Erasing the Intellectual Poverty of Anti-Poverty Policies

American parents hold dreams for their children. They want the best, or at least better than what they knew when they were growing up. Many middle-class parents, of all racial backgrounds, are finding that they must put their dreams on hold. Their children will never be able to buy a home in the neighborhood where they grew up. Their grandchildren may have even less.

Many Americans are losing ground because of sweeping economic and political change. Nowhere is that loss greater than in the poorest ghettos. Parents dream there, too, but too often their children inherit the nightmare of extreme poverty--and worse: of no hope that life can improve.

A new study, “The Urban Underclass,” edited by Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson, dissects this persistent poverty. It explodes some popular myths and refocuses national attention on how to help Americans who lack the will, the skill or the opportunity to lift themselves and their children out of the ghetto. This think-tank tome, published by the Brookings Institution, picks up on the distressing signals that were ignored in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s controversial, landmark 1965 study on the deteriorating black family structure and the roots of urban poverty.

Why should more fortunate Americans care? In the absence of compassion, pragmatism must take hold to avoid a repetition of history.

In 1965, Moynihan described urban slums filled with very poor, black Americans who knew only “a cycle of no jobs, bad education and bad housing.” At that time, nearly 25% of black marriages broke up; nearly 25% of black families were headed by single women and nearly 25% of black children were born to unmarried women. His findings were ignored, although today those numbers would be reason for optimism.

It’s tempting to see the problems as insurmountable. But one paper in the study is particularly valuable because it cuts the problem down to size by segmenting the ghetto poor into the impoverished underclass, the jobless underclass and the educational underclass. That novel separation allows experts to tackle problems one by one, which is a more manageable strategy.

THE WAY IN: Although the majority of poor Americans are white, the underclass is by definition concentrated in isolated urban areas of extreme poverty. The report therefore tends to focus on big-city ghettos, which are largely black, with a growing number of Latino families.

The Brookings report, though excellent, cannot tell the whole story. None of the studies quantify the devastating impact of crack cocaine on poor families and their communities because of a lack of available academic research. The report does focus extensively on single mothers and their children.

Divorce and unwed motherhood have taken huge tolls on American families. Because of this permanent social change, more women must make do with one check rather than two. More women--and their children--are finding out what it is like to do without. In this affluent nation, the faces of poverty are increasingly tiny. Black children are at greatest risk because most are born to single mothers. That risk increases when the mothers are poor and uneducated.

The report points out that welfare, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children, lost value when the Reagan Administration persuaded Congress to penalize any recipient who worked. Prior to 1981, a woman could keep the first $30 plus one-third of her monthly pay. That policy should be reinstated to give poor mothers an incentive to work.

There is, however, cause for hope in some of the findings. A smaller percentage of teen-agers is having babies today then in 1960. A greater percentage of black and Latino students is graduating from high school today than three decades ago. Despite the progress in those numbers, an increasing number of poor, minority children are starting out with the odds against them.

THE WAY OUT: Working one’s way out of poverty isn’t as easy as it was when urban auto, steel and other manufacturing plants allowed semi-skilled and unskilled men to support families. Those jobs have been disappearing. But when decent jobs are available, poor people usually want to work. To prove that point, the Brookings report cited an increase in those who went to work during the boom several years ago in Boston.

Anyone who is willing to work deserves a fair shot at a job. Unfortunately, racial discrimination remains a major hurdle to employment, according to the report. Interviews with 185 Chicago employers on how they select employees for entry-level jobs resulted in damning stereotypes of black workers, especially inner-city black men. Fair employment laws haven’t curbed these attitudes, and stronger civil rights laws face daunting political hurdles.

The entry-level jobs that are available are often found in the suburbs. That hurdle can be overcome. A Chicago housing program, cited in the report, allowed welfare mothers who met minimal standards to move out of inner-city public housing projects into subsidized private apartments. The women who moved to the suburbs were the most likely to get jobs. Nearly all cited availability as a key reason. Many also cited safety; they could get to their jobs without being mugged and they could leave their children at home without fear.

Leaving a child at home without fear is a universal dream. Providing a better life is, too. The Brookings report doesn’t provide the answers, but it does help refocus the national debate. The obvious implication is that the effort to achieve a comprehensive policy for the underclass is doomed to fail; the corollary implication is that precisely targeted programs can make a difference.