The following personal anecdote takes place in the Rust Belt. My dad was 58 when he was laid off from work for the last time. This was the early 1990s. He worked at a machine shop that supported the local automotive plants. In today’s parlance, I think we’d say he failed to upskill. Which is another way of saying he avoided learning how to use a computer when they started becoming commonplace in the 1980s. He was a technically smart man, but he lacked the foresight to see how the world was changing. He barely graduated high school. He got drafted for the Korean War. He barely obtained a two year technical degree after military service. He was a bootstrapper, and with a little luck, he did well for about 25 years. But pluck and luck gets you only so far in a world where you don’t have the skills to adapt to the new ways, and, when those jobs get offshored you’re doubly screwed. After he was laid off for the last time, he tried applying for similar jobs. But nothing was available locally. The factories closed. No one wanted an old man set in his analogue ways. The writing was on the wall. I was in college when my dad finally obtained some VA benefits, thank goodness he had that resource available to him.
The world can change very fast. Not everyone is able to change as fast. This gap between the choices the private sector makes and the resulting realities of what workers end having to deal with is real and, I suppose, is why we elect representatives to pass laws that have the goal to collect certain taxes from the private sector and then to reallocate that revenue to help soften transitions for workers and their families. This process is legal and from my vantage is extremely helpful. Obviously the electorate has opinions on the degree to which said laws can impact workers, and that level assistance, and kinds of assistance, does change from time to time. I like to think of it as a pie chart, where you can see a piece for an unemployment check, a piece for health care assistance, a piece for workforce development and training, a piece for rental assistance, a piece for tax credits, etc. Not everyone’s situation is the same, thus, the pie pieces for those needing help will be differently shaped and, of course, not everyone gets the same flavor of pie. I am glad there are varied options available depending on the particular need or needs.
My mom was similarly situated. She had a high school diploma graduating in 1960. She was out of the workforce from 1965-1978 as a homemaker. Between high school and getting married she worked in food service. Post divorce she went back to work in food service and received $300/month in child support which never increased between 1979 and 1986, then it reduced to $150 between 1987 and 1991 when I turned 18. Food service pays notoriously low wages and I don’t think she ever earned more than $10/hour. When your busy just getting barely by there’s no time or other resources to gain any kind of new skills for better opportunities.
She was badly injured in a slip and fall in 1986 which required surgery. She came home from the hospital on my 13th birthday. She received workers compensation for about 6 months and then went back to work until she was physically unable to work any longer when she was about 58. My husband and I moved in with her and took over paying her expenses so we could file a Social Security disability claim. She received food stamps and Medicaid for two years and drew down the tiny 401K she had until the disability claim was approved which required hiring a lawyer for an appeal. Her benefit was $749 a month, just enough to disqualify her from food stamps. She was a proud woman who never collected assistance of any kind, always managed to keep a roof over our heads, and the table was alway full. She often lamented that it was shameful that you could work so hard and try not to be a burden for a reward so small. She lived another two years.
I don’t think she was particularly unusual. Half of my high school friends are caring for elderly parents with much the same plight. The other half had college educated or technically skilled parent so their experiences have been different.
In many parts of the country, there’s a mismatch between the skills the labor pool has versus the better economic opportunities available. Sometimes there’s just not opportunity at all and people are stuck because they lack resources to move, to afford higher living costs, family support, etc.
The reason why many of the efforts to eradicate poverty haven’t been effective is because they don’t go deep enough. It doesn’t help that elected politicians view poverty as a moral failing or character defect and then vote for subsistence programs with a hundred hoops to obtain and maintain (being a poor person is a full time job apart from your other full time job).
There are many good programs that could tweaked and expanded upon but they are woefully underfunded and frequently under threat of being completely eliminated. I also think we need to figure out how to send high school students to community college or a technical training program for free. A modern take on WPA could help tremendously in rural areas where most economic opportunities have passed by.
And as much as it pains many conservatives, some households just need money. COVID-19 demonstrated this with two programs: tweaking the child tax credit to increase the amount and removing the barriers to receive the full credit, half was paid out monthly and the rest claimed on tax returns which also treated it as refundable. The benefit was modest $250-$300/month per child. Most low income families used the money to pay for housing, utilities, and food and 3.7M children were lifted out of poverty in 2020-2021. The other thing that helped immensely was the $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit. About have the states have criminally low unemployment benefits and this gave people a much needed lifeline.
Congress would much rather fund the military industrial complex with billions of dollars annually, let the ultra wealthy accumulate more and more and pay less and less, and not hold corporations to account in paying their fair share of taxes (they aren’t paying higher wages on their increased earnings).
Until America puts its people first, poverty will continue.
