What I Learned in the Poverty War

[viningsgator]

Insight from someone who has been there from day one.

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_poverty.html

Nearly half a century ago, I dropped out of graduate school and enlisted as a foot soldier in America’s War on Poverty. Today, I’m still on the front lines, working to move people out of dependency and into employment. But with an important difference: I’ve become fed up with the useless policies that I once supported, and I’m trying to change the strategy of our bogged-down army.

We know for certain that income transfers, the preferred tactic of generations of liberals, have utterly failed to end poverty. My firsthand experience with welfare clients has shown me why: being on the dole encourages dependency. Working at a real job, by contrast, is the surest way for a person to climb out of poverty. Accordingly, the surest way for the government to fight poverty is to eliminate cash assistance almost entirely and offer jobs.

What opened my eyes was a job I took in the mid-1970s at the Vera Institute in New York, led by the brilliant policy innovator Herbert Sturtz. Sturtz created small demonstration programs; researched them scientifically, sometimes with control and experimental groups; and, if they proved successful, asked governments or foundations to take them on and expand them. One of the demonstration programs, the Wildcat Services Corporation, was running employment programs for the most hard-to-place welfare recipients in all five boroughs, and Vera asked me to head Wildcat’s Manhattan and Bronx offices.

The reasons should have been obvious all along. Work maximizes a person’s capacity to achieve economic self-reliance. Work socializes people and instills a sense of personal responsibility in them. Work connects behavior and consequences. And it permits people, especially men, to obtain the admiration and respect of their spouses and children.

[96Gatorcise]

Insight from someone who has been there from day one.

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_poverty.html

Nearly half a century ago, I dropped out of graduate school and enlisted as a foot soldier in America’s War on Poverty. Today, I’m still on the front lines, working to move people out of dependency and into employment. But with an important difference: I’ve become fed up with the useless policies that I once supported, and I’m trying to change the strategy of our bogged-down army.

We know for certain that income transfers, the preferred tactic of generations of liberals, have utterly failed to end poverty. My firsthand experience with welfare clients has shown me why: being on the dole encourages dependency. Working at a real job, by contrast, is the surest way for a person to climb out of poverty. Accordingly, the surest way for the government to fight poverty is to eliminate cash assistance almost entirely and offer jobs.

What opened my eyes was a job I took in the mid-1970s at the Vera Institute in New York, led by the brilliant policy innovator Herbert Sturtz. Sturtz created small demonstration programs; researched them scientifically, sometimes with control and experimental groups; and, if they proved successful, asked governments or foundations to take them on and expand them. One of the demonstration programs, the Wildcat Services Corporation, was running employment programs for the most hard-to-place welfare recipients in all five boroughs, and Vera asked me to head Wildcat’s Manhattan and Bronx offices.

The reasons should have been obvious all along. Work maximizes a person’s capacity to achieve economic self-reliance. Work socializes people and instills a sense of personal responsibility in them. Work connects behavior and consequences. And it permits people, especially men, to obtain the admiration and respect of their spouses and children.

.

I have always thought this would be a much better allocation of resources. Subsidize the jobs not the person.

[Gatormb]

Great OP. This idea will never come to fruition until Pubs take control for obvious reasons. Dems derive power from the people government subsidizes.

Wouldn't let me rep but I'd give ya ten if I could.

[rivergator]

I'm certainly open to alternatives to the systems we have now.

[candymanfromgc]

Sorry to be the wet rag but I just don't believe the people in government as a whole gives a damn about anything but retaining power and maintaing their elite status.

Many of these problems could be solved at least to some degree but alas our elected reps continue to act in their self interest.

[viningsgator]

A new WPA as mentioned by the author would be a good start. Rebuild the inner cities with the citizens of the very same community.

[Gatormb]

My point exactly candy. The article relates that opposition from day one of this 25 year old company.

[Dreamliner]

Sorry to be the wet rag but I just don't believe the people in government as a whole gives a damn about anything but retaining power and maintaing their elite status.

Many of these problems could be solved at least to some degree but alas our elected reps continue to act in their self interest.

Unfortunately, it's far more insidious than that. The elected reps continue to act in the interests of the people who elect him. That's why government always grows and never gets rolled back. That is what you get with democracy.

[candymanfromgc]

It is sad, the idea of the OP has alot of merit and you know the old saying of the definition of insanity-yey we continue the same ole failed policies that are doomed to reach the same result.

[austingtr]

When we were students at UF, without a penny on our name, we were encouraged to apply for food stamps after we had a baby while in school (we took medicaid to pay for our daughter's delivery). The process was so humiliating, and sobering (standing in line with people waiting for a hand out, the way we were treated, and the feeling of losing our dignity) that after waiting 40 mins, we decided we rather make do with what we got from loans and Pell grants, and some aide that came from my father, who basically supported our daughter while we finished college and med school. Now people are encouraged to get aide, and lose their self worth and dignity in the process. There is advertisement for this. We are killing America. It is truly sad. Getting hand outs for people who are able destroys their self worth and dignity.
Instead of expecting the guvmint to take care of people, how come families don't take care of their own? Well, when there are no families, this is what you get.

[vangator1]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

[viningsgator]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

You really think that folks are just going to starve? There will always be access to food through churches and charities.

[Row6]

We've done this before. The War on Poverty resulted in significant changes in levels of poverty and other specific markers. Fine to disagree with methods but don't spread falsehoods about success and supporting data.

[rivergator]

Just FYI, LBJ's war on poverty was not simply welfare, not simply checks, as some people seem to think.

[G8trGr8t]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

Yes

[viningsgator]

We've done this before. The War on Poverty resulted in significant changes in levels of poverty and other specific markers. Fine to disagree with methods but don't spread falsehoods about success and supporting data.

The author of the article has been involved in the war on poverty for 50 yrs and is telling you weve been tackling the war on poverty the wrong way. He disagrees.

[Lawdog88]

Unfortunately, it's far more insidious than that. The elected reps continue to act in the interests of the people who elect him. That's why government always grows and never gets rolled back. That is what you get with democracy.


Totally agree. It is the special interest groups that do the electing, the elected continue to represent them to the exclusion of everyone else, and that is exactly what you get with democracy.

[Row6]

The author of the article has been involved in the war on poverty for 50 yrs and is telling you weve been tackling the war on poverty the wrong way. He disagrees.

The author needs to look at the data. BTW, he opted out of the "war on poverty" 30 years ago.

[gatorman_07732]

When you subsidize something you get more of it

[Lawdog88]

Insight from someone who has been there from day one.

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_poverty.html

Nearly half a century ago, I dropped out of graduate school and enlisted as a foot soldier in America’s War on Poverty. Today, I’m still on the front lines, working to move people out of dependency and into employment. But with an important difference: I’ve become fed up with the useless policies that I once supported, and I’m trying to change the strategy of our bogged-down army.

We know for certain that income transfers, the preferred tactic of generations of liberals, have utterly failed to end poverty. My firsthand experience with welfare clients has shown me why: being on the dole encourages dependency. Working at a real job, by contrast, is the surest way for a person to climb out of poverty. Accordingly, the surest way for the government to fight poverty is to eliminate cash assistance almost entirely and offer jobs.

What opened my eyes was a job I took in the mid-1970s at the Vera Institute in New York, led by the brilliant policy innovator Herbert Sturtz. Sturtz created small demonstration programs; researched them scientifically, sometimes with control and experimental groups; and, if they proved successful, asked governments or foundations to take them on and expand them. One of the demonstration programs, the Wildcat Services Corporation, was running employment programs for the most hard-to-place welfare recipients in all five boroughs, and Vera asked me to head Wildcat’s Manhattan and Bronx offices.

The reasons should have been obvious all along. Work maximizes a person’s capacity to achieve economic self-reliance. Work socializes people and instills a sense of personal responsibility in them. Work connects behavior and consequences. And it permits people, especially men, to obtain the admiration and respect of their spouses and children.


This used to make sense.

My fear is that the traditional value that most Americans were instilled with in generations past - the work ethic - has been supplanted by a more complex ethic espousing a negative self-esteem emblematic with "getting away with it," "who gives a sh!t?," "putting one over on the man," and "dumb-ass mo-fo's work jobs."

In other words, for the dignity of proper self-esteem through work to grow, it must have a fertile place to be planted that is prepared, cultivated and tended for the seed to mature. This usually begins with proper upbringing in a stable home, with responsible parents taking the role-model and coaching lead.

Coupled with the more mainstream ideas of the need for endless entertainment, alternative reality, and mindless gadget infatuation (including attention-seeking interpersonal broadcasting of blather), it's no wonder why the idea of work having any other reward greater than itself - other than drudgery - doesn't seem to sell to a lot of folks.

[Burke]

I worked as a legal aid lawyer in Johnson's WOP in the late '60's.

What I saw was the federal govt financing the overthrow of our way of life.

[Row6]

Whatever problems there are with some people getting a free ride - no system is perfect and is always subject to someone scamming it - this stuff is fools manna for those who think the problem with America is bottom up, as if the high unemployment rate is because a bunch of people decided in 2008 that they'd rather make $275 a week sitting at home than working two or three or four times that amount at a job. That's not what happened folks.

[Lawdog88]

^^^ That doesn't address the continuing culture of the purposefuly unemployed.

[Row6]

^^^ That doesn't address the continuing culture of the purposefuly unemployed.

That is a problem, but it is not THE problem - except to them and their families - or even close to it. Yes, there is a subculture of aimless poverty and to some extent dependency that is not amenable to easy solutions, but it is not driving our larger problems.

[Gatormb]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

To quote Walter Williams (a black man) who recommends just that: "Starvation is a tremendous motivator."


Walter Edward Williams is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author known for his libertarian views.

[gatorev12]

That is a problem, but it is not THE problem - except to them and their families - or even close to it. Yes, there is a subculture of aimless poverty and to some extent dependency that is not amenable to easy solutions, but it is not driving our larger problems.

Well, it is a problem and that's what this thread is about. So whatever other unrelated topics/problems you want to bring in to distract from the thread, just stop before you start.

There is absolutely nothing positive for society that results in allowing people to become dependent on handouts and creates a "subculture of aimless poverty."

[Gatormb]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

Also might add it's biblical. In 2 Thes 3:10 the Apostle Paul teaches "If you don't work, you don't eat".

[northgagator]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

The following does not apply to the lame, sick, elderly, the physically/mentally challenged, children, and primary care givers.

For one thing you do not reward those who do not want to work. Giving them food, clothing, and shelter just reenforces the motive not to work.

If they have children I say remove them from the parent or parents who refuse to work from the children.This my sound harsh but consider the a parent who refuses to work also gives up their position of being a parent when he/she/both refuse to work to provide for the family. At the same time we need to provide the dependents and the care givers the necessary resources.

Also the people who do not chose to work should be prohibited from panhandling. If they are convicted of a crime they need to be in prison/jail. While incarcerated the need to grow/cook their own food, maintain the prison/jail, and perform community service.

[gatordowneast]

What do you do with those that refuse to work? Let them starve?

Van, nobody starves. Every city, town and county in the country has churches, many of which have food banks. Major cities, where most poverty and homelessness issues occur, have programs supported by charities and the cities themselves.

Great article and thanks to vinings for posting.

However, this entire article has zero chance under Obama as it goes against the manifesto and LBJ wing of the demo party who honestly believe that you buy votes by making yourself so important to your constituents that they would never vote for anyone else as they would be cutting their own food, clothing, shelter and health care and free cell phones off. In other words...Creating Dependency, is their plan...why would they change course...they just won the Presidency again with this plan?

[mocgator]

I'm certainly open to alternatives to the systems we have now.

No you aren't. And the stinking politicians that use entitlement to buy votes certainly don't.

[Dreamliner]

Van, nobody starves. Every city, town and county in the country has churches, many of which have food banks. Major cities, where most poverty and homelessness issues occur, have programs supported by charities and the cities themselves.

Great article and thanks to vinings for posting.

However, this entire article has zero chance under Obama as it goes against the manifesto and LBJ wing of the demo party who honestly believe that you buy votes by making yourself so important to your constituents that they would never vote for anyone else as they would be cutting their own food, clothing, shelter and health care and free cell phones off. In other words...Creating Dependency, is their plan...why would they change course...they just won the Presidency again with this plan?

I was just going to say that poor people in America are far more apt to die of gluttony than starvation.

[chemgator]

Obama thinks he's the fourth-best president in history, after Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ. That should tell you all you need to know about:

a) his over-sized ego and arrogance.

and

b) his demented philosophy on the function of gov't. If he were to be honest about the role of gov't, he would say that "The purpose of gov't is to provide for the people, feed the people, house the people, and clothe the people. The purpose of people is to pay the taxes to feed gov't, if they make too much money." I think that summarizes his "spread the wealth around" philosophy.

I'm not sure which is harder to believe, that we elected a halfwit like GWB to office twice, or that we elected a dimwit like Obama to office twice.

[northgagator]

I'm not sure which is harder to believe, that we elected a halfwit like GWB to office twice, or that we elected a dimwit like Obama to office twice.

Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice....

[ncbullgator]

We've done this before. The War on Poverty resulted in significant changes in levels of poverty and other specific markers. Fine to disagree with methods but don't spread falsehoods about success and supporting data.

I guess the numbers reflecting that 75% of all black babies are born out of wedlock (not to mentioned hispanic and white babies) and the collapse of the black family are your markers for the success of liberal poverty programs.

Or the 15 plus million more on food stamps or the rise, yes increase, in poverty and unemployment since the Obama regime took over are further proof of the success of the liberal ideology.

I guess its the fault of those greedy capitalists and not the fault of selfish liberalism that demands their neighbors pay THEIR bills.

Wow. Clueless.

:whistle:

[northgagator]

I guess the numbers reflecting that 75% of all black babies are born out of wedlock (not to mentioned hispanic and white babies) and the collapse of the black family are your markers for the success of liberal poverty programs.

Or the 15 plus million more on food stamps or the rise, yes increase, in poverty and unemployment since the Obama regime took over are further proof of the success of the liberal ideology.

I guess its the fault of those greedy capitalists and not the fault of selfish liberalism that demands their neighbors pay THEIR bills.

Wow. Clueless.

:whistle:

Ouch!

But very accurate.

[GatorFanCF]

It's funny (sad) that generally liberals commenting on Gov't programs seem to see life as holding only two alternatives: government assistance or death (by starvation, lack of shelter, pick a need, etc.) Perhaps, just perhaps, if folks knew their neighbors, volunteered locally, participated in a house of worship they just might have friends & relatives willing to help them out. Yes, it's humbling to ask for help; but, help comes in many forms and OFTEN is not found in a check.

Maybe some would argue: "Hey, I like my privacy, don't have time to volunteer outside my work and don't believe in organized religion; so, STFU" Very well; but, the moment you would ask for Gov't assistance you're now asking for MY time (valued in $$) transferred by the State. You don't want to give; but, you're requiring me to do so. Yes, it's a strawman - yet, as we've read in Albert Brooks' book "Who Really Cares?" the folks who give both time & money disproportionately are typically married, attend religious services regularly, are entrepreneurial, and have a healthy cynicism about Govt's ability to solve personal problems. Great thread....kudos to OP.

[vangator1]

What happens when they take away the charitable contribution? Where's all this food coming from?

[Row6]

Well, it is a problem and that's what this thread is about. So whatever other unrelated topics/problems you want to bring in to distract from the thread, just stop before you start.

There is absolutely nothing positive for society that results in allowing people to become dependent on handouts and creates a "subculture of aimless poverty."

My comments were entirely about the "War on Poverty" and - short of action by the mods - I'll decide what I "start". But thanks for the advice.

Au contraire, there were positives that followed from the "war" despite some negatives. Most adults can accept the fact that very few things are perfect in life and without unintended consequences and effective gaming of rules by some, the point I already made above. Indeed the "war" reduced poverty significantly - look at the data - and included programs aimed at self help and education, like Head Start, Vista, and the Job Corps.

[Row6]

I guess the numbers reflecting that 75% of all black babies are born out of wedlock (not to mentioned hispanic and white babies) and the collapse of the black family are your markers for the success of liberal poverty programs.

Or the 15 plus million more on food stamps or the rise, yes increase, in poverty and unemployment since the Obama regime took over are further proof of the success of the liberal ideology.

I guess its the fault of those greedy capitalists and not the fault of selfish liberalism that demands their neighbors pay THEIR bills.

Wow. Clueless.

:whistle:

You are apparently clueless about what the "War on Poverty" programs were, the extent to which it was dismantled during the last three decades, the effects it had on poverty levels in America, the larger social changes at work in America since the 1950's, and the fact that we recently the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

That's a little more than I wish to educate you about, but I have offered you a few clues.

[viningsgator]

What happens when they take away the charitable contribution? Where's all this food coming from?

Can't tell if your posts are serious but again this is just beyond silly. Americans are the most generous people in the world and don't give their time and money for a tax deduction. Look at the money that is raised after a tsunami, hurricane, or other natural disaster. Have you ever volunteered? Give it a try its very rewarding.

[tegator80]

Obama thinks he's the fourth-best president in history, after Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ. That should tell you all you need to know about:

a) his over-sized ego and arrogance.

and

b) his demented philosophy on the function of gov't. If he were to be honest about the role of gov't, he would say that "The purpose of gov't is to provide for the people, feed the people, house the people, and clothe the people. The purpose of people is to pay the taxes to feed gov't, if they make too much money." I think that summarizes his "spread the wealth around" philosophy.

I'm not sure which is harder to believe, that we elected a halfwit like GWB to office twice, or that we elected a dimwit like Obama to office twice.

I go back further than these. I would add, even though it seems to be taboo, Reagan and Clinton. Reagan was a great cheerleader but not much on the details. I understand that was what we needed at the time but too much power put in the hands of his subordinates and caused the rise of the Moral Majority. Clinton was - and is - a very smart used car salesman. And we knew that going in via Gennifer Flowers and Whitewater. Then we decide after a LOT of misdeeds to impeach him and get it through the House and what does he do? He throws a press conference not to ask for forgiveness but to repudiate the House. And we have not righted the ship since.

[gatorpa]

I was just going to say that poor people in America are far more apt to die of gluttony than starvation.

Most obese poor the world has ever seen......

[gatorpa]

What happens when they take away the charitable contribution? Where's all this food coming from?

Sure I donate $100 to pay $20 less in taxes, that's why its done...

[chemgator]

What happens when they take away the charitable contribution? Where's all this food coming from?
I assume you're talking about the tax deduction associated with charitable donations.

A lot of people that don't make a huge amount of money and contribute a few thousand a year to charitable causes do not get to use the charity tax deduction, because the standard deduction is higher. Most years, I am one of those people. So go ahead and take away the charity tax deduction. I won't miss it.

[gatordowneast]

What happens when they take away the charitable contribution? Where's all this food coming from?

You would be surprised as I am. The majority of people in this country file 1040 EZ and take the personal deduction rather than itemizing on 1040. I agree that limiting or eliminating the charitable deduction would hurt some, however most people give out of a feeling of responsibility or love for others and not cutting their tax bill.

That is also why conservatives give a far greater % of their funds than libbies, whose belief is that it is a "state" or "government" responsibility rather than a personal responsibility.