On Poverty: Charles Murray vs. Matt Moehr
So this is what happened. In the wake of Katrina, Murray wrote an op-ed in the WSJ ruminating about poverty policy, his thesis generally being that those who remain poor choose to do so because of “self-destructive behavior.” Matt, who currently works at some place called the applied population laboratory at U Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in a response. I will post the entire exchange below. First, Murray’s op-ed, entitled (ugh) ”The Hallmark of the Underclass”:
And here is Matt’s response:
12 Oct 2005
“Working Full Time but Mired in Povety.” The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition). New York, NY: Oct 12, 2005. pg. A.17.Individual decisions, personal responsibility and effort obviously influence the way each person lives. However I disagree with a statement by Charles Murray in his Sept. 29 editorial-page commentary “The Hallmark of the Underclass.” Charles Murray does not draw his conclusions from sound evidence. He says, “Despite the exceptions that get the newspaper ink, the statistical reality is that people who get into the American job market and stay there seldom remain poor unless they do something self-destructive. And behaving self-destructively is the hallmark of the underclass.” Here is my version of the statistical reality:
In 1978 there were 1.309 million full-time workers who lived below the poverty line. That number has steadily grown over the past 26 years to the current level of 2.896 million, and has grown at a rate faster than the expansion of the total labor force. The full-time “wo
rking poor” accounted for 7.7% of all workers in 1978 and now accounts for 11.5% (U.S. Census Bureau).The current situation for minorities—the population especially affected by Hurricane Katrina and subject of Mr. Murray’s article—is even worse. When examining people in the labor force or looking for work for at least 27 weeks during the year, only 4.6% of whites were below the poverty line compared with 10.0% for African Americans and 10.9% for Hispanics (Bureau of Labor Statistics, data from 2003). Even assuming an equal opportunity to find employment, which is certainly not a valid assumption, not everyone can climb out of the underclass by simply participating in the American job market.
As for Mr. Murray’s reference to “self-destructive” behavior, I would refer the reader to Barbara Ehrenreich’s best-selling book “Nickel and Dimed: (Not) Getting by in America.” It is a firsthand account of life in low-wage jobs. The conclusions? In the face of rising costs of health care, transportation, child care, housing and the lack of stable employment, the underclass does not need to go looking for self-destructive behavior to find itself mired in poverty.
I have no solutions, or even recommendations, for the rebuilding and economic development plans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; I also agree with the Mr. Murray’s conclusion that the new policies need to better incorporate personal responsibility. However, to simply blame the underclass for their poor decision-making is an uninformed and miserly position that will surely not lead to any effective social policy.
Matthew J. Moehr
Applied Population Laboratory, Department of Rural Sociology,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
I side with Matt on this one. Although for different reasons, a compelling one based on some previous experiences I have had.
Murray’s basic assumption is certainly true about personal behavior and responsibility. I can’t expect to be financially succesful in life if I suddenly decide to quit my job and smoke dope all day. But Murray’s position is a little too simplistic particularly when he glosses over his points about illegitimacy. It is certainly true that family life status is related to poverty. As he seems to elude to, it is well known that children of single mothers are signficantly more likely to be living in poverty (along with their mothers) than children of a married couple. If a young woman chooses to have irresponsible sex and is then faced with the possibility of raising a child on her own. Yes, sounds cruel, but she made a bad choice.
But it is also true that domestic violence in this society occurs at epidemic levels, and many single mothers are products of marriages gone toxic. I worked for a short period of time in legal aid in a small community out west. In that time period, almost every single client I had was a single mother (all white and one native-american) who either had sole physical custody of a child or children, or were arguing to obtain sole physical custody, because their husbands where kicking the shit out of them. And when I mean abuse I mean abuse. Like husbands getting sloppy drunk and beating wives unconscious every night kind of abuse. Hell, we even had sort of an abusive behavior checklist for new clients that read like a parade of horribles (tick off what you have experienced: 1) slapping to the face; 2) punching to the face; 3) hard objects thrown at you; 4) sharp object thrown to you; 5) burned with hot objects, etc., you get the idea). I find it difficult to assign
the “your behavior is self-destructive” blame-line to single mothers (and their children) because they had to save their own lives from abusive husbands. I’ve just seen it too many times to brush off this consideration in an aloof and detached way.
In all fairness, however, like many op-eds, Murray’s intention was likely to provide a big picture snapshot that (intended or not) supports an ideological position in the cosmic conservative vs liberal debate over social policy, and not to dwell on or examine every single social ill that plagues us. But its just good to see a buddy of mine take on a heavy hitter on the WJS’s op-ed pages.
As a sidenote, I should mention that Matt received a number of emails in response to his letter from WJS readers, one of whom pointed out that Matt apparently has “a biased liberal agenda.” LOL. For those of us who know Matt, hilarious.
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