Is the nation’s and Ohio’s poverty rate an inescapable fact of life or one we choose to ignore? The breadth of the problem is inescapable: 16.7 percent of Franklin County residents live at the poverty level—$25,100 annual income for a family of four—and the poverty rate has increased in every large Ohio city from 1999 to the 2013-2017 period. At last count, it’s 20.8 percent in Columbus and 36.8 percent in Youngstown.
If we want to fix the problem, there are plenty of things we can do: increase jobs through government investment in infrastructure, raise the minimum wage, invest in childcare, and countless other things. Coming up with ideas is easy. The challenge is with mustering the political will to execute those ideas. Doing so requires two fundamental changes.
First, let’s change our focus. We operate under the paradigm that what is good for those at the top of the economy is good for everyone else. It’s a top-down approach, and while it has some merit, the lion’s share of the benefit from government economic planning favors those at the top. Not nearly enough benefit finds its way to those at the lower rungs of the economic ladder. We need solutions that directly benefit those at the bottom.
Second, let’s disabuse ourselves of the notion that the poor are indolent and have chosen their lot in life. Sure, some have made bad choices—who hasn’t?—but poverty is rooted in lack of education, few opportunities and social barriers. Show me a family living in poverty, and I’ll show you several prior generations that lived in poverty. Poverty gets passed on because of a lack of hope and opportunity, an absence of positive models, and a fatalistic resignation that life will not get better.
As complicated as the problem is, resolving poverty comes down to three steps. The first is to make its elimination a priority. If we can put a man on the moon, we can end poverty, and ending poverty will require the same level of concerted effort.
Second, study the problem. Poverty is no different than any other problem. It has its own unique set of factors that create and perpetuate it. Rather than study those factors, conservatives embrace the idea they can help the poor raise themselves up by cutting the social safety net—an idea not backed by science. Until we understand as much about poverty as we did about various diseases we eliminated, poverty will not vanish.
We can gain some insight to the problem by looking at authors J.D. Vance (“Hillbilly Elegy”) and Tara Westover (“Educated”). Each grew up in poverty and dysfunctional families, but they beat the odds and went on to postgraduate education and successful careers. Despite their dismal circumstances, each sensed there was more to life than what they were experiencing at home. Let’s learn how to help others replicate their success.
Third, politicians have to muster the courage to take on the issue. Working to eliminate poverty means helping those who can offer nothing in return to politicians. That is, the poor don’t make political contributions. And offering a path upward for the poor means standing up to significant pressure from interest groups and conservatives whose focus is cutting the social safety net.
We regularly invest in the top of the economic ladder because doing so is believed to increase opportunity overall. In 2015, property-tax abatements of $300 million were awarded to developers in Franklin County. Last year, CoverMyMeds received $85 million in property tax abatements and income tax incentives because it promised to hire more than 1,000 new employees after moving from its current location to Franklinton.
What if the Franklin County commissioners and the city of Columbus made a similar investment in reducing poverty? What type of economic impact might that have in terms of reducing the need for and, thus, the costs associated with the social safety net and the increased buying power those rising up might have?
[This post was published as an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch on
June 7, 2019.]
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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com
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