I found that the article was loading in full, and only afterward the paywall overlay would appear. Hitting Firefox's reader mode button at just the right time allows me to keep the article content on-screen.
>This is the conversation about poverty that we don’t like to have: We discuss the poor as a pity or a blight, but we rarely admit that America’s high rate of poverty is a policy choice, and there are reasons we choose it over and over again.
This is true of many of society's problems. They're a choice, a choice we can stop making at any point. We're just made to be afraid of the consequences by powerful people who benefit from the status quo.
Until we live in a post-scarcity world how is it a choice? There simply are not enough resources. You can forcefully confiscate and redistribute every penny the "rich" have and nothing would change.
Not everyone is going to be a billionaire, but that doesn't have to mean some people can't access basics like housing.
Our high rates of homelessness are rooted in housing policy and most people don't want to hear that. The narrative that gets promoted is that it's their fault and homeless people get labeled as "junkies and crazies."
Which doesn't even hold water, logically speaking, because most addicts don't want to be addicts and trying to break an addiction is quite challenging and if insanity boiled down to a personal choice, people would choose to be sane. People don't want to be mentally ill. That's not how that works.
That's one of the more interesting things about this article: although it starts out along the same tired, bogus blame-the-super-wealthy lines as a lot of these arguments, it does kind of admit that the cost of what it's calling for will come out of the quality of life of relatively ordinary people:
"But those in the economy with the power to do the dictating profit from the desperation of low-wage workers. One man’s misery is another man’s quick and affordable at-home lunch delivery.
...
Most Americans don’t think of themselves as benefiting from the poverty of others, and I don’t think objections to a guaranteed income would manifest as arguments in favor of impoverishment. Instead, we would see much of what we’re seeing now, only magnified: Fears of inflation, lectures about how the government is subsidizing indolence, paeans to the character-building qualities of low-wage labor...
...
Nor would these costs be merely imagined. Inflation would be a real risk, as prices often rise when wages rise, and some small businesses would shutter if they had to pay their workers more. There are services many of us enjoy now that would become rarer or costlier if workers had more bargaining power."
“Ultimately, it’s about us as a society saying these privileges and luxuries and comforts that folks in the middle class — or however we describe these economic classes — have, how much are they worth to us?” Jamila Michener, co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, told me. “And are they worth certain levels of deprivation or suffering or even just inequality among people who are living often very different lives from us? That’s a question we often don’t even ask ourselves.”
I think the social, rather than economic aspect is the most ardent.
Whether it's ubi or some other policy, a lot of people's immediate concern is that it'll engage poor people's laziness. Reminds me of all those "how to run a household" manuals from the 19th century. Very classist instinct,imo.
Burrito price inflation or even government costs are secondary. The suspicion that the poor are lazy and must be kept in line is primary.. often.
To me, I really look forward to the higher order effects of not being forced into terrible jobs. I look forward very very much to seeing what emerges, what is innate in us, what we opt do for our own sake, when a little bit of laziness is a possibility. It's incredibly exciting to me to think of a society that has some time and space and safety for people to figure out what are good worthwhile ways to engage themselves.
Oh yes, a lot of the people will waste away their time, wrap themselves around being gabbing social animals at each other 100%. I don't mind this. Especially after the domination of work culture I think this will be a bit prevalent, as escape finally becomes an option. But I expect a lot of people will be able to, for the first time, think about what they want to do, what might be meaningful or valuable to them, will try to contribute to society, culturally or with labor. I think we'll re-socialize "value" & our sense of human worth with incredible, vast diversification. There will emerge all manners of new role models, of new ways to engage the world, and especially over time, we'll see so much incredible value arise, such a better sense of what real, meaningful effort & work are, & that we'll grow enormously. Only because we decided to stop our pernicious economic exploitation of the poor. Because we made life no longer a perpetual ongoing terrifying crisis.
Yeah, the idea/ideology that "If you work hard, you'll be successful" has the flip side that "If you're not successful, you haven't worked hard enough, i.e. you're lazy.": https://youtu.be/bTDGdKaMDhQ
Most people who are successful got lucky once or twice along the way too...
HN also abhors poor quality writing and a variety of other "sins" that are routinely mistaken for an objection to the subject matter even though there is plenty of evidence that HN is happy to hear about the topic in question, but only if it's done well.
I have yet to hear a plan to end poverty which might work. UBI and "negative income tax" will fail the drug addicted and mentally ill, most of whom will continue to make bad choices and remain homeless.
Raising minimum wage shows some promise at improving things, but it seems rents for in-demand cities simply increase to match the median income of workers in the area.
Re-shaping tax laws has a much better chance of improving matters for low-income workers. If capital gains wasn't so low, running business would again become better investments than stock markets. If dividend stocks were tax-advantaged and became more common, then stock-holders would have a much greater interest in long-term stability of a company rather than short-term returns. If the taxes on property weren't so low, the ultra-wealthy wouldn't be buying up every cheap bit of it and holding onto it for decades, perhaps renting it out rather than ever selling it. If there weren't so many tax law loopholes, huge corporations wouldn't have as much of an economic advantage over smaller businesses.
I don't subscribe to the notion that impoverished workers are required by our economy, either. While the Wal-marts and Sam's Clubs keep people barely surviving, the Targets and Costcos out there give their workers a reasonable standard of living and don't need to sell lots of expensive luxury goods to pay for it.
Poverty in the US certainly isn't new, but in many ways it's worse than it used to be.
Labor unions were very effective at increasing wages for blue collar jobs. Particularly ones not easily outsourced, like construction. Businesses have lobbied to systematically attack organized labor for around 100 years. The few unions left are relics from an earlier time. Businesses have made it neigh impossible to form new ones.
The "gig economy" is a new form of exploitation. Technology has enabled a new breed of job that barely skirts employee regulations. This has undone decades of worker protections.
Importation of foreign workers has been good for foreign workers, but in the US is mostly a tool to suppress wages. You can get away with more law breaking when your employees are wholly dependant on you. Job Visas are indentured servitude.
The US has regressed in every income inequality metric over the last 50 years. To out it simply, the ultra rich own half the country. You don't see this same wealth concentration happening in Europe.
If wages kept pace with worker productivity, the average worker would make something like $150,000 a year. The productivity gains are real, but all this money has gone to the people at the top. Tax law is just a small part of why the median American is getting poorer while the average American gets richer
I don't think anything but a massive political realignment will fix our structural problems. The US has no functional labor/green party.
The right has elements of populism but serves the owner class. The left has a progressive wing that's basically powerless. In most other democracies these elements would be aligned in a progressive green party. But split as they are in the US, they're powerless.
Under Obama, Democrats had a veto proof majority for 2 years and didn't do much to help income inequality. Trump talked a lot about helping blue collar workers but similarly did nothing. I'm afraid both parties are too corrupted by big business
This is completely true. The left had Obama and the whole 9 yards for two years; nothing done. Trump and the Repubs had the whole nine yards for 2 years as well and got nothing done either (besides the tax overhaul). I'm not sure much will ever the change the current situation, honestly.
Both the parties server the same ruler. All the news and "issues" at hand are just distractions to divide and conquer.
I'm afraid so. The Democratic party has "more" people willing to help the masses, but not a big enough group to get effective policy. Both parties have traded full control back and forth, yet nothing gets done to help our insane wealth inequality.
Look at how quickly Biden's minimum wage increase got smashed. More interesting, look at how some populists on the right are also calling for it. And look at how populists and progressives on both sides are asking for regulations on big tech.
The progressive wing is split. Trump picked up a ton of voters that were mad Obama didn't help them. These voters otherwise align more with Bernie Sanders and AOC. You'll notice some MAGA voters have a begrudging respect for those two. It's because they honestly want to help people, reputation be damned.
The US is on a path towards oligarchy unless the voters can shake our parties free from their corporate overlords.
How in the world would something like this realistically work? Start with the assigned flat. If this is truly a universal benefit then everybody gets one whether they use it or not. What if I have a house, what do I do with my flat provided by the government? I can't rent it, it has no value on account of everybody having one. Does it sit empty and unutilized? Who's building these and where? It's nearly impossible to build as it is due to NIMBYs, how are we going to build a studio per person to give away? Where will they be built, are they spread across the country or are they all in Alaska? What if I want to move, can I be reassigned to a new flat at my chosen destination or am I stuck with the flat I'm assigned at birth? What government agency is responsible for building and managing the assignments of all these flats and how much will it cost tax payers? I could go on and on and I haven't even touched on the food box yet (food allergies). This seems completely infeasible.
TBH, I see it as part of a grand scale project of economic and social organization that would make the Soviet Union look like a middle-school bake sale.
You don't have to actually allocate a house for it to be a universal benefit. All you need is a process for one to apply for a flat in the municipality in which they want to live, and the government provides one.
This is one of the best comments I've seen on this website about an economic topic.
I agree with you completely; minimum wage is almost a political stunt. Rents will follow the increase, and the gov't gets to collect more payroll taxes. Win win for the ruling class.
The tax structure will have to change for real income to rise. The people who own capitol will have to be tax incentivized to put it to productive uses and have real, long term growth for everyone (capitol owners, workers, society, etc.).
>minimum wage is almost a political stunt. Rents will follow the increase
The studies I've seen demonstrate that it gets taken out of profits. Almost a direct transfer from shareholders to the minimum waged.
Not that there are many papers that study this, coz if you're an economist it's not exactly a surefire route to a cushy job at a prestigious think tank. That's why there are 10x more attempts to study the effect on employment instead (which is minimal, if you believe dube, lester, reich).
There's a slick lobbying industry dedicated to telling us that raising the minimum wage would be awful for everyone involved - ESPECIALLY those on minimum wage. Who do you think pays for that?
Demand might go up with individuals moving out of shared housing. Many areas suffer from housing shortages, and no one wants to build affordable housing.
I can’t speak for the author, but when I think of poverty in the US I think of the inability to pay for or access basic needs: housing, food, healthcare, education, free time, etc
The thing is, even when it’s defined as some absolute measure, it ends up being a moving target. Defining adequate healthcare is one example. Food has continually gotten cheaper, relative to poverty lines. Education — we have public schools, and most impoverished kids, being stupid, spend way more time in education than is useful for them.
Really it’s all housing. There is a tenement shortage. But let’s suppose we free up the housing market and make rent cheap again, such that only the absolutely nonproductive lack a place to stay. NYT will still be talking about how there’s so much poverty.
> The thing is, even when it’s defined as some absolute measure, it ends up being a moving target.
Even if, that's better then doing nothing. At least it would help people. I'd rather be a 'poverty' person with safe housing and full stomach, than a today's 'poverty' person.
37 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 82.4 ms ] threadThis is true of many of society's problems. They're a choice, a choice we can stop making at any point. We're just made to be afraid of the consequences by powerful people who benefit from the status quo.
Our high rates of homelessness are rooted in housing policy and most people don't want to hear that. The narrative that gets promoted is that it's their fault and homeless people get labeled as "junkies and crazies."
Which doesn't even hold water, logically speaking, because most addicts don't want to be addicts and trying to break an addiction is quite challenging and if insanity boiled down to a personal choice, people would choose to be sane. People don't want to be mentally ill. That's not how that works.
"But those in the economy with the power to do the dictating profit from the desperation of low-wage workers. One man’s misery is another man’s quick and affordable at-home lunch delivery.
...
Most Americans don’t think of themselves as benefiting from the poverty of others, and I don’t think objections to a guaranteed income would manifest as arguments in favor of impoverishment. Instead, we would see much of what we’re seeing now, only magnified: Fears of inflation, lectures about how the government is subsidizing indolence, paeans to the character-building qualities of low-wage labor...
...
Nor would these costs be merely imagined. Inflation would be a real risk, as prices often rise when wages rise, and some small businesses would shutter if they had to pay their workers more. There are services many of us enjoy now that would become rarer or costlier if workers had more bargaining power."
“Ultimately, it’s about us as a society saying these privileges and luxuries and comforts that folks in the middle class — or however we describe these economic classes — have, how much are they worth to us?” Jamila Michener, co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, told me. “And are they worth certain levels of deprivation or suffering or even just inequality among people who are living often very different lives from us? That’s a question we often don’t even ask ourselves.”
Whether it's ubi or some other policy, a lot of people's immediate concern is that it'll engage poor people's laziness. Reminds me of all those "how to run a household" manuals from the 19th century. Very classist instinct,imo.
Burrito price inflation or even government costs are secondary. The suspicion that the poor are lazy and must be kept in line is primary.. often.
Oh yes, a lot of the people will waste away their time, wrap themselves around being gabbing social animals at each other 100%. I don't mind this. Especially after the domination of work culture I think this will be a bit prevalent, as escape finally becomes an option. But I expect a lot of people will be able to, for the first time, think about what they want to do, what might be meaningful or valuable to them, will try to contribute to society, culturally or with labor. I think we'll re-socialize "value" & our sense of human worth with incredible, vast diversification. There will emerge all manners of new role models, of new ways to engage the world, and especially over time, we'll see so much incredible value arise, such a better sense of what real, meaningful effort & work are, & that we'll grow enormously. Only because we decided to stop our pernicious economic exploitation of the poor. Because we made life no longer a perpetual ongoing terrifying crisis.
Yeah, the idea/ideology that "If you work hard, you'll be successful" has the flip side that "If you're not successful, you haven't worked hard enough, i.e. you're lazy.": https://youtu.be/bTDGdKaMDhQ
Most people who are successful got lucky once or twice along the way too...
Seems like maybe these are things HN also doesn’t want to admit about the poor.
It is hard to have a discussion about an article when a portion of the audience is unable to read said article.
https://archive.is/2021.06.13-195750/https://www.nytimes.com...
Raising minimum wage shows some promise at improving things, but it seems rents for in-demand cities simply increase to match the median income of workers in the area.
Re-shaping tax laws has a much better chance of improving matters for low-income workers. If capital gains wasn't so low, running business would again become better investments than stock markets. If dividend stocks were tax-advantaged and became more common, then stock-holders would have a much greater interest in long-term stability of a company rather than short-term returns. If the taxes on property weren't so low, the ultra-wealthy wouldn't be buying up every cheap bit of it and holding onto it for decades, perhaps renting it out rather than ever selling it. If there weren't so many tax law loopholes, huge corporations wouldn't have as much of an economic advantage over smaller businesses.
I don't subscribe to the notion that impoverished workers are required by our economy, either. While the Wal-marts and Sam's Clubs keep people barely surviving, the Targets and Costcos out there give their workers a reasonable standard of living and don't need to sell lots of expensive luxury goods to pay for it.
Labor unions were very effective at increasing wages for blue collar jobs. Particularly ones not easily outsourced, like construction. Businesses have lobbied to systematically attack organized labor for around 100 years. The few unions left are relics from an earlier time. Businesses have made it neigh impossible to form new ones.
The "gig economy" is a new form of exploitation. Technology has enabled a new breed of job that barely skirts employee regulations. This has undone decades of worker protections.
Importation of foreign workers has been good for foreign workers, but in the US is mostly a tool to suppress wages. You can get away with more law breaking when your employees are wholly dependant on you. Job Visas are indentured servitude.
The US has regressed in every income inequality metric over the last 50 years. To out it simply, the ultra rich own half the country. You don't see this same wealth concentration happening in Europe.
If wages kept pace with worker productivity, the average worker would make something like $150,000 a year. The productivity gains are real, but all this money has gone to the people at the top. Tax law is just a small part of why the median American is getting poorer while the average American gets richer
The right has elements of populism but serves the owner class. The left has a progressive wing that's basically powerless. In most other democracies these elements would be aligned in a progressive green party. But split as they are in the US, they're powerless.
Under Obama, Democrats had a veto proof majority for 2 years and didn't do much to help income inequality. Trump talked a lot about helping blue collar workers but similarly did nothing. I'm afraid both parties are too corrupted by big business
Both the parties server the same ruler. All the news and "issues" at hand are just distractions to divide and conquer.
Look at how quickly Biden's minimum wage increase got smashed. More interesting, look at how some populists on the right are also calling for it. And look at how populists and progressives on both sides are asking for regulations on big tech.
The progressive wing is split. Trump picked up a ton of voters that were mad Obama didn't help them. These voters otherwise align more with Bernie Sanders and AOC. You'll notice some MAGA voters have a begrudging respect for those two. It's because they honestly want to help people, reputation be damned.
The US is on a path towards oligarchy unless the voters can shake our parties free from their corporate overlords.
Those people you call out may still have needs that are not met because of drug use or mental illness, but they won't be in poverty.
Unlike a UBI or even a limited currency like food stamps, You'd have to go to great effort to trade these things away for drugs or other addictions.
I agree with you completely; minimum wage is almost a political stunt. Rents will follow the increase, and the gov't gets to collect more payroll taxes. Win win for the ruling class.
The tax structure will have to change for real income to rise. The people who own capitol will have to be tax incentivized to put it to productive uses and have real, long term growth for everyone (capitol owners, workers, society, etc.).
The studies I've seen demonstrate that it gets taken out of profits. Almost a direct transfer from shareholders to the minimum waged.
Not that there are many papers that study this, coz if you're an economist it's not exactly a surefire route to a cushy job at a prestigious think tank. That's why there are 10x more attempts to study the effect on employment instead (which is minimal, if you believe dube, lester, reich).
There's a slick lobbying industry dedicated to telling us that raising the minimum wage would be awful for everyone involved - ESPECIALLY those on minimum wage. Who do you think pays for that?
> The studies I've seen demonstrate that it gets taken out of profits. Almost a direct transfer from shareholders to the minimum waged.
Aren't these different topics? The wage hike might come out of profits, but that doesn't inform whether rent gets correspondingly more expensive.
Why would rent be different? Supply and demand would not be changed.
I can’t speak for the author, but when I think of poverty in the US I think of the inability to pay for or access basic needs: housing, food, healthcare, education, free time, etc
Really it’s all housing. There is a tenement shortage. But let’s suppose we free up the housing market and make rent cheap again, such that only the absolutely nonproductive lack a place to stay. NYT will still be talking about how there’s so much poverty.
Even if, that's better then doing nothing. At least it would help people. I'd rather be a 'poverty' person with safe housing and full stomach, than a today's 'poverty' person.