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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/opinion/paul-krugman-race-class-and-neglect.html
Every
time you’re tempted to say that America is moving forward on race —
that prejudice is no longer as important as it used to be — along comes
an atrocity to puncture your complacency. Almost everyone realizes, I
hope, that the Freddie Gray affair wasn’t an isolated incident, that
it’s unique only to the extent that for once there seems to be a real
possibility that justice may be done.
And
the riots in Baltimore, destructive as they are, have served at least
one useful purpose: drawing attention to the grotesque inequalities that
poison the lives of too many Americans.
Yet
I do worry that the centrality of race and racism to this particular
story may convey the false impression that debilitating poverty and
alienation from society are uniquely black experiences. In fact, much
though by no means all of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many
other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of
extreme and rising inequality.
Take,
for example, issues of health and mortality. Many people have pointed
out that there are a number of black neighborhoods in Baltimore where
life expectancy compares unfavorably with impoverished Third World
nations. But what’s really striking on a national basis is the way class
disparities in death rates have been soaring even among whites.
Most
notably, mortality among white women has increased sharply since the
1990s, with the rise surely concentrated among the poor and poorly
educated; life expectancy among less educated whites has been falling at
rates reminiscent of the collapse of life expectancy in post-Communist
Russia.
And
yes, these excess deaths are the result of inequality and lack of
opportunity, even in those cases where their direct cause lies in
self-destructive behavior. Overuse of prescription drugs, smoking, and
obesity account for a lot of early deaths, but there’s a reason such
behaviors are so widespread, and that reason has to do with an economy
that leaves tens of millions behind.
It
has been disheartening to see some commentators still writing as if
poverty were simply a matter of values, as if the poor just mysteriously
make bad choices and all would be well if they adopted middle-class
values. Maybe, just maybe, that was a sustainable argument four decades
ago, but at this point it should be obvious that middle-class values
only flourish in an economy that offers middle-class jobs.
The
great sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago that
widely-decried social changes among blacks, like the decline of
traditional families, were actually caused by the disappearance of
well-paying jobs in inner cities. His argument contained an implicit
prediction: if other racial groups were to face a similar loss of job
opportunity, their behavior would change in similar ways.
And
so it has proved. Lagging wages — actually declining in real terms for
half of working men — and work instability have been followed by sharp
declines in marriage, rising births out of wedlock, and more.
s Institution writes: “Blacks have faced,
and will continue to face, unique challenges. But when we look for the
reasons why less skilled blacks are failing to marry and join the middle
class, it is largely for the same reasons that marriage and a
middle-class lifestyle is eluding a growing number of whites as well.”
So
it is, as I said, disheartening still to see commentators suggesting
that the poor are causing their own poverty, and could easily escape if
only they acted like members of the upper middle class.
And
it’s also disheartening to see commentators still purveying another
debunked myth, that we’ve spent vast sums fighting poverty to no avail
(because of values, you see.)
In
reality, federal spending on means-tested programs other than Medicaid
has fluctuated between 1 and 2 percent of G.D.P. for decades, going up
in recessions and down in recoveries. That’s not a lot of money — it’s
far less than other advanced countries spend — and not all of it goes to
families below the poverty line.
Despite
this, measures that correct well-known flaws in the statistics show
that we have made some real progress against poverty. And we would make a
lot more progress if we were even a fraction as generous toward the
needy as we imagine ourselves to be.
The
point is that there is no excuse for fatalism as we contemplate the
evils of poverty in America. Shrugging your shoulders as you attribute
it all to values is an act of malign neglect. The poor don’t need
lectures on morality, they need more resources — which we can afford to
provide — and better economic opportunities, which we can also afford to
provide through everything from training and subsidies to higher
minimum wages. Baltimore, and America, don’t have to be as unjust as
they are.
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