Blue Notes from a Red Zone

But for the grace of me...

A cousin, who should realize I need to watch my blood pressure, sent me an article equating “welfare parasites” with “criminals.” According to the author (though not my cousin), to accept Medicaid is to commit a felonious act. A conservative friend, knowing I was considering welfare as the topic of my next blog, sent just three words on the subject: “Failed, failed, failed.”

For many years, I lived an insulated existence, where these concepts were the norm. Occasionally, in my stay-at-home mom days, glimpses of life beyond the suburbs would filter in. I remember helping one child learn to write, suggesting she practice at home. She startled me by saying she had no paper. Without thinking, I took on the Marie Antoinette role, and said, “Maybe you could use the backs of the envelopes that junk mail comes in.” Note: poor people do not get junk mail.

Nine years ago, I found employment at a social services agency. Stereotypes that I did not know I possessed were shattered. I found that the shortest route to poverty was family abandonment; that mothers often faced untenable choices between living in abusive situations or taking their children with them into homelessness. I came face to face with people who work two and three jobs, and still couldn’t pay the rent. I was overwhelmed by the precariousness of lives dependent upon day labor, where a few rainy days shutting down construction jobs could literally mean the difference between life and death. I met so-called “throwaway” children, victims of abuse, neglect, and/or rape, with no skill sets suitable for life on the streets. I became aware of persons born with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, who are caught in a terrible circle of pain. Without medications, they cannot hold down jobs. Without jobs, they cannot afford medications, which can run anywhere from $500-$1800 a month. The concept of self-medication (cheap wine and gin) became more closely aligned with concepts of self-preservation. Given the circumstances in which many of these people live their lives, a barrier against the worst of the pain seems almost reasonable.

I had thought we had a social safety net. If we do, it is badly in need of repair. We have no emergency shelters in my town, no centers where people can go to wash their bodies and their clothes, phone employers, drop off their children while they attend job interviews. We have inadequate transportation, career opportunities (as opposed to low-wage service sector jobs that do not provide a living wage), or educational assistance. Our government is lavish when handing out corporate welfare but is parsimonious to the extreme when it comes to helping the indigent rebuild their lives.

Much of this is the result of popular assumptions that the statement, “failed, failed, failed,” is correct. But the evidence doesn’t bear this out. A September 19 Washington Post editorial(currently a very conservative newspaper) presented this analysis of the effects of the war on poverty started by Lyndon Johnson in 1964:
“The share of the poor living in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty (40 percent or more) fell dramatically during the 1990s. Though many Americans hover at the edges of poverty, the number who are permanently trapped is surprisingly low: In the four years between 1996 and 1999, one Census Bureau study found, only 2 percent of the population was poor every month for two years or more -- but 34 percent of the population experienced poverty for at least two months. The overall poverty rate fell from 19 percent in 1964 to 12.7 percent last year, though most of that decline occurred during the first decade. Since 1999, the rate has been edging steadily, and disturbingly, upward.
At the same time, the creation and expansion of government programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies and the earned-income tax credit have made the America of 2005 a far less harsh place for the poor than the America of 1964. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded in a recent report that such programs "cut the number of poor Americans nearly in half . . . and dramatically reduced the severity of poverty for those who remain poor." Thanks in large part to government programs such as Social Security, the problem of poverty has been greatly ameliorated among the elderly -- falling last year to an all-time low (9.8 percent).”
Strategic, intelligent responses to poverty have worked well. Unfortunately, they are being dismantled, with disturbing results. For the last five years, the growth of capital at the expense of those persons producing the wealth has been extreme. Wages have been falling steadily, while the numbers of children being raised in poverty continue to surge (the poverty rate among children is higher now (17.8 percent) than it was in the 1970s.)

For many years, I have been wondering why it is that we who have so much, give so little as a society. One reason may be that it is a human characteristic to resent those to whom we should give. Unconsciously we reject those who, by their mere presence, reproach us with our plenty, our ease, our good fortune. We rationalize our affluence and their lack thereof: I work harder, I’m smarter; I had a better education; I understand deferred gratification and held off having a family. If I can do it, so could anyone else. It is enough to offer an example of the results of hard work and application.

After all, it isn’t but for the grace of God that I could be scraping by on the margins of society, but for the grace of me.

May God have mercy on us all.

posted by Lenore Wilson @ 10:30 PM