Back in March of this year several members of University Baptist Church attended a Poverty Forum held at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and sponsored by the Interfaith Federation of Baton Rouge. I was not planning to attend until someone pressured me into going. One key argument is that people wanted to find out about our ministry efforts with the homeless along with several other “social and community justice” ministries such as To Highland With Love. The organizers explained that the gathering would be divided into smaller groups in which we could talk about and share what our various faith and community organizations were doing.
And there sort of is a reason why I am bringing this up months after the event.
Overall it was very good. When we entered the building we were given colored dots which indicated which table we would sit at. Each table constituted a small group that would discuss together questions provided on sheets of paper. There would be several presentations on different topics and after two or three presentations we would discuss. Each table was asked to select a “moderator” to guide discussion and a “secretary” to take notes. I write by hand much faster than most people and offered to take notes.
The presentations were generally excellent. Although it has been a while they were by professors of social work, heads of community service organizations, even a member of the board of directors for Capital Area Transit – our public bus transportation system. They addressed the causes of poverty. The effects of poverty. The importance of public transportation systems – what I thought was especially valuable. And finally how to engage in political advocacy relating to poverty.
The last presentation was the only one I had any real trouble with. It was highly critical of Governor Jindal particularly for taking stands with which I happened to agree strongly. It is one of the chief reasons I became less involved in the Interfaith Federation over the last five years – got tired of the casual assumption that we are all good liberal Democrats who think all religions are basically the same.
Overall the discussion at my table was good. Two members of our discussion group were social workers. One is the regional director for Teach for American whom I have known since first coming to this church in 1999 – one presenter did not show and he was asked to give an impromptu presentation about education which was excellent. And we had pretty good ethnic and religious diversity.
One mild frustration was that the reason I was pressured into going – so that I could “represent University Baptist and tell other people about our ministries among the poor and the homeless – turned out to be a bust. We never had a chance to share what our various churches and organizations were doing. The focus and format of the forum did not allow for it.
There was much that “conservatives” need to hear and appreciate about the causes dynamics and effects of poverty. The one that grabbed my attention the most is the importance of public transportation. We want people to work right? People cannot work if they do not have regular reliable transportation. And when people are already poor and have a low paying job – frankly it is mighty difficult to own and maintain a car.
(My third year of graduate school my car had so many problems that basically every dollar I earned that summer went for car repairs. In other words my net income became zero. While I was working.)
But this is what I wanted to bring up.
There was a great deal of discussion about what the government can and should do to address poverty. Fair enough. And for the most part when talking about the “causes dynamimcs and effects” of poverty there was a great deal of agreement and consensus at our table. Anyone care to guess what the number one factor was? Education.
But there was one question no one asked. Not in any presentation. Not at our table during the entire two to three hours. Not even hinted on the discussion sheets.
To what extent does government policy create encourage and exacerbate poverty and its effects?
One would think that after spending hundreds of billions of dollars since the 1960′s we would have made significant inroads in eliminating poverty. Tell me – which cities are the most ruined with the highest rates of poverty? And is there a correlation between poverty and style of government?
No one at the forum seemed to ask these sorts of questions.
(And no it is not that simple. In Baton Rouge there is a painfully obvious gulf between the average socio-economic status of blacks versus whites. And it cannot all be blamed on misguided government policies. Much of it has to do with education – and education in this city for decades had much to do with race/ethnicity. Fortunately that is starting to improve dramatically.)
Let us be more specific. Greg Mankiw who is an economist at Harvard University directs our attention to the “dead zone”:
Notice that as earned income rises from about $15,000 to $30,000, income after taxes and transfers is roughly flat. Indeed, it could even fall. The bottom line: If you are poor, the government is inadvertently ensuring that you have little incentive to try to improve your condition.
With a chart that illustrates earned income versus(?) net income after taxes and transfers.
We can give presentations and have discussions and engage in all sort of ministries to “help the poor”. Frankly we should. But too often in public social and political discourse we confuse good intentions with good results.
“We want to help the poor. Therefore we want the government to do x y and z. You do not want the government to do those things. Therefore you do not care about the poor”.
And yet where we have implemented x y and z we sometimes get more poverty and poverty more permanent.
