Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen (18 page)
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Authors: David Hilfiker,Marian Wright Edelman
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So much for a much-needed new program. What of older programs already in place? First, the Earned Income Tax Credit, a well-accepted, successful program could be expanded so that no person working more than, say, thirty hours a week would earn less than the poverty level for his or her family. There are now millions of poor people who have a full-time worker in the family. With an expanded EITC, none of these families would be poor. Some state and even local governments have created their own earned income tax credit that is supplementary to the federal EITC. A further provision could offer an extra credit to parents of small children, making childcare more affordable. The coordination and expansion of these programs would bring all working people and their families out of poverty.
Second, unemployment insurance could be expanded so that employees who are laid off receive income that keeps them above the poverty level. Several administrative changes in the program would be necessary. Benefits for low-income workers would have to be supplemented to provide at least a poverty-level income to those out of work. Currently, unemployed people receive less than half of their previous income. Low-wage earners, of course, cannot live on half of already abysmally low incomes, so they would need significant supplements. This could be done through the tax code (even as part of the EITC), so that wage earners with larger families received adequate income. In addition, the benefit period would need to be extended so that workers could continue to receive benefits until they find work. People who refused appropriate work offered by employment services could have their benefits temporarily reduced. Finally, the program would need to be expanded so that all people who leave work are covered. Currently only 40 percent of unemployed workers receive any unemployment payments at all. The expansion of this program would mean that no person able and willing to work would remain in poverty.
Third, the government Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) program, which provides disability benefits to those permanently disabled, and Workers’ Compensation, which provides benefits to workers who are injured on the job, must be carefully expanded in several ways. Eligibility must be extended so that between the two programs everyone who really cannot work, for whatever reason, qualifies. Currently, for example, people who are temporarily disabled due to injuries incurred off the job receive no benefits from either program. Worse, even people who are clearly permanently disabled may not receive disability determinations. Causes such as disabling back pain (often impossible for the claimant to “prove”), mental conditions that do not meet certain criteria, disability due to addiction, and many other disabling conditions do not, in practice, make the claimant eligible. As a physician, I sometimes struggled for years to get examiners at SSI to understand that one or another of my patients was, indeed, disabled.
Here again our preoccupation with the “undeserving poor” makes it harder for us to imagine solutions. Political attitudes and budget appropriations ensure that regulations are designed to weed out every single person who might be malingering. Informal agency attitudes, even the personal attitudes of the examiners, make the process stricter yet. But in practice it is not possible to screen out
all
those who should not qualify without excluding many who should. Of course, it is important to make sure that unemployment and disability insurances are used appropriately. But because we emphasize so strongly the exclusion of those who might not need it, too many of those with legitimate need fall through the cracks. The level of coverage under Workers’ Compensation and SSI must be increased at least to the poverty level.
all
those who should not qualify without excluding many who should. Of course, it is important to make sure that unemployment and disability insurances are used appropriately. But because we emphasize so strongly the exclusion of those who might not need it, too many of those with legitimate need fall through the cracks. The level of coverage under Workers’ Compensation and SSI must be increased at least to the poverty level.
The total cost of these changes would not be prohibitive. The cost of universal health care would necessitate an increase in taxes, but that would be offset by the elimination of insurance premiums paid by those employers who currently provide coverage, the elimination of premiums paid by individuals for their own coverage, and the folding of Medicaid and Medicare into the new program. In addition, because coverage for medical expenses is a large part of the cost of premiums for car insurance, liability insurance, Workers’ Compensation premiums, and other similar insurances, these costs would all decrease significantly if all medical bills were paid through national health insurance.
The exact cost of the other three programs is not known, although it would not require more than a relatively small (certainly less than 5 percent) increase in federal expenditures. In 1999, the total “poverty gap” (the amount of money required to raise all the incomes to the poverty line) was $65 billion.
7
By contrast, yearly Social Security income alone is approximately $500 billion. The tax deduction that homeowners are allowed to take for the interest they pay on their mortgages (really an income transfer program to the middle class!) costs the United States treasury $63.2 billion a year.
8
Compare all of this to the $1.3 trillion tax-cut of 2001, and the amounts look manageable, indeed.
7
By contrast, yearly Social Security income alone is approximately $500 billion. The tax deduction that homeowners are allowed to take for the interest they pay on their mortgages (really an income transfer program to the middle class!) costs the United States treasury $63.2 billion a year.
8
Compare all of this to the $1.3 trillion tax-cut of 2001, and the amounts look manageable, indeed.
Although the
political
likelihood of enacting the above programs is at present small, we should not confuse the issue by saying that we have “tried everything” to eliminate poverty or that “the government can’t solve the problem of poverty.” The government—that is, the American people acting together—
can
solve the problem of poverty, and it would be neither an enormously expensive nor utopian project. The problem has been that we have not been willing to consider it.
political
likelihood of enacting the above programs is at present small, we should not confuse the issue by saying that we have “tried everything” to eliminate poverty or that “the government can’t solve the problem of poverty.” The government—that is, the American people acting together—
can
solve the problem of poverty, and it would be neither an enormously expensive nor utopian project. The problem has been that we have not been willing to consider it.
Would the above programs simply make it too easy for people to sit back and let the government take care of them? The evidence suggests not. The backbone of the above programs is the expansion of the EITC, which has consistently been shown to encourage work.
9
9
Even if we lift people out of poverty, of course, much of the damage that has already been done by generations of impoverishment and oppression remains and there will be much left to do. Inner-city schools will still have to be radically improved and vocational training provided for the millions who do not have the skills to enter the job market of the twenty-first century. Urban neighborhoods must be rebuilt and closer political and economic ties established between suburbs and the cities. Social services must be provided to the current victims of inner-city poverty—especially the children—to overcome some of the emotional damage already inflicted.
The details of welfare policy and governmental programs must not be allowed to obfuscate the central truth. The larger American society, through its structures and programs, built the black urban ghettos and then decimated them; it is the responsibility of those of us who benefit from the structures and programs of our society to undo the damage. The causes of ghetto poverty do not lie in the individual behavior of inner-city African Americans, but lie primarily in forces outside their control. It is up to them to do what they humanly can; it is up to the rest of society to change existing programs and create new ones to allow
everyone
to enjoy a decent standard of living.
everyone
to enjoy a decent standard of living.
Justice demands that the conditions in our inner cities be changed. The current response to the problems of poverty is mostly to add police, increase prison sentences, and throw up our hands, insisting, “There’s nothing more we can do.” It’s a response that does not match our stated values.
I have worked in the inner city for almost two decades. The poverty I see is not intractable, nor are its causes mysterious. Our social welfare programs tend to work about as well as they are designed to. We must not allow ourselves to use their failure as a rationalization that relieves us of our responsibility to our fellow citizens. The black urban ghetto exists because of concrete historical events and our failure to respond appropriately to those events. This inaction is not worthy of the American people, who are, at a personal level, eager to eradicate injustice and willing to give of their resources to do so. We must not let the poverty of the ghetto stand. Fortunately, it’s not too late. We know what to do, and we have the ability and the resources to do it. It’s past time that we remove this stain upon our American democracy.
Acknowledgments
Every book is the work of many people, even if only one is designated as “author,” and I am grateful for all those who participated in the creation and evolution of this book. The manuscript is anchored in eighteen years of experience at Columbia Road Health Services, Community of Hope Health Services, Christ House, and Joseph’s House in Washington, D.C. The staff and clients in those institutions pricked my conscience and my interest and first pushed me into questioning the origins of inner-city poverty. The Servant Leadership School of the Church of the Saviour several times gave me the opportunity to teach the course that is the origin of much of the material here. I am indebted to the students in those classes for helping me inquire more deeply and think more systematically about the inner city. Unknowingly, they reviewed the initial manuscripts and helped develop them.
Gordon Cosby first suggested that I take the content of the course and turn it into a pamphlet, which he encouraged the Servant Leadership School to publish. David Wade illustrated that early edition.
Tom Engelhardt, my editor and good friend of many years, suggested expanding the pamphlet into a book, and he connected me with Dan Simon at Seven Stories Press.
Very little in this book is original work. I have depended heavily on a rich literature. I have cited references to the direct quotations and to many of the statistics I’ve used from this literature, but it would be impossible to cite references to all of the ideas I’ve absorbed without a blizzard of endnotes. I hope that this book will be a starting point for those interested in exploring the subject further; the partial annotated bibliography at the book’s end will, I hope, be helpful.
I want to offer particular thanks to various scholars and journalists for their groundbreaking or insightful studies of urban poverty. Historian Michael B. Katz, in his extensive writings, has built a framework for organizing the work of scholars in sociology, psychology, political science, and other fields. Sociologist William Julius Wilson has combined his own research with a deep understanding of the issues of poverty in a series of original books over the past twenty years. Sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton have made a powerful and convincing argument that segregation itself is the single most important cause of black urban poverty. Economist Rebecca Blank has organized a maze of statistics so clearly that causes become obvious. Writer and educator Jonathan Kozol has written passionately about his many journeys into the world of the poor, offering stories that give statistics a soul. Journalist William Finnegan and the team of journalist David Simon and sociologist Edward Burns have offered powerful narratives of individuals who must somehow live among the forces explored here. Scholars at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the Children’s Defense Fund have posted invaluable information to their respective Web sites. I am grateful to all of these authors for their contributions.
Many people have read and commented on the manuscript or portions of it. My wife, Marja Hilfiker; Dave and Kathy Neely; Lois Wagner; my sister Lois Kanter; Michael Katz; and students in my class at the Servant Leadership School have all participated in the birthing of the final manuscript.
I am always amazed at how much my editor, Tom Engelhardt, improves what I send him. He is truly a coauthor, seeing what it is that I’m trying to say and pointing out ways of saying it better, suggesting further avenues to explore, asking embarrassing questions about just how I concluded such and so, and tweaking my English so that the meaning is clear. I am grateful for his work with me and for his friendship.
Finally, Dan Simon at Seven Stories Press agreed to publish the expanded manuscript, reread it, and made numerous helpful suggestions for improvement.
Without these teachers, friends, and colleagues there would be no book. I am grateful.
Annotated Bibliography
The following is not an exhaustive bibliography on inner-city poverty but a descriptive listing of the books and some Web sites that I have found most helpful.
BLANK, REBECCA.
It Takes a Nation
. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1997. Blank, an economist who worked in the first Bush administration, offers copious statistics integrated into the text of her book, and the statistics speak volumes about the underlying causes of poverty. The book offers a good run-down of current government programs, making helpful distinctions about what local, state, and federal governments can do best and most efficiently. She argues that government programs have been far more successful than is generally appreciated. She makes it clear that poverty is, at heart, a political problem and only secondarily a social or economic one.
It Takes a Nation
. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1997. Blank, an economist who worked in the first Bush administration, offers copious statistics integrated into the text of her book, and the statistics speak volumes about the underlying causes of poverty. The book offers a good run-down of current government programs, making helpful distinctions about what local, state, and federal governments can do best and most efficiently. She argues that government programs have been far more successful than is generally appreciated. She makes it clear that poverty is, at heart, a political problem and only secondarily a social or economic one.
BROWN, MICHAEL K.
Race, Money, and the American Welfare State
. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1999. An overly technical look at the truncated development of the welfare state in America. Emphasizing especially Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society, Brown argues that the intersection of political and fiscal conservatism and racial discrimination has created a welfare state doomed to failure, while also stigmatizing the poor through too many programs that are “means-tested” (just for the poor). He argues that only a universal welfare state (where everyone receives benefits, as in our Social Security or Unemployment Insurance programs) can succeed without stigmatization.
Race, Money, and the American Welfare State
. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1999. An overly technical look at the truncated development of the welfare state in America. Emphasizing especially Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society, Brown argues that the intersection of political and fiscal conservatism and racial discrimination has created a welfare state doomed to failure, while also stigmatizing the poor through too many programs that are “means-tested” (just for the poor). He argues that only a universal welfare state (where everyone receives benefits, as in our Social Security or Unemployment Insurance programs) can succeed without stigmatization.
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