Integrating Poverty into a More Encompassing Progressive Narrative about the Economy

Today's Krugman op-ed on poverty is a good example of what I think of as the dominant anti-poverty paradigm, a way of talking and thinking about economic insecurity and deprivation that dates back to the mid-1960s and has its genesis in Michael Harrington's The Other America: Poverty in the United States. Harrington's book provided much of the impetus for modern-day anti-poverty movement and inspired the War on Poverty. In review of Harrington's biography, Victor Navasky notes:

Until [the publication of The Other America], thinking about the poor within the Kennedy administration had been ''piecemeal.'' Harrington's book supplied the organizing concept, the target, the word, and thus was the idea for the War on Poverty born. It can indeed be argued that what Betty Friedan's ''Feminine Mystique'' did for feminism, Rachel Carson's ''Silent Spring'' for the environment and Ralph Nader's ''Unsafe at Any Speed'' for the public interest movement, ''The Other America'' did for the poor.

I reread The Other America recently, and noted three arguments that Harrington made, arguments that continue to be a part of the dominant anti-poverty paradigm to this day (quotes are from The Other America):

• The Poor are Fundamentally Different than Other People: "The poor are not like everyone else. They are a different kind of people. They think and feel differently ...."
• The New Deal Did Little to Help the Poor: "The welfare state was designed during the great burst of social creativity that took place in the 1930s. ... its structure corresponds to the needs of those who played the most important role in building it: the middle third, the organized workers, the forces of urban liberalism, and so on. .... So there is the fundamental paradox of the welfare state: that it is not build for the desperate, but for those who are already capable of helping themselves.”
• Poverty is Invisible: "The other America, the America of poverty, is hidden today in a way that it never was before. Its millions are socially invisible to us."

Krugman's op-ed includes arguments that are related to each of these assumptions. For example, he notes that: "L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969."

This is correct, but it leaves out an important part of the story, namely that even larger reductions in poverty took place in the decades before the War on Poverty, during a period some have called "The Great Compression", when inequality fell and working class families saw their incomes grow at a greater pace than better-off families. Poverty fell rapidly during this period as a direct result of New Deal and post-New Deal era progressive policies, including Social Security, the minimum wage, laws strengthening and formalizing the right to collective bargaining, that were much more ambitious and universal than the more targeted policies adopted during the War on Poverty.

Krugman knows this story well—it's the story that essentially frames his recent book Conscience of a Liberal—so it's seems strange that he doesn't mention it. I think the reason is that when the topic turns to poverty, he ends up, probably unconsciously, adopting the assumptions of the anti-poverty paradigm, which includes the (mistaken) assumption that the New Deal and related policies did little to help people experiencing poverty.

Another part of the anti-poverty paradigm involves distinguishing poverty as an issue that is categorically distinct from other issues, including health care, and economic security more generally. Krugman does this near the end of his op-ed:

.... To their credit — and to the credit of John Edwards, who goaded them into it — both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are proposing new initiatives against poverty. But their proposals are modest in scope and far from central to their campaigns.

I’m not blaming them for that; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor. And for a variety of reasons, health care, not poverty, should be the first priority of a Democratic administration.

Calling Clinton's and Obama's anti-poverty initiatives "modest in scope" only makes sense if one thinks that calling for say, universal health care, has little do with reducing poverty and isn't part of an anti-poverty initiative. Given that Krugman says health care not poverty should be the first priority, it appears that he does think of them as distinct issues. This is a distinction that even Michael Harrington would have found absurd. In fact, the primary anti-poverty proposal in The Other America is ... universal health care. Even now, it's hard to think of a policy that would do more to fight poverty than extending health care to all workers in low-paid jobs, something that is only likely to be done nationally as part of universal health care.

While Obama has a specific "anti-poverty initiative", the best statement of what he'll do to reduce poverty is found in a speech that only mentions poverty twice, his recent economic policy speech at the Janesville GM plant. Instead of talking about poverty as a special interest issue, Obama integrates anti-poverty policies into a more encompassing progressive narrative about not just the middle class, but "those struggling to join it". The following excerpts from the speech illustrate how Obama's economic agenda isn't simply a "middle class agenda":

So today, I’m laying out a comprehensive agenda to reclaim our dream and restore our prosperity. It’s an agenda that focuses on three broad economic challenges that the next President must address – the current housing crisis; the cost crisis facing the middle-class and those struggling to join it; and the need to create millions of good jobs right here in America– jobs that can’t be outsourced and won’t disappear.

....

Since the Earned Income Tax Credit lifts nearly 5 million Americans out of poverty each year, I’ll double the number of workers who receive it and triple the benefit for minimum wage workers. And I won’t wait another ten years to raise the minimum wage – I’ll guarantee that it keeps pace with inflation every single year so that it’s not just a minimum wage, but a living wage. Because that’s the change that working Americans need.

My universal health care plan brings down the cost of health care more than any other candidate in this race, and will save the typical family up to $2500 a year on their premiums. Every American would be able to get the same kind of health care that members of Congress get for themselves, and we’d ban insurance companies from denying you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. ....

....

We’ll also expand the Family Medical Leave Act to include more businesses and millions more workers; and we’ll change a system that’s stacked against working women by requiring every employer to provide seven paid sick days a year, so that you can be home with your child if they’re sick.

....

In the end, this economic agenda won’t just require new money. It will require a new spirit of cooperation and innovation on behalf of the American people. We will have to learn more, and study more, and work harder. We’ll be called upon to take part in shared sacrifice and shared prosperity. And we’ll have to remind ourselves that we rise and fall as one nation; that a country in which only a few prosper is antithetical to our ideals and our democracy; and that those of us who have benefited greatly from the blessings of this country have a solemn obligation to open the doors of opportunity, not just for our children, but to all of America’s children.

....

All of these proposals will help working-class families (including families experiencing poverty as officially defined) more than middle- and upper-class families. I'm not going hold it against Obama (or Clinton, whose economic plan is similar) that he isn't calling this plan an anti-poverty plan; the more important matter is that he's made these proposals central to his campaign.

The Obama speech is a good example of the new paradigm on economic insecurity and deprivation that has developed over the last decade or so. I think of this new paradigm as having the following elements:

• Multidimensional Understanding of Economic Deprivation: In addition to income poverty, the new paradigm is concerned about disparities in wealth, health, time, and opportunities for civic participation.
• Inequality-Based: Focus is on the impact of inequality/relative differences in income, goods, and status, not just absolute lack.
• Solidarity as a Motivating Value: Leading value is solidarity rather than charity. The paradigm sees the working class and the middle class as being "in this together". The "other America" is the very rich, what Robert Frank calls "Richistan."
• Positive Economic Vision: The new paradigm puts forward a long-term, positive vision; it's "for" a stronger, more inclusive America, not just against poverty.
• Preference for Universal Policies: Policies that are designed to help the working class and middle class in the same system are preferable to ones that "target" very-low-income families.

I'll have more to say about this new paradigm in a forthcoming paper.