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Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 09:15:00 EST
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.OIT.UNC.EDU>
Subject: Re: Home ownership among poor
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>

>         How else are we to judge the results?  If we say "by the number below
> the poverty rate" then we are simply following our own tail.  By that logic, w
> could give each of them $1 million from the government, yet by "poverty rate"
> measures, they could still be "below the poverty line" and thus "in need of
> more assistance".

Okay, here seems to be the problem.  You are assuming that cash transfer
programs "solve" the problem of poverty.  They do not.  The problem is
that our economy does not provide enough jobs that pay well enough to
allow people to support themselves and their families.  That is what the
poverty rate measures.  Government programs treat the symptoms (the
shortage of money).  They do not provide a cure.  Why?  Well, for a lot
of reasons.  One is that public employment, even as a last resort, is
ideologically abhorrent to many of the people who have run our Federal
government for quite a few years.  Another is that such a program would
be much more expensive than simple handouts (job training programs have
been cashed out because they were expensive and cumbersome to run, even
though they provided far more permanent solutions to poverty than cash
programs).  Another is the resistance of business interests, who see
full employment as nothing more than an increase in their costs,
whatever the benefits to society as a whole.

Doctors, quite rightly, make a distinction between the relief of
symptoms and a cure.  The poverty rate measures the magnitude of the
problem.  We need to use different measurements to judge how effective
the symptom relief is.

Besides, what are you really asking for here?  If we give every poor
person $10,000 next year, can we really say we've wiped out poverty?
The poverty rate goes down to zero, we cancel all of the programs,
and one year later we're back where we started.  That would accurately
be called yo-yo public policy.  If we give them a million, as you
suggest, they may choose to bank in a mattress and get no income out
of it, but they would still not be eligible for aid.  The relevant
number is the number of eligible poor.  THE TWO NUMBERS ARE NOT, AND
NEVER HAVE BEEN, THE SAME (I'm shouting so andy will hear me :-).  The
official "poverty line" gives us a number that lets us compare the
size of the total problem with the size of the attempted solution.  It
provides a rough yardstick, that is all.

Fortunately for all of us, legislative budgeting on matters as important
as this is rarely as simplistic as the average argument heard on this
list.

Apparently Brett' and -andy think that handout programs are a cure for
poverty.  His Serene Otherness and I realize that they are only a
palliative.  In all senses of the word.

Ask your doctor what happens when you quit taking medication for a
chronic condition just because the major symptoms disappear.

>         The system is inefficient, riddled with loopholes, poorly administered
> open to abuse by politicos, a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, and has had 25
> years to solve the problem but has not.
>
>         So let's fix it.

Great.  I've indicated above some of the reasons that the system does
not work.  We can discuss the causes if you like, as well (such as
conservatives who rail at providing aid to families with an able-bodied
father, then whine that welfare breaks up families).  What most of them
boil down to is: you can't fix poverty on the cheap.  We've got plans
that will work.  What we don't have is the political will to spend the
money to make them work.  Providing jobs, job training, health care and
day care for poor people (and decent salaries for the working poor, who
are 40 percent of the total) will cost a bundle.  Of course, in twenty
years we'll see one hell of a return.

Still interested?

Best,
Peter

> >Peter
> Brett'
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