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3 street roots May 24, 2013 Poverty's power voice The Nation ’s Greg K aufm ann dispels the myths about poverty in America and the politics behind it BY JAKE TH O M AS astounding. And what’s even more concerning, I think, and you saw this with ccording to the last census, there the NPR report on this, is treating people were 46 million Americans living in with disabilities is the new welfare queen; poverty — more than the entire they’re the new people to bash. So there’s population of California. But despite the this long series on NPR suggesting that large mass of people struggling to get by, people are just taking advantage of they hold little political clout. Instead, these disability assistance and that got so much millions are often ignored or openly derided play in the news. We could go into why that by politicians, who eagerly slash poverty- report was so flawed and really downright support programs. And in the national misleading, but it’s a real problem. We press, the impoverished are frequently seem to be going in a direction when there either given a cursory is coverage questioning people who need glance or treated with assistance. outright derision. One exception is J.T.: Tell me more about that. What flaw s Greg Kaufmann, who did you see in the N P R report? writes the “This Week in Poverty” blog for G.K.: Well, for one their whole thesis The Nation magazine. was, oh my god, look at this spike in people Kaufmann, a former receiving disability insurance. And if you speechwriter for look at what the actuaries in the Social Democratic Security Administration predicted in the campaigns, uses the mid-90s, this is exactly where they said we blog to examine would be — because of the baby boomers under-covered policies aging and reaching an age where they have and politics that affect the most more disabilities and more women having economically vulnerable Americans. He also entered the work force and paying into the uses the platform to give a voice to people disability insurance system. who would otherwise be completely left out Seriously, they said that we would get to of the national conversation. this point like a year sooner than we did. We “I don’t consider myself an expert on any knew this spike was coming, but the report of these things,” said Kaufmann. “I talk to implied that the rise is due to people the experts, and I talk to people who live in manipulating the system or because it’s poverty. When you talk about the myths, harder to get TANF (Temporary Assistance one of the biggest myths is that people in to Needy Families), so people are turning to poverty can’t speak for themselves. If you the disability system. They even have a take the time to talk to people about the graph on their website showing the rise in issues, they understand them and know disability recipients, and the fall in TANF recipients, as if they are linked. But the what we need to to.” people who aren’t receiving TANF are Jake Thom as: We have so m any people mostly single mothers with children. Those aren’t the people getting disability - the struggling economically. Why do you think we d on’t see more elected officials m aking an issue typical recipient is a woman in her late 50s. They’re comparing apples to oranges. o f this? Why is poverty not a mainstream They also implied that the standard to get issue? disability is low, and they looked at Hale G reg K aufm ann: It’s a question of who County, Alabama, and they said, look at all the people getting disability. But in the rules votes, and it seems that people in poverty it says the SSA can consider the number of don’t vote in large numbers. I think that jobs the claimant can do that exist in the there’s a history in this country of bashing region and the national economy — along people in poverty and blaming them for with your age, education, and impairments - their problems. So politicians are afraid of being sympathetic or empathetic — that they in determining whether you qualify for assistance. are going to lose by doing this. There’s this So, in a lot of former mining or forestry idea that middle-class Americans who do vote are not receptive to that message, and I areas, for example, your body’s been worn down from decades of physical labor, you think that’s a mistake. More middle-class don’t have skills beyond the ones you’ve people and formerly middle-class people can needed to do your job your whole life, you see that we all have a lot of the same issues have limited education-you can’t just up and in common, especially when it comes to transfer to some job just like that. That’s access to the basics like food, housing, why you see outliers like Hale County where health care, education, jobs with good more people are on disability. wages. I think we can do a lot more They took all these things we knew and speaking to lower-income and middle-class twisted them, and they didn’t talk to people. anybody who had a more, I would argue, deeper understanding of the system. J.T.: Covering issues o f poverty, what do you S T A F F W R IT E R A think is the most under-covered issue? J.T.: H ow do you think Barack Obama will G.K.: I think you hardly see anything about people with disabilities in poverty. I’m not a numbers guy, I don’t have a lot of statistics. I mean the figures for people with disabilities living in poverty are pretty be remembered on poverty? What do you think his legacy will be on that? G.K.: I wouldn’t say it’s a complicated answer; I’d say it’s almost a schizophrenic answer. If you look at the Recovery Act (the stimulus), it did great things for helping homeless people and helping people who would have otherwise been homeless, with people getting access to food stamps, subsidized jobs. There’s lot of things in the Recovery Act where, in retrospect, you say, I can’t believe that happened. You can’t get anything nowadays. Since then, he rarely talks about poverty, and I think that’s important because it enforces why people don’t talk about poverty. If the president were leading on that it would help change the conversation. He said some good things in the inauguration and in his first State of the Union, where he wanted to raise the minimum wage and pathways to the middle class. But he doesn’t use the phrases poor people, people in poverty, but people who aspire to the middle class. The semantics are less important than the policy. Other than that, he seems to be really focused on pre-kindergarten expansion and child care and Head Start and early childhood education. If he can get that through, that will do a lot for the way people view what he did or did not do for low- income people. But you know, to my mind, his focus and willingness to discuss issues related to people in poverty has been very wanting, and his legacy, right now, with the exception of the Recovery Act, and that’s an important exception. It’s a lot of missed opportunities. J.T.: You write a lot about T AN F, which was created by the Clinton welfare reform in the 1990s. What do you think the legacy o f the Clinton welfare reform has been? to earn you a living-wage job. So really, it’s a disaster. The Recovery Act added money through TANF that states could use to have subsidized jobs. It would be great to bring that back, but state by state, the time limit varies. State by state, who gets it varies. Is that what we’re saying: that we can’t set a national minimum bar of what we expect to do for people who are struggling? I have nothing really positive to say about TANF. J.T.: Barack Obam a called fo r a raise in the m inim um wage. B u t how much would that really help? Even i f you raised it to $9 or $10 an hour, it’s still hard to get by on that. G.K.: From what I’m seeing, you’re right. There are a lot of people who say it needs to be $15. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said it needs to be something like $ 20.1 don’t know what the hourly wage is you need to do this, but my thought was that the minimum wage was enough to raise a family out of poverty in the 60s and 70s, and that’s what it still should be doing. It’s not enough, and we need other work supports to really make a difference, like access to child care, access to affordable housing. So, I agree with you that more needs to be done. We might need to start higher and negotiate down. It was good that he said it, but you know, setting a higher wage floor is important, but much more needs to be done. J.T.: You had a post on your blog about a study p u t out by Alabam a Sen. J e f f Sessions claim ing that the federal government spends more on poor fam ilies than many middle- income fam ilies make in a year. What are some o f the biggest myths out there about people living in poverty? G.K.: Well, on the one hand, the positives have been the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, but what everyone really associates with welfare reform is TANF and the work requirement and the time limit. So, it’s great in terms of the Earned Income Tax Credit, but TANF, and the biggest part of the policy, is a disaster. We have 50 different welfare systems because the states can basically do what they want. So in some states like Wyoming, almost no one gets assistance. It varies wildly. There is no thought to the individual what barriers they might have to work. They push them into low-wage jobs or training for jobs. Most states don’t allow for a path to create going to school or doing course work that’s going G.K.: That people in poverty don’t work. That’s one of the biggest ones. That people in poverty are drug addicts. You have these drug-testing laws. Florida sought to drug test unemployment recipients, but studies show that there is no greater incident of drug use for people who are unemployed and receiving benefits than other people. So courts found that it amounted to an illegal search and seizure. There’s the welfare dependence myth that people live comfortably on welfare. People have no idea what the real benefit level is. See KAUFMANN, page 10
