get punished for it.” Unable to pay for a good lawyer, the poor are inadequately represented in court, often by lawyers completely unprepared for mounting a serious defense. Many localities jail people for not paying fines. Poor people unable pay fines return to prison. Middle class people and the rich pay and get on with their life.

The problems of young Black men with the criminal justice system have to do with a complex system corroded by racial injustices. But those difficulties are intensified by the pervasive poverty of the same Black young men. Our society is unfair to people doing the low-paying jobs. One large source of the injustices perpetrated against young black men and more and more against black women is the result of our economic system which produces increasing numbers of poor people.

If we strive for racial justice, we must stop putting all the blame on the police. We must call out the gross failures of the economic system to provide a decent living for every hard working citizen, and the failure of that same economic system to provide decent employment for everyone. We must also see clearly that prosecutors, judges, legislatures, in cities, states and at the federal levels and voters are all involved in this by refusing to challenge the ongoing injustices of the criminal and judicial system.

It is just too easy to say “Racist Cops.” The troubles of Blacks in the US are much more extensive and what I have mentioned so far is only a small part of the entire range of persecutions and inequalities.

Predominantly white legislatures in most states have passed laws that disenfranchise felons. In Ferguson a third or more of Blacks are convicted felons who cannot vote. That is one reason why a city with a Black majority of 67% is governed by an elected white City Council, a White city manager, a white police chief and a predominantly white police force.

Felons, however, are not only disenfranchised. More often than not they cannot find work. They cannot work—except in some illegal activity. They are unable to maintain their families. Trying to do so will soon land them in jail again.

In recent days a research institute at Brandeis documented the sharp rise in unequal asset ownership between whites and Blacks. The report states that ”in 2011 the median White household had $111,146 in wealth holdings, compared to just $7,113 for the median Black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household”--a difference of more than $100,000.00 in assets!--reflecting many factors, among them residential segregation in our cities which, in turn, reflects racial discrimination. But it also reflects the lower wages earned by many Blacks, the glaring inadequacy of many schools in Black neighborhoods. And, of course, it also reflects once again the mass-incarceration of young Blacks and the economic disaster a felony conviction is.

The list of restraints imposed on persons of color seems to have no end.

Thanksgiving and World Hunger

It is Thanksgiving time. Colleges all over the US have Hunger Day festivities designed to acquaint them with the facts of World Hunger. At best they might also learn that 14.5 million households in the US suffer from hunger. There are close to 16 million children in those underfed households.

But in these Hunger Day events no questions are raised about the causes of all this poverty. We are certainly rich enough that no one need go hungry.

Nevertheless poverty is rampant, at home as well and abroad. In my last blog I pointed out that domestic poverty is due to the failure of our brand of free market capitalism to create enough jobs and to create jobs that pay enough to allow people to have sufficient food.

Economists are fully aware that the free market system is imperfect. Markets provide all those commodities that some enterprise can make a profit producing. But some of our major needs are not met by for-profit enterprises: most of our schools are not for profit. The record of for-profit education is inglorious. While many health care providers—insurance companies, physicians, drug companies, and medical appliances companies make plenty of money, they cannot produce health care that the majority of Americans can afford. People have to go without health care or receive government subsidies. For-profit health care is not a success because it is not accessible for most of Americans.

Police and fire protection are not for profit, neither are bridges and roads. Parks, museums and symphony orchestras are non-profit. Building public monuments, Boy and Girl Scouts, Youth sports, the Ymca's and Ywca's are not profit making undertakings. Large parts of our lives are not serviced by the market.

We have known this for a long time. Corporate leaders and the “experts” in their pay are the only folks who deny this. But their opinion reflects self-interest, not facts. There is absolutely no evidence for their claim that the free market solves all economic problems.

But now we are discovering another market failure of our capitalist system: it does not provide enough jobs, let along enough jobs that pay enough for people not to go hungry.

These failures of the market account for poverty at home. Widespread hunger abroad is due to hypocritical and unscrupulous interference with attempts of other countries to feed their hungry populations.

Countries such as India and South Africa have food security programs that buy the farmers' crops at “administered prices” above market value, to stabilize prices and pay struggling farmers a living wage. Crops purchased by the government feed the poor.

The United States and other developed nations want to place harsh restrictions on these subsidies and on efforts to reduce the hunger of the poor. They decry it as restraint on the free operation of the market. Developed countries produce agricultural products more cheaply than small farmers in the underdeveloped world. They can undersell local farmers, put them out of business and add to the poverty in places such as India or South Africa. The developed countries try to prevent poverty reduction in the under-developed world because it hinders their unfettered pursuit of profits for themselves. Mass starvation is of no interest to them as long as they can make more money. In their pursuit of profit, first world agricultural producers are completely unscrupulous.

But their attempts to limit anti-hunger efforts in poor countries is also utterly hypocritical because the US and other developed countries also support agricultural prices through subsidies to farmers. At home they are willing to compromise their enthusiasm for the free market, at least when it benefits large agricultural corporations, but when it comes to saving the poor from hunger abroad, free markets come first.

Millions of people go hungry and die young because capitalist markets fail us in important respects. Pretending to be devoted to free markets and free trade when all they are looking to is their private profit, capitalists make their economic system even more destructive.

When they come around to tell you about the blessings of the free market, run the other way.

The New Segregation 

 

 Fifty-four years ago, Ruby Bridges aged 6, marched into a white New Orleans Elementary school, flanked by US Marshals. Recently she returned to that school to assist in unveiling a monument to her courageous 6 year old former self. Yet, although the school, whose teachers resigned and whose students stayed home when she first entered it, today has erected a statue in her honor, her assessment of race relations in the US is very gloomy. Schools are progressively more segregated, she points out, often reflecting sharp segregation in housing.

The racial situation has changed in the last 50 years. But the condition of the majority of Blacks in the U.S. has not improved. As I wrote in an earlier blog, many black students attend schools with a seriously inadequate curriculum—there are no classes in Algebra II or Chemistry. In many of these schools up to 60% of the teachers are not officially licensed, and a large percentage of teachers are inexperienced because they are in their first years of teaching.

But today's segregation of blacks in urban ghettos with failing schools does not only have to do with skin color but with economics: Twice as many African-Americans and Hispanics are poor compared to Whites. Of Whites about 12% of the population are poor; the rate of poverty for African-Americans and Hispanics is double that.

Poverty is self-perpetuating across the generations. Whites used to ascribe that to a mythical “culture” of poverty, of generations of welfare recipients who hand down from one generation to the next an inclination to be passive, lazy, content to live on the dole.

But that was only a myth that blamed the victims. We now know how poverty persists in the real world. Careful studies show how white and black children enter first grade equally ready to learn mathematical skills. But the poor children soon fall behind. Their lives are too hard; often even their nutrition is inadequate. Their performance in school suffers. If they finish school at all, few of them are ready to go on to college. They will be as poor as their parents.

Their poverty accounts at least in part for their social isolation. White families choose schools for their children with fewer children of color. But white families also choose schools for their children with fewer children who are poor. The resegregation of housing and education seems to be significantly affected by black and Hispanic poverty. What was previously the result of racism is today, in part, a response to serious economic inequality.

Segregation is becoming an economic issue.

Of course, that was always true in some way. Old-fashioned racism was designed to hide the shame of slavery. But segregation today responds to very different economic facts. Foremost among those is the inability of our capitalist economic system to create enough jobs. A close second is the inability of this economic system to create jobs that pay a living wage.

The official unemployment rate in the entire country stands at 6.5. That is not counting the people who have become discouraged after failing to find a job, often for more than a year, and who have stopped looking. That rate is almost twice the official unemployment rate at 12.5. The economy cannot create jobs for a significant percentage of the population.

More than 5% of the labor force work more than one job. One job by itself simply does not pay enough to support a family. Only 35% of part-time workers who wanted more hours managed to get full time work. The remainder are forced to work less than they would like.

The result is massive poverty. Figures differ but about 15% percent of households in the US live in poverty as defined by the US government. Given centuries of racism in the US, a disproportionate number of the poor are African-American or Hispanic, Native American or Native Alaskan.

Poverty brings with it housing and educational segregation.

We are being told, daily, that our economic system allows everyone to make something of their life, while, in reality, the economic system is actually to blame for much of this poverty. It has failed 15% of us massively and more and more of us to a lesser degree. Instead of creating jobs, capitalism in the US first outsourced jobs elsewhere. Today that is no longer sufficient. So capitalists now have a new project, namely to replace human workers by robots. (The workforce in China is said to have already been reduced by 15% due to robots replacing human workers.) The system that creates unimaginable riches for some, creates massive misery for one in seven households in the “richest country in the world.”

Is it time for a change?

Minimum Wage

We have known for a long time that when WalMart hires a new employee, HR explains to him or her how to get food stamps and get on Medicaid, because what WalMart is going to pay this new employee will not be enough to buy food and health care for the new hire's family.

This year, we have learned that employees of fast food companies have the same problem.

Now comes this morning's newspaper and reports that, according to the University of California Labor Center, 31% of all bank tellers get paid so poorly that they cannot survive without help from the government. The government spends close to $900,000 to supplement the incomes of poorly paid bank tellers.

That's, of course, a bonanza for WalMart, Fast Food restaurants and the banks. The money that taxpayers—you and I—lay out to help families who do not earn enough to live, raises the profit of these private companies. Companies with low wage jobs are subsidized by the government. We call that welfare for the rich.

One more example of the blessings of the “free market place.”

With ever new disclosures about workers paid too poorly to be able to live without government assistance, we may well ask: How many underpaid workers are there in the US?

There are different answers to that. The Federal minimum wage stands at $7.25. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, the percentage that prices have risen since the end of World War II, it would today stand at $10.74.ⁱ

If we accepted the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 as the standard, 46% of workers would be underpaid. If we accept $10.74 as the proper minimum wage, then 26% of the workforce—35 million Americans-- gets paid less than minimum wage.

That is pretty alarming. One full quarter of all Americans working get not paid enough to meet their essential needs of food, shelter, clothing, health-care and education for their children. That certainly suggests that our economic system is not functioning. The least we should be able to expect from the economy is to provide a decent living to everyone working. Our economy is not doing that.

But even more startling are the arguments offered against raising the minimum wage.

One of them claims that half the people earning less than the minimum wage are under 26. Being under 26 is then presented as high-school kids doing part-time work after school. But being under 26 means for many Americans that they are working, that they are in a stable relationship, and are having or expecting children.

But even if many of the low wage earners are kids, can we be proud of a country that underpays its young people? That does not seem to me a good strategy for bringing up a new generation of eager and responsible workers. A society must take care of bringing up a new generation to fill the jobs that need doing. If we teach our young people that working does not pay, we are liable to produce a generation of people who hate their work even before they join the full-time workforce.

Even more startling is the standard prediction, that if we raise the minimum wage, the economy would loose 300,000 jobs.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage, mostly ardent advocates for capitalism, are telling us that our economic system is not able to provide jobs that pay decently to all who want to work. We have a choice between having a quarter of the workforce underpaid or having a very high rate of unemployment – which in turn, of course, depresses wages.

Capitalism, as we practice it today, is great for the rich. It makes them a lot richer. But that capitalism is not good at all for more than a quarter of the American population. However hard they work, they will end up dependent on government handouts. They will find themselves looked down upon by everyone else and make them ashamed for not making an adequate living, even though, God knows, that is not their fault.

However much it may produce for the rich, an economic system that does not provide good and rewarding work for everyone is an unacceptable system. Capitalism, as we practice it today, is a failure.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage as much as admit that.

Lies, lies, lies.

America lives by lies and self-deception.

People will repeat over and over that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were fighting to protect American freedoms. But Saddam Hussein did not attack us. We attacked him first in 1991 and again in 2003. What threat is Afghanistan to American freedom – compared to the authors of the USA Patriot Act, or the rabid right-wing groups that try to interfere with women's freedoms, with freedom of speech and expression?

The truth is that these two wars have never made any sense and people would rather believe a glaring falsehood than admit that.

What about Vietnam? Was Communist North Vietnam not a threat to our freedoms? Our Dr. Strangelove, Henry Kissinger, and his ilk wanted to persuade us of that. But history has proven him completely mistaken. Today the former Communist North runs all of Vietnam. But that has not affected your or my freedoms.

“United we stand. “

That's another myth that we hold on to for dear life. In recent days we have had distressing evidence of how false that belief is.

Consider the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress who have not been able to agree on hardly anything for several years.

Consider the 20% of American women who, according to a recent government report, have been raped – half of them younger than 17. Or consider the 25% of American women who have been seriously assaulted by husbands, boyfriends, or other family members.

The day after the news got out of this massive and sustained assault on women, the NY Times reported a Justice Department probe into the to conduct of Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. It seems that Sheriff has been conducting a concerted campaign to stop Latino drivers for traffic violations. Latino inmates have been mistreated in jail when they did not speak English. The Sheriff had waged a definite war against Latinos.

At the same time, the Sheriff's Department was lax in pursuing complaints about sexual attacks and rapes, especially those involving Latina women.

Race and gender continue to divide us in fundamental ways. Wars are being fought for reasons that few of us can understand.

“America is the richest country in the world.”

People keep repeating that one too. But today the government revealed that 50% of all Americans are either below the poverty line or low income. That does not sound like a rich country to me.

Many Americans do not hesitate to say that ours is the greatest country in the world. But that is true only in a fantasy world. In the real world, we have lost control of our government that engages in wars no one understands. Our citizens are divided into groups that try their best to injure the members of other groups. We are living in the midst of a virtual civil war. We are rapidly sliding into poverty.

It is time that we faced the facts. As long as we deceive ourselves into thinking how great things are in America, we will not do anything to solve our problems. Every day that we live in that self deceived fantasy world brings us closer to the day when the myths and self-deceptions are no longer sustainable. But then the time will be long past for solving any of our problems.