The American Way of Poverty

Over seventy years after the Great Depression, we have a new wave of poverty. Like the Great Depression, the causes were at work for years-unregulated credit and unenforced finance laws. Unlike a hurricane, you can see a financial disaster coming years in advance. The damage is also harder to repair.

    Sasha Abramsky has crafted an eloquent and well-researched book on the “new poverty” of the USA. We have millions out of work, local governments are bankrupts, and the only difference is that we have the FDIC. But in the 1930’s, there was little government support; you either worked or you starved, and a lot of people probably starved. In the past 20 years, we’ve come to rely on civil service jobs and government assistance, which the government is cutting back on. If a whole town relies on jobs in prisons, police departments, and public hospitals or schools, what will they do when the funds are cut? What will they do when unemployment payments end? In the 1930’s, the factory workers were out of work, but in this decade it’s government employees that are out of work.

    In the chapter Stuck in Reverse he writes, in detail, about people who subsist on 88-cent TV dinners (low pay at Walmart, high healthcare costs) and no fresh produce. Couple this with diabetes, a long commute to work, high fuel costs, and you can see where this is going. Abramsky blames this part on Texas’ ant-union attitude, but Walmart only puts its stores in states where unions are powerless. There are (according to this book) over 20 Walmarts in Dallas, $8.88 an hour wages, and a community so desperate for jobs that it allows a big business to do as it pleases.

   There are many who fight this and win. Look at Detroit’s urban farmers, taking over empty land and growing fresh vegetables. They’re dealing with the problem themselves, without government money. In Cities all over the USA you have non-profit tutoring services, health clinics, and improved school lunches. Some communities pass laws requiring derelict property to be torn down. But it doesn’t work if a city is loath to change. In the recent book The Metropolitan Revolution, the author blames the problems of Youngstown, Ohio on a fractured municipality. With no strong leader, the various councilmen and selectmen can’t agree on anything (kind of like the government shutdown going on right now.) Worse than an unfinished project are 20 years of plans that never get started. Are we “stuck in reverse,” or has progress just stalled.

    In the spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2003 Nickel and Dimed, Abramsky paints a portrait of a stagnated class. But unlike the poverty that Ehrenreich wrote about 11 years ago, today’s problems are far-reaching. The food pantries are running dry, and whole neighborhoods are empty, and former well-off middle class people are getting food packages from charities.

    If something isn’t done soon, the future looks rather bleak.