With today’s large polar divide of American politics, tackling the large looming issue of poverty has a similar effect such that each has a unique view point. Americas division arguably has had a long history that can be viewed as the conflict between democratic self-government and the rule of law (Kahn, 2017). On one side of America, people no longer share the same sentiments as the government: that the government does not represent them any longer in individualism. An example of this can be seen in the official Republican Platform to which it emphasizes the sentiments that families, schools, congregations, and neighborhood affairs to be separate from government interference. For example, it is the parents who should have the right to direct their children’s education, care, and upbringing. According to their platform, “marriage remains the greatest antidote to child poverty” (GOP, 2016). On the other side, people have been focused more on injustice, that the rule of law has not been fair to all, and would need progressive reforms that depend on lawyers and courts (Kahn, 2017). The Democratic Platform value the sense of togetherness – “stronger together”, “out of many, we are one.” These statements are referring to working together for the common interest of everyone instead of self-interests, as well as inclusion of LGBT, women’s rights, refugees, and immigrants. Democrats believe raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and the ability to join any union would give power to the workers as a whole towards a living wage, and ultimately out of poverty (Democrats, 2016). Each side has strong beliefs in what they stand for to what it exactly means to be “American.” However, to give more insight to understanding poverty, several other possible variable factors must be explored and understood. These factors that should be included into discussions on attempts at lowering poverty are: race and city zones, policy and public environment subjection, and individual ideologies. Each of these aspects may vary to each individual as well as their relativity to which they geographically reside in– that one area may have a higher intensity of the factors than other areas. Also, each factor has probabilities to be interconnected to one another, that each may lead to another factor, increasing a likelihood of becoming impoverished that much more.
Race and City Zones in America
The passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1968, originally called the Fair Housing Act that prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing nationwide, resulted in a decline of concentrated black urban areas towards the late 1970s. Direct racist inequalities such as denial of home sales due to their racial background may not be apparent as this is now illegal, indirect racist methods took its place instead. However, despite passing of the law, inadvertent segregation continued in urban areas to an extent that it heavily concentrated black and Puerto Rican communities into much smaller dense and tightly packed areas along with sharp rises in poverty concurrently (Charles, 2003). In the housing sector, indirect racist procedures known as ‘redlining’ had still been constant and have heavily contributed to concentrated segregation to certain city zones. Redlining is a practice that involved drawing neighborhood desirability with colors ranging from green– most desirable, blue, yellow, and finally red- least desirable. By categorizing these areas, they were also assigned the red area a “D”, the worst grade possible. These area drawings are important as they were used to steer black individuals and other persons of color interested in home ownerships to these very areas. Additionally, they were provided inadequate information to further advance them to these areas such as contract sales schemes that required steep interest rates. Black individuals across the country were mostly excluded out of genuine home-mortgage markets through legal means (Coates, 2014). In fact, loan officers routinely targeted the black community into high interest subprime mortgage loans despite having qualified for regular prime loans. These subprime targeted lending practices left many people deeper in debt, and damaged their credit rating as a result. Redlined areas were also subjected to lack of investments and subsequent further deteriorations in ways that most likely also increase white affluency and rising racial segregation. In Baltimore Maryland, Wells Fargo Bank loan officers had routinely single out blacks as “mud people” and “ghetto loans”, and systematically subjected them to subprime loans during the 2000s (Powell, 2009). Although this practice dates back to the 1930’s, the effects of redlining are long-lasting throughout the decades, and as of 2010 they find that: “differences in level of racial segregation homeownership rates, home values and credit scores were still apparent where these boundaries were drawn.” (Badger, 2017).
With black individuals steered into alternative contracts with high interests’ rates in housing, compounded with lack of any investments from either within or outside to the area itself as a way to improve chances for increasing value, perpetually has trapped black individuals without much outward mobility. Public schools also suffered from this model- budgets are largely taken from local property tax revenues, and as a result poor district have a much smaller tax pool to draw from than more affluent districts (Drake & Rank, 2009). With these in place and a large population of black and Hispanics perpetually trapped, children are undoubtedly affected as well to further exacerbate the cycle of poverty susceptibility.
Poverty among children have no doubt been in existence across all ethnic and racial backgrounds. However, poverty rates among black and Latino children are between two to three times higher than that of white children in any given year in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017). Simple methodology for this calculation consisted of using total poverty population status of families with related children under the age of 18 years for white, black or African American alone, and Hispanic or Latino separately, in relation with the total population as a whole. This indicates that non-whites, black or African American alone and Hispanic or Latino in particular have a high susceptibility to be in poverty than compared to whites. Drake and Rank notes, “Black and Hispanic children are routinely exposed to high levels of neighborhood poverty when growing up compared to their white counterparts…exposure to such levels of poverty can have a profound impact upon one’s life chances” (1268). Many of the children and teenagers who grow up in these poverty areas face negative social dynamics that are counterproductive towards outward mobility as a result of high poverty. Ethnographic research has illustrated some of these dynamics as adults or parents with disproportionately low labor-market objectives when compared to their more affluent counterparts. Low investments into areas as noted before could also be a contributing factor in this. Large percentage of parents and adults may transfer those very same aspirations to their children, who in turn may replicate the same outlook and behaviors. This is not to say everyone, however it does without a doubt incur a heavily suppressed influence towards higher education and/or higher paying employment opportunities and attainment when again, compared to their white counterparts. Other negative dynamics also include lower public finances and higher crime rates that may stem from basic needs, to teenage influences from their peers in order to conform to the community (Durlauf, 2006). As noted earlier, the Census shows clear population disparities of children under the age of 18 years living under the poverty level when comparing black and Hispanic to white populations. Brett and Rank confirms this as they state, “Although white children are at a significant risk of poverty (especially in comparison with children in other developed countries), black and Latino children have rates of poverty that are between two to three times higher than that of white children in any given year” (1264). Level of poverty rates are correlated to the likelihood of negative dynamics such as hardships and behaviors. That is, as neighborhood poverty rates rise, so does the intensity of food hardships, lack of health insurance, healthcare needs, likelihood of negative behaviors among young children, negative school engagement, and living with family members who is without full-time work (Turner and Kaye, 2006).
To further illustrate the effects of race in neighborhood poverty, a study has shown for racial couples, just one partner being black has an increased share of neighborhood poverty population versus their white counterparts. With both partners being black, these couples share the greatest portion of neighborhood poverty. Black-Latino couples and black-other race/ethnic background couples are subsequently just behind that percentage. Conversely, white couples of any variation share the lower percentages of the neighborhood poverty population, and with white-white couples sharing the lowest of neighborhood poverty percentage. However, the lowest percentage within the couple’s variation to include a black partner, is the black-white couples’ group. This suggests that white partners can serve as a safeguard towards higher poverty percentages that have affected other black couples’ variations (Gabriel, 2018). This has implications on how merely being black can have negative advantages in families and couples than that of their white counterparts, and other ethnicities– although not as severe.
Decades of racist redlining have had irreversible poverty consequences that have fundamentally trapped many black and Hispanic people in a generational cycle. This cycle has dramatically increased the likelihood of poverty by lack of positive influential factors ranging from adolescence to adulthood that would otherwise increase their upward and outward mobility chances. Race dramatically has played a crucial factor in poverty rates across the country in that significant portions of those are made up of persons of color. In other words, being born a person of color already is disadvantageous– in that they are subjected to an increased susceptibility of impoverishment as described previously.
Policy and Public Environment Subjection
Veronica Harnish
Federal policies and city environments undoubtedly have an impact upon an individual’s mobility in and out of poverty. To illustrate and understand the implications, and more importantly, how the livelihood for an individual on minimum wage is for many Americans, the account of Veronica Harnish is described in detail. Ms. Harnish has been homeless three times and will soon to happen again for the fourth time at the time of the details documented in 2016 by Vox Media. She is in a category known as the working homeless, individuals who work fulltime but struggle to afford a real roof over their heads. She was born into a middle-class family and her career has consisted of mainly administrative roles in tech offices and government agencies, most of which has been contracted due to the slightly higher pay and the flexibility. Flexibility is more often an important factor as it allows for easier scheduling to a second job or even a third. However, paid full time employee health coverage is not usually part of the deal with contracted work. Falling ill at minimum wage with little to no health care could straightforwardly put anyone far behind and into an all too certain poverty standing. Ms. Harnish now into her 50’s, is facing challenges due to aging out of her workforce and increased potential for health hazards. Her total assets only include about a thousand dollars and a car for traveling to and from work. Currently Ms. Harnish resides in the Pacific Northwest and has had her vehicle for thirty-six years with over 400,000 miles logged. At various times, she is forced to sleep in her car due to joblessness and/or housing unaffordability. Many nights were spent at a state park with free Wi-Fi so she could look for work online and had access to inexpensive showers costing fifty cents for three minutes of lukewarm water. Situations such as these, unemployment for a month will quickly diminish her finances to just a few hundred dollars, subsequently forcing her to carefully micro manage every penny for basic needs. Such needs are gas, car insurance as her car could be ticketed, impounded, and severely hinder job opportunities; laundromats, park fees for showering, storage expenses since there isn’t enough room in her car, and food costs. Dependence on her vehicle is paramount to her well-being in both transportation for work and at dire times of homelessness. Finding a parking spot away from police and park rangers has become an additional challenge as sleeping in one’s own vehicle is illegal. These policies have criminalized homelessness and led police and park rangers to harass Ms. Harnish every night from doing so.
Criminalization of Homelessness
Homelessness has been criminalized in the past few decades especially in larger metropolitan cities such as San Francisco known to have a high population of homelessness. A study by the Coalition of Homelessness illustrates how their livelihood is impacted due to homelessness and its implications on their potential outward mobility. The study has surveyed over three hundred homeless individuals and details of their encounters with law enforcement. 74% of the individuals surveyed have been approached by police in the public space within the last year and the rest of the percentage up to twice a week throughout the year. 70% of the respondents have been forced to move away from the public spaces. Of these individuals, they stay in camps, streets, vehicles, friends and family, and shelters. Currently San Francisco has a total of 1,210 shelter beds for single adults, however this is severely under served as the actual homeless population is about 6,400 at any given time. This leaves the majority of homelessness of every five to one of uncertainly of somewhere to stay with chances of law enforcement (Coalition on Homelessness, 2016). In this city, “Quality of Life Laws” exists and thus have issued citations predominantly to homeless individuals from simply existing in public as official misdemeanors or infractions. Thirty-two laws in total make up the Quality of Life Laws, some examples are: Peddling without a permit, Sleeping in park during 8:00 p.m. -8:00 a.m., Illegal Lodging, and Vehicles for Human Habitation (City and County of San Francisco, 2016). These laws are targeted to move the homeless out of public spaces and prohibit “criminal” activities, however they show to be unproductive as the homeless do not have anywhere else to go. Homeless individuals cited or warned with these infractions only end up moving down the street where law enforcement may no longer be present.
According to a policy analysis report, there has been a 34.8% increase in the number of incidents involving the homeless violating quality of life laws from 2014 to 2015 despite the homeless count only increased by 3.9% from 2013 to 2015. The majority of the homeless have been thoroughly cited at least once or as high as upwards of five or more in the past year and 90% of those were unable to pay the citation fines. Due to non-payment, an additional $300 civil assessment fee is added to be base fine, an arrest warrant, and suspicion of their driver’s license. These citations and non-payment consequences have severe adverse effects towards their outward mobility, access to potential jobs, housing, and other services. The San Francisco Police Department citations for sleeping, sitting, and pan-handling have grown threefold between 2011 and 2013. To further exacerbate the homelessness and to further solidify criminalization, 59% of the homeless surveyed in the city had been incarcerated in SF County Jail or California State Prison during their life and 44% with multiple incarcerations (City and County of San Francisco, 2016).
In a city like San Francisco where shelters do not nearly meet the needs of the homeless in numbers, many homeless are left to the streets as they are impoverished. Homelessness is subsequently followed by a high chance of crossing paths with local law enforcement that may lead to incarceration. Yet another factor that negatively effects homeless individuals according to the study, is that 81% of the homeless surveyed were not offered any services upon their most recent release from jail or prison. Of the 19% who were offered services, the most common were: a pamphlet, a bus ticket, a shelter bed, or access to a housing wait list (City and County of San Francisco, 2016).
Housing
Finding suitable housing is challenging with additional factors that work against individuals like Ms. Harnish such as renting costs are often out of reach when part-time work is only available. Even of the times she was able to rent, roommates have either been irresponsible or landlords have given her notices to move out. Landlords can give a number of reasons for notices such as buyouts from large investors or landlords needing the space for their own families. Landlords often require many prerequisites to ensure potential tenants are able to afford and pay the monthly rents. These prerequisites can be extremely challenging, if not impossible for low wage workers to secure a rental unit. Some examples for potential renters are: one month’s rent as deposit in addition to first month’s rent, proven income of two or more times the monthly rent, or minimum of ten thousand dollars in a bank account. Ms. Harnish’s upfront move-in costs would be over two thousand dollars for her area, far more than what she has in savings alone. With the aforementioned costs associated to life sustainability, securing a rental housing unit becomes out of reach.
Approximately one-third of American households are renters in 2017 according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2017). Of the American renter households, cost of rent has increased since the early 2000’s and have continued to rise and outpace income growth. In a study by Pew Charitable Trusts, the median national rent has risen from $512 a month to $678 between 2001 and 2015, a 32% constant increase, all while median household income has remained flat. With a lower income coupled with the aftermath of the 2007-2009 downturn, households have turned to renting and much less homeownership. Due to the crisis, many families struggled to save enough for down payment or had enough credit background to meet the backing for homeownership. As the demand for rental housing increased, the prices also drove up in record highs. In 2004, 9.3 million American households lived in rental housing and has since increased to 43 million in 2015 (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2018). As the gap widens between monthly rent and stagnant wages, more and more Americans are left with less money available for other needs. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), the national average fair market rent for a one-bedroom is $931 per month and the housing wage for this would be $17.90 per hour. The survey has also found that only twenty-two counties out of over three thousand counties nationwide, can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent. All of these twenty-two counties also have a minimum wage higher than that of the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Higher minimum wage than that of federal is not a full solution however, many of the local jurisdictions that do have higher minimum wages, are still far behind the affordability of the one-bedroom housing wage (2018). This is especially the case with areas of higher costs of living such as San Francisco and New York City. For example, median rents at $1,447 per month in California earning the State’s higher minimum wage of $10.50 is still difficult yet and effectively positions the affordability out of reach. Relatively, this would be a similar case with lower costs of living in other areas such as median rents at $813 per month for example in New Mexico and earning the federal level minimum (Census, 2017). Poverty lines vary across the United States depending on location, what is considered as low-income in San Francisco will be different than that of the low-income amount in a state such as Arkansas. Simply moving out of a current impoverished area to another area would still pose a relative challenge as each area has their own cost of living to minimum wage ratios as mentioned earlier. Minimum wage throughout the country increasingly worsens an individual’s chance towards outward mobility away from poverty as rental charges increase and wages remain stagnant. In rent-stabilized apartments such as those in New York City, landlords can still increase rent charges annually by 1.5% for one-year leases and 2.5% for two-year leases.
Families earning over the median national income are still considered poor enough to need federal help to afford housing due to very high rent prices. A family of four in San Francisco with combined income of $105,000 would qualify for Section 8 subsidized housing, while the same in Arkansas is $33,500. However, with so many families barely making enough money, there is no guarantee that these families will receive help due to long waitlists for housing vouchers (Oh, 2017). In the account of Ms. Harnish, government assistance for housing is a far reach as she states:
Impoverished, working single women without children do not get top priority on long waitlists for subsidized housing, rapid rehousing, or other government services or benefits. I don’t have family or a spouse to turn to for help or support. Friends can’t or won’t help for their own various reasons and circumstances. I am totally on my own.
Harnish, 2016
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides federal aid to local public housing agencies (PHA) that manage the housing for low-income residents at rents they can afford known as Public Housing Program. Another program by HUD is the Housing Choice Voucher Program that assists very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market. A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the PHA on behalf of the participating family. The family then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program (HUD, 2018). Extremely low-income (ELI) households are those who earn no more than 30% of their area’s median income or the federal poverty guideline, whichever is higher. 71% of the nearly 1.1 million public housing households and 74% of the 2.2 million Housing Choice Voucher recipient households are ELI (HUD, 2015). However according to a study by NLIHC that surveyed PHAs in 2015, they have found that housing resources available to ELI are facing a national shortage by 7.2 million rental homes. ELI households are faced with long waits for housing assistance and furthering them into official poverty as a result. Some of the key findings are:
- The median Housing Choice Voucher Program waiting list had a wait time of one and half years and 25% had a wait time of three years or longer.
- The median for Public Housing waiting list had a wait time of nine months and 25% of had a wait time of one and half years or longer (2016).
Another example in the study states, “The Charlotte Housing Authority in North Carolina, for example, has more than 31,000 applicants on its Housing Choice Voucher waiting list, yet only 200 to 240 vouchers become available every year to new recipients” (NLIHC, 2016). In situations and states like North Carolina, chances for an application to fully process a voucher stays very slim, and many other states in the U.S. share it’s similarities. Understanding the combination of homelessness for a year or more due to long wait lines for public housing assistance and the high chance of criminalization of homelessness, further decreases the chance at getting public housing in of itself. The population of ELI households will only continue to increase as regular housing costs continue to rise and wages continue to remain stagnant.
Wages and Affordability
According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25 and has not increased since 2010, and fourteen states are still set to this standard today (2018). Had minimum wage reflected annual inflation rate since 2010, federal minimum wage would have been calculated to $8.46 as of October 2018 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). Of those fourteen states with leveled federal minimum wage, New Mexico for example, have median rent prices continuing to rise since 2010 from $699 to today’s median rent of $813, approximately equaling the pace of inflation (Census, 2017). In places like these, affordability will slowly decrease, further challenging individuals who are in the “working homeless” category financially, and subsequently increasing the susceptibility and/or deepening impoverishment that much more. Although many other states have adopted their own minimum wage to be higher, this still poses an increasing margin between affordability in cost of living and those working on minimum wage as noted earlier in housing with median housing costs in different states.
Wages have not had the same growth as net productivity of the total economy since 1973. Accordingly, this has severely disconnected productivity and typical worker’s compensation (Mishel, et al., 2015). “Net productivity” is the growth of output of goods and services less depreciation per hour worked, according to this study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Following World War II in 1948 until 1973, productivity and hourly compensation has nearly kept the same pace in the 90 percentiles. However, from 1973 to 2013, productivity continued to rise up 74.4% while hourly compensation merely went up 9.2%. Cumulative changes since 1948 to 2013 in productivity has risen 243.1% while hourly compensation only rose 108.9%. This means that workers have been producing far more than they receive in their paychecks and benefit packages from their employers (Mishel, et al., 2015). Additionally, for annual pay increases for the top 1%, wages grew by 138% since 1979 while wages for the bottom 90% only grew to a mere 15%. This shows a large disparity between top executives and middle to low wage workers on financial returns from jobs across the country. Conferring to the EPI study, three hourly wage categories were surveyed of cumulative change since the year 1979 to 2013: very high at 95th percentile, middle at 50th percentile, and low at 10th percentile. Of the three very high wages grew by 41%, middle wages up by only 6%, and low wage at a negative 5% (2015).
EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group microdata from the CPS survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics [machine-readable microdata file]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. Reproduced from Figure F in “Why America’s Workers Need Faster Wage Growth—And What We Can Do About It.” by Gould, Elise, Economic Policy Institute, 2014.
The minimum wage fundamentally establishes the wage levels of the bottom fifth of wage earners. To EPI’s point, “these low-wage workers are far more educated and are older than low-wage workers in 1968. Yet, despite being more skilled and productive, wages earned are lower than wages earned in 1968.” (Mishel, et al., 2015). EPI also points out, had the minimum wage kept up with the growth rate of productivity from 1968 to 2014, the relative hourly wage value would have been at $18.42. One of the causes of stagnant wages and wage inequality is attributed to the decline of collective bargaining in both unions and non-unions. The dramatic increase of productivity and respectively, its financial gains have mostly gone to top CEOs and executives, while union membership have declined conversely. Collective bargaining not only raises wages for organized workers but also leads other employers to raise wages and benefits of nonunion workers to come closer to union wage standards. However, those at the top with the most income and wealth have political influences and power, enough to prevent modernization to labor laws to enable workers to pursue collective bargaining (Mishel, et al., 2015).
In metropolitan areas such as Portland Oregon, for a single person to just hit the low-income threshold in 2018, the individual would still have to earn an hourly wage of $21.92 pre-tax on a typical 40-hour workweek, and would equate to $45,600 annually. For a worker earning Oregon State’s minimum wage of $10.75, $3.50 higher than that of federal, would be considered between “extremely low-income” and “very low-income”, far below the low-income threshold (HUD, 2018). Currently worse with two other states, Georgia and Wyoming have minimum wages at $5.15 an hour, lower than that of federal (DOL, 2018). At these State’s wage policy levels, attaining housing and paying for basic life sustaining costs can be extremely detrimental and unforgiving as many other states across the country share similar characteristics.
The Individual
In America, a common rhetoric of homelessness and poverty is that individuals in poverty have not worked hard enough to succeed, that their indolence’s have led to their fate. In 2004, Bill O’Reilly said of poor people: “You gotta look people in the eye and tell ’em they’re irresponsible and lazy,” and then continued, “Because that’s what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen.” (Desmond, 2018). In a 2016 survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute and the Los Angeles Times, a poll that studied respondents on their thoughts on poverty found nearly two-thirds of respondents did not think most poor people held a steady job (2016). This has been a common American rhetoric for decades– the initial survey that was conducted in 1985 by the LA Times had showed many of the same attitudes have held constant when compared to the recent poll. In particular, doubts about the federal government’s ability to run its antipoverty programs, as well as their justification– the recent study points out:
- College-educated minorities were most likely in the current poll to say that government programs have had a positive impact on poverty, with more than 7 in 10 taking that view.
- At the other end of the scale, about one-third of Americans said that government programs had made poverty worse, a view that was particularly common among conservatives, 47%, and blue-collar whites, 43% (Lauter, 2016).
Despite attitudes having held constant, over half of the determined poverty status population aged 16 and over, have either worked full-time year-round, worked part-time, or part of the year in 2016 (Census, 2016). In Ms. Harnish’s account, she states: “Not ‘wanting’ or ‘choosing’ to work several different low-wage jobs for a total of sixty to eighty hours a week just to survive doesn’t make anyone lazy.” (2016). This population figure is 162,466,986 known Americans who may share similar stories as to Ms. Harnish’s state of affairs, for several other individuals within the poverty population, they could be susceptible to complete unemployment and/or homelessness due to the many variables mentioned earlier.
The term ‘susceptibility’ has assumptions– there are individuals in which these variables may not place them into poverty despite having had exposure to and/or experiences of any of the said variables. Whether an individual will exit out of poverty or not, does however depend on the individual, in that the degree of how a person experiences poverty itself will vary. As such simultaneously, individuals who exhibit indolence behaviors will ultimately exist. Nonetheless, how exactly a person may reach this point is the emphasis of the discussion.
Conclusion and Exceptions
This article has identified various variables– race and city zones in relation to racial Redlining and its outcomes to the zone’s generational influences, examples of the “working homeless”, criminalization of homelessness, housing attainability, and wages and affordability. Additionally, to give insight to a common American rhetoric of poverty– due to individual indolence. The purpose in understanding these explored variables is that poverty can happen by experiencing one or more in combination of the variables listed. Furthermore, each individual variable experienced has probabilities to lead into or be interconnected to one another concurrently. With these concurrent connections of two or more, the degree of poverty becomes increasingly exacerbated. The varying degree of susceptibility to each variable can differ from each individual, as each individual may have different life circumstances/influences as well as geographical differences, i.e. New York City versus Anniston, Alabama. Livelihood experiences like that of Ms. Harnish’s case, closely bear resemblances to the stories of many other working homeless and non-working homeless individuals, such that the cumulative variables nearly resemble formulaic poverty.
Of the listed variables, many other significant variables that may contribute to the susceptibility of poverty, have not been listed and explored yet. Such exceptions are: Immigration and citizenship status, drugs and addiction, mental illness, veterans with PTSD, family trauma, abuse of any type, and other laws that either meant to help or perpetuate homelessness. With these many variables, factors, geographical differences, as well as each of varying degrees; tackling poverty has always been an extreme challenge by all governments and leaders all throughout history and throughout the world.
Epilogue – Public Administration and Policy Concepts for Resolution
The National Coalition for the Homeless and National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, as well as many of their sub groups, are public interest groups and legal advocates that may be utilized for their extensive expertise. These are individuals organized together who share common awareness and goals in society and in government politics, also known as unofficial actors (Birkland, 2016). Official actors are those who are involved in public policy and hold official seats within the government because their responsibilities are authorized by the law and/or the Constitution. Individuals appointed in Congress are examples of those that have the ability to make or enforce policies (Birkland, 2016). Through vital coalition building, issue framing, mobilizing interest groups, appropriate data sets, and ultimately endorsing official government members to be involved; could lend to the beginnings of legislature advancements.
Minimum Wage Increase
As stated earlier, failure to adequately raise the minimum wage has contributed strongly to the stagnation of wage growth at the bottom of the wage distribution. This wage stagnation has, in turn, been the single greatest impediment to making rapid progress in poverty reduction in recent decades (Cooper, 2016). An extensive study on the implications to increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by the EPI, has found significant findings:
- About half of all workers in the bottom 20 percent of wage earners (roughly anyone earning less than $10.10) receive public assistance in the form of Medicaid and the six-primary means-tested income-support programs, either directly or through a family member. These programs include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps; the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program; and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) or equivalent state and/or local cash assistance programs.
- Roughly half of all public assistance dollars from means-tested income-support programs that go to working individuals go to workers with wages below $10.10.
- If the minimum wage were raised to $10.10, more than 1.7 million American workers would no longer rely on public assistance programs.
- Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would reduce government expenditures on current income-support programs by $7.6 billion per year—and possibly more, given the conservative nature of this estimate. This would allow these funds to be repurposed into either new programs or expansions of existing programs to further leverage the poverty-fighting impact of this spending.
- Safety net programs would save 24 cents for every additional dollar in wages paid to workers affected by a minimum-wage increase to $10.10 (Cooper, 2016).
Although further studies would be needed to tackle potential opposition philosophies such as hurting the overall economy, GDP, small businesses, and many others; this is nonetheless an extensive study to begin methodical approaches to case studies for minimum wage increase support.
Framing and Framework
In San Francisco’s Policy Analysis Report on Homelessness and the Cost of Quality of Life Laws, the city incurred approximately $20,648,510 in 2015 for sanctioning violations on homeless individuals (City and County of San Francisco, 2016). The total city cost is the outcome of nine city departments responsible for processing and enforcing the law, a cost paid by taxpayers. The nine departments are: 311 Customer Service Center, Adult Probation, Department of Emergency Management, District Attorney, Police Department, Public Defender, Recreation and Parks Department, Sheriff Department, and the Superior Court of San Francisco. If the issue has been merely existing on the streets such as the example of San Francisco, a small portion of the $20 million in total city costs may perhaps be used towards programs such as building additional shelters to ultimately decrease the number of homelessness off the literal streets. Additionally, integrating temporary job placement programs as well as occupational tech training within the shelters can further increase positive turn over. Framing this effort into a national priority can change the attitudes towards low-income and impoverished individuals as a whole. Such that, this may prove to be an overall economic gain to the city long term as well as implications to improving the health and safety of everyone in all economic classifications as they live in the city’s public spaces. Research surveys and studies aimed at this particular framing, conducted by supportive public interest organizations could begin real discussions with city officials. With careful calculated programs and possibly many others in conjunction, advocates can build influential data that may begin courses of actions, initial frameworks to work from, and case studies. For example, a form of Paid Sick Leave for millions of New York employees, especially for those at low income levels, were once faced with much opposition with common rhetoric to economic burdens and more. Paid Sick Leave in New York City just simply did not exist, despite sentiments of its basic human rights need and studied economic implications. Today, through much of the dedicated hard work from both City Council Members and many public interest groups pushing the need for the agenda, Paid Sick Leave is now an official law and proves it is an overall benefit to the city. New York City and other cities throughout America can work together on current working models to build off each other, as New York City once did with San Francisco’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Understanding this example, as well as many other enacted municipal laws, can provide much of the needed strategies involved in policy making as a starting framework.
Due to the varying degree of poverty from person to person, city to city, and state to state; one size fits all strategy attempts never won as there are too many to cover. Although, it is recognized that many attempts at poverty solving methods have been exhausted all throughout history, the importance is understanding the ideology behind the susceptibility of poverty from variables. Solving one micro problem at a time may in-turn ultimately remove many of the deep and wide spread roots of poverty variables. Perhaps modernized policies that have rapid adaptable capabilities could accommodate the changing landscapes of the issues of poverty.
Works Cited:
Badger, Emily “How Redlining’s Racist Effects Lasted for Decades.” The New York Times. August. 2017. WEB.
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