Generational Poverty

Currently there is lots of public furor regarding "illegal immigrants" coming to America, taking jobs away from Americans, and costing the US taxpayers by utilizing services paid for by our tax dollars. What I see are folks who come here risking everything, including death, just to get here. Once here, they take whatever job is available. Typically these jobs are physically exhausting, dangerous, and low paying. There is no “40-hour work week”. Most newly immigrated people work 80 hours a week. They live 8 - 10 or more people in a small space so they can pay the bills. They aren't eligible for food stamps, childcare our housing subsidies, welfare or Medicaid. They work hard, earn money, spend money, save money, and send money to their families in Mexico. They take turns caring for the children. They don't come here knowing English in most cases, but they are acquiring English skills faster than any other immigrant group in the history of America. Most use a false social security number, so they are paying taxes into the US treasury, but often don't know they can, or are afraid to file taxes and receive a tax refund even though they likely qualify for one because of their low income.

The focus on undocumented workers reminds me of the focus some years ago on the abuse of children by their nannies. We have a near epidemic of children dieing in car accidents because they aren’t properly restrained. This tragic reality is true for children of all races and ethnicities and from all socioeconomic strata. Yet a few years ago, our media and our private conversations focused on a relatively small number of children who are at risk of being abused by private nannies hired to care for them.

It seems to me that we are again focusing on the wrong issue. Within our own citizenry, families are poor and getting poorer. Poverty is very expensive and far reaching. Poverty is a major risk factor for so many other issues such as child abuse and neglect, risk of school failure, early sexual behaviors, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol dependency, domestic violence, gang involvement, teen suicide and homicide, juvenile criminal behavior, adult criminal behavior and on and on and on. The money required to address these latent effects is astronomical.

In America we have an underclass of people who speak English, have a social security number, are able-bodied and as intellectually capable as their Mexican counterparts, who live in public housing or receive housing subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid, welfare, WIC and who visit food pantries and get help from churches and nonprofits to pay their power bills, medical and prescription co-pays, get help with heating costs, and help at Christmas for their children. These folks can't get a job because if they do their subsidies will be cut. They can't make enough money working jobs they qualify for to pay the bills and provide medical insurance for their children.

So these American families maintain their lives on welfare. Parents unknowingly teach their children how to survive in poverty rather than how to have educational and employment success. Perhaps these parents have no idea how to help their children succeed, or don't believe that such a path is possible for their family. They are surrounded by others who live similar lives, so they have no role models they can relate to who might guide them to a different kind of life. They never developed a work ethic and they don't see a way out.

Please understand. There are many families who find themselves in need of temporary assistance from entitlement benefits. I am not asserting that entitlement benefits or the people who use them are inherently bad. In fact, the benefits are vital life preservers for families who aren’t able to sustain themselves any other way. (By the way, Social Security and Medicare are also an “entitlement benefits,” so it is important not to fall victim to the belief that only certain types of people use entitlements.)

But our economy and our laws and the businesses in our communities must be designed to work WITH entitlement benefits so that each supports the other and people are able to work their way off of welfare. As the system exists, most of us would not choose to risk losing our children’s insurance, our housing, and food for our entire family just so that we can say we go to work every day. First, going to work every day must begin to translate into being able to provide for your family.

There has always been a segment of our society that isn’t able to succeed educationally. But historically, these members of society could go to work at a factory, learn a skill and do that skill over and over for 40 years until they could retire. Or they could join and retire from the military. In today’s world, the factories are largely absent and the qualifications for joining the military have become more stringent. The service industry is about the only employment available for those who aren't able to finish high school, or those who may be functionally illiterate.

But the service industry still behaves as if it employs high school kids ~ not heads of households. Service industries are making record-breaking profits and employing ever growing numbers of people, indicating they are profiting from the employment and underpayment of our most vulnerable working folks. Service industries must provide health care ~ or the US government must. Laws have to change so that minimum wage lifts a person working 40 hours a week out of poverty. If our nation’s laws don’t increase the minimum wage, then service industries such as fast food restaurant chains and big retailers should be required to pay a much higher minimum wage. This approach is now being used in cities such as Chicago, though the practice is being challenged in court.

Another factor which may be the most difficult challenge is instilling in people who have little or no work experience and who have been left out of the educational and economic landscape of our society, a burning desire ~ an internal mechanism ~ that makes it uncomfortable to have to receive entitlement benefits and that makes working the most attractive option for sustaining family and self.

This is challenging in part because these folks aren't likely to trust people who they feel are judging them or who just don't get it. And they are often times struggling with physical and/or mental health problems, substance abuse, have very limited literacy, no reliable transportation, and no deeply embedded work ethic that will sustain them through challenges on the job such as difficult work environments, bosses they don't like, and co-workers who might treat them poorly.

But it is basic to individual success that a shift occur in the minds and hearts of all able-bodied, able-minded people so that they see a better future, want a better future, and are willing to work hard for it. And when they do work hard, they need to see their lives improve.

We are challenged as a community to find a way to help ~ without judgment ~ those who need our help. We are obligated as a society to ensure that people in our communities don’t go hungry, have equal opportunities to acquire the tools necessary to excel and prosper in our economy, and to find creative ways to lift up those who have only known poverty.

If we were to expend the financial, emotional, and creative resources we are currently using on the immigration debate to find permanent solutions to lifting up our own economic underclass, we could surely be successful.