In “The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives,” author Sasha Abramsky implores Americans to recognize the severity of economic deprivation in their country, and he proposes a series of measures to remedy or at least substantially alleviate it. By the end of 2010, he writes, 15.2 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line, an increase of roughly 15 million people since the start of the century. And it’s the more vulnerable populations that have seen the greatest increases in poverty; in 2010, for example, “34.2 percent of single mothers and their children were in poverty, up from 28.5 percent on 2000.” There are growing numbers of impoverished elderly, disabled and working poor who face a variety of unmet basic needs. In Marin, at least 50,000 people suffer severe financial difficulties.
In his book, from which he will read excerpts at a benefit dinner hosted by West Marin Community Services and Point Reyes Books this Saturday, Abramsky has explicitly set out to do what Michael Harrington did when he published “The Other America” in 1962. Harrington’s report set the stage for the 1960s’ War on Poverty and subsequent improvements in social security and many social welfare programs. Starting in the 1980s, the Reagan Revolution began the destruction of these benefits, a movement that continues to this day. (The subtitle of Abramsky’s work purposely recalls another report, an 1890 book by Jacob Riis titled “How the Other Half Lives.” Riis was part of a turn of the 20th century movement responsible for many reforms that changed the economic landscape during the progressive era and eventually culminated in the New Deal in the 1930s.)
Abramsky is most concerned with those who are most deprived: older people who have lost their homes in the recent recession and cannot afford to treat their medical needs, children living in shelters or in other conditions that prevent them from obtaining an adequate education and many others who struggle for enough food and shelter to stay alive. He hopes to revitalize antipoverty efforts by documenting the great variety of difficulties experienced by these millions living at the bottom of the economic pile. He also surveys existing welfare programs and describes how limited they are in helping the poor; for every 100 families with children living in poverty in the mid-90s, for instance, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program served 75, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In 2009, that number was only 28. In some states it was even smaller, such as in Arkansas, where Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which replaced the former program, helped only 9 percent of these families.
To bring these cold statistics to life, Abramsky offers vivid descriptions gathered from myriad interviews with people all over the country who live in chicken coops, on the street or in equally abysmal conditions and who suffer from malnutrition, poverty-induced illnesses, street crime and more. He also presents a number of ideas about how existing programs can be dramatically improved and offers proposals for additional initiatives.
Abramsky believes that a key to stopping the intergenerational transmission of poverty is education, particularly by improving K-12 approaches to learning. He argues for a community development fund financed in a way similar to social security to help finance skyrocketing costs of college education; however, he is equally emphatic that educational programs cannot succeed without the development of a host of other antipoverty measures to improve income, housing and healthcare. He believes that no single program will provide the remedy; what is needed is a concerted, multifaceted strategy to deal with endemic poverty.
Abramsky’s analysis and strategies can be contrasted with those outlined in the Light’s recently published book review of Peter Barnes’s “With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough.”
In contrast to Abramsky’s focus on the poor, Barnes is primarily worried about the deterioration in the economic wellbeing of the middle class. While the former proposes a series of government-funded and operated programs, the latter recognizes the strong anti-tax and anti-government sentiment espoused by elected officials and shared by many Americans. Barnes acknowledges that his strategy is a laissez faire approach; he wants to create a public corporation that is not government-managed, but instead generates its funds from selling rights on the open market for the use of air, water and other public resources. A portion of the income earned by corporations would be used to pay dividends to every American, rich or poor; the rest would be reinvested in profitable, sustainable and environmentally useful enterprises. Barnes believes the additional income from corporate dividends would dramatically improve our collective welfare, and would be a major step in solving the growing crisis of the middle class.
One thing Abramsky and Barnes agree upon is that the government failed to provide appropriate remedies during the 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent Great Recession. Barnes observes that any dramatic new solutions will have to await an inevitable new economic crisis, but he considers this to be a time to generate and test new ideas. In this respect, both authors are hard at work preparing for the next crisis, when there will be an opportunity to remake the American economy.
A benefit for the Point Reyes Station food pantry, a project of West Marin Community Services, starts with a dinner at 6 p.m., followed by reading and book signing by Sasha Abramsky at 7 p.m., this Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Dance Palace Community and Cultural Center. The dinner will be prepared by local chefs with the kinds of food distributed by the pantry. (Though the menu has not been announced, the Light received word of one dish, “Casserole à la Socorro.”) Sliding scale $10 to $50 donations are requested; tickets are available from the event’s co-sponsor, Point Reyes Books, and at Zuma and West Marin Community Services.
Herb Kutchins, a resident of Inverness Park, has worked on poverty problems for over 50 years. He is a professor emeritus in the Division of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento.