[Comment] Pondering whether the poor will always be with us

from The Bangor News

Will the poor always be with us, as the Bible says? Can we act to give the millions of American families now in poverty a realistic hope of future prosperity?

For 30 years, poverty in the United States has stubbornly refused to fall. The poverty rate - the percentage of all Americans living in families with incomes below the poverty line - fell from 22 percent in 1959 to 11 percent in 1973. But after 1973, poverty stopped declining. The current rate is 13 percent, and 37 million Americans are now living in poverty.

How is the poverty line calculated? Each year the government estimates the minimum incomes needed by families of all sizes to provide the most basic nutritional needs as well as nonfood needs. For example, in 2005 for a family of two adults and two children the poverty-level income was $19,806; families with lower incomes were considered poor.

Poverty rates are highest for people living in the South, for those under age 18 and for blacks and Hispanics.

In 2004 the poverty rates for Hispanics and blacks were 22 percent and 25 percent, well above the national average.

In Maine the statewide poverty rate is around 12 to 13 percent. Washington County at 16 percent has the highest rate in the state, while Penobscot County is near the state average.

Though most poor families own televisions and microwave ovens, many families in poverty suffer from inadequate nutrition, substandard housing and a feeling of hopelessness about the future. Poverty rates for people over 65 have actually fallen steadily, from 35 percent in 1959 to 10 percent in 2004. Our failure to reduce poverty rates, then, is confined to people under 65.

What are the causes of the stubborn persistence of poverty among the non-elderly? Though research has not yet completely answered this critical question, some important causes have been identified.

One major culprit is the well-documented growth in wage and income inequality. A 2006 study by Hilary Hoynes and two colleagues confirms that when wage inequality increases, poverty grows. Wage inequality, in turn, results partly from a decline in the demand for workers of low skills and little, or low-quality, education.

Changes in the makeup of families also help explain the persistence of poverty. Hoynes and her colleagues found that between 1967 and 2003, families consisting of single women with children - the family type with the highest poverty rate - grew from 6 to 12 percent of all families. Meanwhile, families consisting of married couples with children - a family type with a low poverty rate - fell from two-thirds of all families to fewer than half! So there was a big increase in the number of families with the highest poverty rate, and a relative decline in the number of families with a low poverty rate.

Despite these trends, however, overall poverty rates did not increase between 1967 and 2003. This was because for each of the family types poverty rates fell during these years. This aspect of poverty trends gives us grounds for hope.

A person's surroundings also influence powerfully his or her chances of overcoming poverty. You are more likely to be poor if many of your neighbors are unemployed; are becoming mothers at an early age; and have little respect for people who work hard for a living. Your children are more likely to be poor if local schools are terrible.

Though our understanding of poverty remains incomplete, it is clear that some social programs can reduce it.

First, the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit program, which provides an earnings subsidy to families with at least one worker, has undoubtedly alleviated poverty. For a family with two or more children and earnings of $11,000, the subsidy payment is $4400. The EITC encourages employment, because people who do not work are not eligible for the subsidy; research confirms that this incentive is effective. The EITC program should be expanded by making the earnings subsidy more generous.

Better education would raise the job skills of low-wage workers. Higher pay for teachers would attract more exceptionally talented college graduates to the profession and raise the quality of teaching. Students' learning can be increased by lengthening the school year, reducing class sizes, and reducing high school dropout rates.

Finally, preschool programs for poor children should be expanded. Children who attended Michigan's Perry Preschool later earned high scores on achievement tests and enjoyed high earnings and employment rates. The federal government's Head Start program also has helped improve children's' life prospects.

The cost of implementing this agenda would be considerable, but that should not cause us to hesitate. A partial reversal of the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy - cuts that are helping thousands of our least-poor citizens - would finance most of the improvements discussed.

We may never eliminate poverty completely, but we surely can reduce it dramatically. If we don't try, we will violate the admonitions of all religions to help the least fortunate among us.

Edwin Dean, a seasonal resident of Vinalhaven, writes monthly about economic issues