The Black Commentator - June 29, 2006

For educators in classrooms of Title 1 public schools, the hypocritical, “Poverty is no excuse” is a bogus mantra. It’s bankrupt for economists too, fearing the rising income inequalities and their economic fallout – outside the classrooms.

If “poverty is no excuse,” why does the government waste its time and tax dollars on “Title 1 – Improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged”? Or does this really confirm the existing economic – not educational – “winner take all” present economic system that not only creates and accepts “poverty” as we know it, but now finds itself bogged down with increasing income inequality? Don’t expect U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret “In God we trust – all others bring data” Spellings to include this economic nightmare in her “data” configurations. “That’s not my department!” Of course not. It’s not the department of Title 1 public school teachers either. After all, in a calendar year, students are under school jurisdiction only about 15% of the time. The other 85% is spent with family or caregivers. But even Spellings knows from personal experience, being a mother of 2 children, what transpires in that 85% time during a year has a profound effect on the approximate 15% time when students are in school.

“The rise in inequality is the cause of our dreadful political condition,” warns James K. Galbraith in his book “Created Unequal,” published in 2000 by University of Chicago Press. “It is the cause of the bitter and unending struggle over the “Transfer State,” of the ugly battles over welfare, affirmative action, health care, Social Security, and the even uglier preoccupation in some circles with the alleged relationship of race, intelligence and earnings. The ‘end of welfare as we knew it,’ to take a recent example, became possible only as rising inequality ensured that those who ended welfare did not know it, that they were detached from the life experiences of those on the receiving end.”

Those on the “receiving end,” of course, were 99 % women in poverty, with the vast percentage being women of color – especially in central cities. Wisconsin’s W-2 welfare “reform” was under the tutelage of Republican Governor Tommy Thompson. For his heroic dismantlement of “welfare rolls” in the state, President George W. appointed him to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Statewide – more poor white women were on W-2 than women of color. But the stigma of welfare during “reform” intensified. This affected Milwaukee’s Title 1 public school African American students too. When asked, “Are more poor white women or poor black women in the state on welfare?” the response was 100 % – black women. Even after lengthy discussions, students refused to accept that statewide, white women in poverty had outnumbered black women. The W-2 “shame” was internalized. It also magnified the argumentative negative “put-downs” by Title 1 students. “Your mama’s on welfare!” W-2 also has its demeaning by-products.

“The plight of families in Milwaukee living only on food stamps” was a report by the Women and Poverty Public Education Initiative (WPPEI) in October 2003. The research project was initiated after Milwaukee County officials reported that the number of families with children living only on Food Stamps had tripled since 1998 (The W-2 welfare “reform” agenda was implemented in 1996 by the “detached.”). The county identified approximately 1,800 families with children who receive Food Stamps and reported no other source of income. Many of the parents interviewed had complied with the mandate of welfare reform and obtained jobs. “For a variety of reasons, some personal, but many having to do with structural labor market issues; these parents are no longer employed.” The highest percentage, 63%, said they were “looking, but couldn’t find a job.” The next highest percentage, 43%, said they “needed training to qualify for available jobs.” The original W-2 proposal included money and benefits for education, but that was axed from the final welfare “reform” package. The “detached” remained “detached.” A maximum monthly payment of $673 would also have to suffice.

Some shared their grief that their children ‘go without’ or get teased for being poor. This, in turn, caused anger and rebelliousness in their children. Many of the study’s respondents reflected devastating feelings of being “depressed, sad, suicidal and desperate.” Others reported using drugs to “numb the pain.” The study’s findings show the chasm that is created when W-2 participants reach their 24-month “time limits” in the program, but have not found full-time employment. “There is no safety net in place to sustain these families, especially in the lean labor market where jobs in the central city are limited, and many of the jobs that are available do not offer family-supporting wages,” noted the report. Although even the news media began exposing shortcomings in the program, it soon became obvious W-2 was designed to eliminate welfare “by any means necessary.” After all, it wasn’t the “detached” corporate lobbyists’ mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces or women colleagues being affected.

“Inequality lifts the veil. Inequality is information; it is knowledge,” said Galbraith. “With high inequality, of income and wealth, it becomes easy to know whether one is likely in the long run to be a net gainer, or a net loser, from public programs of family assistance, pension security, and health care. The more inequality there is in the present, the more definite is each person’s sense of his or her own position, both in the present and for the future. The rich feel more secure; the poor feel less hopeful.” He added, “High inequality therefore, weakens the willingness to share at the same time that it concentrates resources in hands least inclined to be willing. In this way, and for this reason, inequality threatens the ability of society as a whole to provide for the weak, the ill, and the old.”

The WPPEI report on W-2 welfare reform certainly validated Galbraith’s theoretical economic construct. W-2 concentrated resources “in hands least inclined to be willing to share.” While the rich felt more secure, the poor felt less hopeful.

“Inequality lifted the veil” in a recent May 2006 report by the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Center for Economic Development (UWMCED). “The Economic State of Milwaukee’s Inner City: 2006,” complete with charts and wage data, was authored by Marc V. Levine, professor and director of the UWMCED, with research assistance from policy analysts Lauren McHargue and Lisa Williams. Coincidentally, it provides evidence why W-2 welfare mothers were unable to find living-wage jobs. “Income per taxpayer in the inner city remains less than half the level of the metropolitan area as a whole, and in some neighborhoods of the inner city, income is barely one-third of the metro area average,” according to the report. “Although job loss has slowed in the inner city since 1994, there has been no net employment growth since then, seriously limiting economic opportunity for inner city residents. Moreover, since 1999 there has been slow job growth throughout the entire Milwaukee region; this stagnation, combined with persistent racial segregation in the metro area’s labor market, has limited opportunities for inner city job-seekers.”

According to the report, recent economic data also reveal two new and troubling trends that pose serious challenges for Milwaukee’s civic leadership. “First, the small improvements in employment and income that have occurred in the inner city since 1999 have been limited to a few neighborhoods, chiefly those ringing downtown Milwaukee, where substantial gentrification has occurred. Other neighborhoods in the inner city continue to experience falling incomes and shrinking employment. In short, there appear to be ‘two inner cities’ emerging in Milwaukee: one in which gentrification and modest job growth have generated visible neighborhood improvement; and another inner city in which economic opportunity continues to diminish.”

“Second,” said Levine, “although conditions in the ‘traditional’ inner city appear to have stabilized since 1999, inner city economic conditions have spread north and west to neighborhoods on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side. The number of jobs has contracted sharply in Northwest Side neighborhoods since 1999, and real incomes have dropped there as well.” In short, noted the study’s director, “Rather than any substantial inner city revival, Milwaukee is simply witnessing a geographic shift in economic distress, with some inner city neighborhoods showing gains, others still declining, and still others, particularly on the Northwest Side, falling into deep economic difficulty, poised to become in effect, a ‘new’ inner city.”

Galbraith, professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin, begins his book: “This is a book about pay. It is about the gap between good and bad jobs, about what can be earned in America in decent as compared with mediocre employment. This gap was once small. But the gap has grown, and now it is wider than at any other time since the Great Depression. (It’s) so wide that it has come, once again, to threaten the social solidarity and stability of the country.”

“Poverty is no excuse” is the bankrupt education mantra and party line of Spellings’s “detached” wealthy pro-voucher bosses. It provides “compassionate conservatives” and their corporate allies an excuse to raid the taxpayers’ till – again – minus accountability.

Daniel Pryzbyla can be reached at [email protected].