The Poverty Trap

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“During the past decade, the study of English and history at the collegiate level has fallen by a full third. Humanities enrollment in the United States has declined over all by seventeen per cent, Townsend [Robert Townsend, the co-director of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators project] found…And American scholars…have begun to wonder what it might mean to graduate a college generation with less education in the human past than any that has come before.” The New York Times, 2/27/2023

American academics are posing a profound question: What will it mean to our country “to graduate a college generation with less education about the human past than any that has come before”. I think it will mean a lot—more than our political system can withstand, given the lack of a basic understanding of how our government should work by more than a few of our current elected officials and well over a majority of the U.S. population — almost 50% of America adults cannot name the three branches of government and just over half of our population understands that “a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court becomes the law of the land.”

My somewhat educated guess is a robust education in both government and the humanities will help our country avoid what can happen with curriculums that produce a “college generation with less education about the human past than any that has come before”.

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I’d love to hear what you think about our declining civics curriculum in K-12, and colleges dropping many liberal arts majors to “better position them (the colleges) for the future. Or anything else you take from this post—your comments are welcome and appreciated!

Please consider supporting The Poverty Trap with a free or paid subscription. Your financial support will allow me to continue writing this newsletter and expanding it with primary source statistics and podcast interviews. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

The Poverty Trap: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Friendly Reminder: This is the first post under this newsletter’s new name, The Poverty Trap: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America, and the new url is povertytrap.substack.com (Previously, Crime and Punishment: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America) Your transition to the new url will be automatic! See my last post explaining the name and url change here.

And…This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership. Thank you!

“The income needed to purchase a starter home has been steadily increasing for over a decade and jumped 13% in the last year alone. As a result, many young people turn to family for help when getting onto the first rung of the housing ladder.” Forbes, August 21, 2023

Many Americans are finding it difficult to buy a home in this market, with prices rising, supply dwindling and mortgage interest rates hitting nearly 7%. Younger adults, in particular, find it difficult to purchase their first home—the average price of what today is considered a “starter” home is $243,000, up 13% from last year, and 45% higher than pre-pandemic numbers, according to a June 2023 report by Redfin. Putting 20% down to avoid mortgage insurance and keep monthly payments affordable, means having an extra $48,600 lying around…or more likely getting help from living family members or an inheritance.

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What are your thoughts on the home ownership crisis we’re having in America? Do you favor additional housing developments to drive down prices? Let me know in the Comment Section below!

Please consider supporting Crime and Punishment with a free or paid subscription. Your financial support will allow me to continue writing, and expanding this newsletter with primary source statistics and podcast interviews. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

The Poverty Trap: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I used the above photo in my first post for this newsletter on September 15, 2021, and a few other times in various posts in the last two years. I’m celebrating my second anniversary of writing Crime and Punishment: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America along with the Autumn Equinox with today’s post, and I thought it might add a bit of nostalgia to include this photo again. Besides, I love the silvery, shimmering look of olive tree leaves—it’s visible from any angle and looks especially striking on a sunny day.

On a more practical note, I also want to announce a change to both the title and url of this newsletter—this is the last post you will receive under the name Crime and Punishment. The next publication will be changed to The Poverty Trap: Why The Poor Stay Poor In America, and the new url will be: povertytrap.substack.com. A writer friend of mine suggested the change, and I knew immediately it would be a good fit. It’s obviously more descriptive of the topic than “crime and punishment” and leads nicely into the subtitle that follows. In fact, my research for this newsletter over the last two years has confirmed that poverty is indeed a “trap” for millions of Americans, and that trap seems to have a tighter grip than ever.

This post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, but if you are not already a paid subscriber and value this effort and our growing community, please consider upgrading to a paid membership.

“For many Americans, the middle class is a matter of identity, aspiration and lifestyle as much as it is about wealth.” NPR, July 7, 2016.

I don’t have foolproof answers to the questions posed in this post’s subtitle: “where has our middle-class gone and can we get it back”, but I will provide a bit of history and statistics to show you where the wealth that once belonged to the middle class, in homes, savings and good paying jobs, has been transferred. Unfortunately, it now mostly resides with the rich and super-rich. And most recently, millions of once middle-class folks have been thrown into poverty in 2022 and this year by the rising cost of living and the choice to end the child tax credit and other pandemic aid, so it’s gone in the other direction, too, leaving the once booming middle-class hollowed out, indeed.

But it isn’t just about enough money to pay the bills and the accumulation of some wealth, it’s about that thing called hope. I mentioned the idea of a better life for ourselves and our families in my last post—it is why union membership is so important for workers, and by extension, their families and broader communities. It gives them both the hope and the means for a better life.

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Do you consider yourself part of the middle class? Should our country fight to expand it rather than let it disappear? If so, how? Leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

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Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor in America explores how our laws and culture create a cycle of economic, racial and environmental inequality...and what together, we can do to change it.

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Bread and Roses Strike, 1912 . Photo Credit: New England Historical Society

“A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures. The laws generally make it easier for kids from 14 to 17 years old to work longer and later – and in occupations that were previously off-limits for minors.” U.S. News & World Report, June 26, 2023

The employer-employee relationship is exploitive to some degree and at any age, but with 14 year old children, perhaps working in industries or assigned job duties that are physically dangerous, it’s practically a given. Exploiting the energy, naiveté and eagerness of kids who can’t legally drive, vote or sign a contract is what recent, state legislation is really about.

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I’d love to hear what you think about the current state of unions and their power to affect change in the United States. Please share your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

If you can afford it and are in the mood, why not…

“Pain is always a form of motivation,” the training manual reads. “Once you find the Seller’s pain, you have a much better chance of buying the house.” ProPublica article, May 11, 2023, documenting its investigation into “We Buy Ugly Houses” and its corporate owner, HomeVesters of America

I’ve written about predatory business practices several times before on Crime and Punishment, but usually focused on the companies that lend money, like Pay Day lenders as one example. Their business model targets the poor who are more likely to be in vulnerable social and financial situations and because of low credit scores and lack of higher paying jobs, cannot borrow from a more closely regulated institution. This population is desperate for cash or credit, lenders know it and prey on them and their communities.

Predatory practices are baked into an unscrupulous company’s culture and literally taught to its employees, and in the case of HomeVesters, the target of the ProPublica article above, its franchisees. Of course, these practices are never discussed or admitted to publicly, because the companies are savvy enough to put a legitimate face on their business operations, and for good reason: these practices, either individually or taken together, can amount to fraud. And thankfully, fraud is still illegal.

Have you had experience similar to mine and/or the schemes uncovered in the ProPublica articles? What should be done to prevent these unethical and potentially illegal business tactics? I’d love to hear your take on this. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the Comment Section below.

If you are not already a subscriber, why not take this opportunity to join our community with a free or paid subscription? A new paid subscription or an upgrade from a free to paid subscription will allow me to expand this newsletter with additional, primary source information, like interviews and public information requests, and expanded podcast offerings to include real, live guests. Although I won’t be going on strike any time soon, the current TV writer’s strike demonstrates that writer’s deserve to be paid, and paid well for their work, just like any other profession. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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“Private health insurance companies paid by Medicaid denied millions of requests for care for low-income Americans with little oversight from federal and state authorities, according to a new report by U.S. investigators…” The NewYork Times, July 19, 2023

Generally, I am against what is broadly called “privatization”:

Privatization is the transfer of decision making authority, delivery, or financing from a public to a private entity.21 Such shifts may occur by directly contracting out services to the private sector or may result indirectly from other arrangements, including partnerships with private sector entities and introducing competitive forces into government services.22–24 Regardless of whether the private partner is nonprofit or for-profit, the consistent feature is that control of service delivery may shift to the private sector. The National Library of Medicine

There is an underlying concept that is not born out by evidence produced by economists and other researchers—that the private sector is somehow more efficient, both in “getting the job done” and minimizing the cost of doing so. There are often significant kinks (red tape), in government delivering services to its citizens, but it doesn’t compare to the cost savings measures that private companies will employ to make a larger profit. And this includes denying sometimes medically necessary health care to our most vulnerable citizens—those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or those old and poor enough to qualify for a combined Medicare/Medicaid plan.

The takeaways from our rush toward privatization are more questions than answers:

— Is privatization in fact more efficient and less costly and does the profit-motive actually hurt the delivery of quality government services to the most people?

— Does privatization of essential government services erode the public trust and the very notion of our government working to serve its citizens and the “common good”?

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I’ll let you answer these questions and any others you feel like discussing. Have any of you on Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance had to fight with your insurance company over costs or coverage? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comment Section below:

If you are not already a subscriber, why not take this opportunity to join our community with a free or paid subscription? A new paid subscription or an upgrade from a free to paid subscription will allow me to expand this newsletter with additional, primary source information, like interviews and public information requests, and expanded podcast offerings to include real, live guests. Although I won’t be going on strike any time soon, the current TV writer’s strike demonstrates that writer’s deserve to be paid, and paid well for their work, just like any other profession. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Although this post goes out to both free and paid subscribers, if you are not already a paid subscriber, take the opportunity to upgrade to paid, right now.

“City planners must recognize that we all should be able to walk or ride a bicycle through our own neighborhood without fearing for our life.” The New York Times, April 26, 2023.

In the last few months, every news outlet has been writing about the alarming rise in pedestrian deaths—it almost has become a “thing”. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) chart, above, shows that pedestrian fatalities have been trending upward for over a decade.

Let me know how you feel about these issues and anything else you feel like talking about in the Comment Section below.

If you are not already a subscriber, why not take this opportunity to join our community with a free or paid subscription? A new paid subscription or an upgrade from a free to paid subscription will allow me to expand this newsletter with additional, primary source information, like interviews and public information requests, and expanded podcast offerings to include real, live guests. Although I won’t be going on strike any time soon, the current TV writer’s strike demonstrates that writer’s deserve to be paid, and paid well for their work, just like any other profession. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

President Reagan touted Florence Owens Thompson, the migrant mother in the photo, when she died in 1983:

“Mrs. Thompson's passing represents the loss of an American who symbolizes strength and determination in the midst of the Great Depression.”

In fact, Florence Owens Thompson’s heritage was Native American (Cherokee), and by written accounts, she lived in abject poverty at least for most of her life—at her death, money was donated by “well-wishers” for her medical bills and funeral expenses. President Reagan’s statement is a myth that still persists today — we continue to project an image of “strength and determination” onto those who manage to stay alive, while poor. The millions of Americans living in poverty in this country are not what we project onto them. They are simply people who cannot support themselves and need help, and we need to increase the amount of help and make it much easier to access.

The truth is that almost all of us have received some type of financial help in our lives, whether it’s gifts or loans from parents, other family or friends, or the government. But for those who don’t have family or friends to lean on during hard times, or aren’t lucky enough to hit the lottery or receive a surprise inheritance, the government is our safety net.

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Let me know your thoughts on this post and some of the others I’ve linked to. You can comment right here.

If you are not already a subscriber, why not take this opportunity to join our community with a free or paid subscription? A new paid subscription or an upgrade from a free to paid subscription will allow me to expand this newsletter with additional, primary source information, like interviews and public information requests, and expanded podcast offerings to include real, live guests. Although I won’t be going on strike any time soon, the current TV writer’s strike demonstrates that writer’s deserve to be paid, and paid well for their work, just like any other profession. Thank you in advance for your financial support of my writing!

Crime and Punishment: Why the Poor Stay Poor In America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.