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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe've been fighting poverty all wrong
The success of the expanded child tax credit shows why anti-poverty programs should be unconditional.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23965898/child-poverty-expanded-child-tax-credit-economy-welfare-phase-ins
Background:
Since 1975, the safety net excluded the poorest from assistance, believing that this would motivate them to get a job. That's called a phase-in. Removing a phase-in gives assistance starting with zero income.
The results were historic. Over the course of 2021, child poverty was cut nearly in half, and the long-running fear at the heart of the American welfare system that unconditional aid would discourage work never came to pass.
...
Then, to the dismay of advocates and recipients alike, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blocked the Democratic Partys effort to make the expansion permanent, fearing, among other familiar concerns like the cost, that recipients would just buy drugs (the data shows that recipients spent the money on food, clothes, utilities, rent, and education). Come 2022, phase-ins returned to the CTC, approximately 3.7 million children were immediately thrust back into poverty in January, and the rest of the year saw the sharpest rise in the history of recorded child poverty rates.
...
Unconditional anti-poverty policies would mark a significant shift from the safety net of the past few decades. But the year-long experiment with eliminating phase-ins was the largest signal yet that they work, at least in the short term. And in the long term, tenuous concerns over what might happen generations down the line do not justify leaving millions of children in avoidable poverty today.
Lots more at Vox.
Reminder to get out the vote!!!

benfranklin1776
(6,813 posts)And I agree we need to run on restoring this credit as a major pledge for President Bidens second term and strive to get a sizable enough majority in the Senate so Rethuglicans and quislings like Mansion and Cinema cant stop it.
Autumn
(47,719 posts)lindysalsagal
(22,672 posts)No deal.
Autumn
(47,719 posts)Response to usonian (Original post)
Autumn This message was self-deleted by its author.
TygrBright
(21,110 posts)...that this was the original intent of all the Sargent Shriver programs. No means testing, no conditions, no work requirements.
So what stopped it?
One thing: Those pesky people with not-white skins. If you made all these programs unconditional and universally available, some of them might get help.
If they got help, they might actually succeed in increasing their economic base, on an individual level, on a family level, even shudder-shudder, whiteJesus forbid, on a community level.
And then they'd get even more uppity.
And we couldn't have that, nosiree.
It's the racism. It's ALWAYS been the racism.
As American as apple pie, cross burnings and detention camps.
wearily,
Bright
onecaliberal
(36,594 posts)yardwork
(66,326 posts)People's prejudices and biases interfere with their willingness to help others.
usonian
(17,228 posts)I hated the insidious lie "Welfare Mothers" from day one.
H2O Man
(76,670 posts)(Recommended)
LBJ's "war on poverty" speech -- as it came to be known -- came as his first State of the Union speech. It promised a nationally backed, community based effort. To this day, I think it had great promise. Years later, commenting on how it helped his life, two-time heavyweight champion said, "That was back when our country cared about poverty."
Alas, a few months after Big George became famous for holding the American flag in the ring after winning the Olympics in Mexico, Nixon was elected. The "war on poverty" became a centralized, bureaucratic mess, sure to fail. (Well, fail for those it was intended to help. Others made money off investments in poverty.)
WarGamer
(16,990 posts)Call it the "No cat food Act of 2024"
Social Security is less than survival level for many.
KS Toronado
(21,015 posts)until we raise the minimum wage across the board for all states.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Map_of_US_minimum_wage_by_state.svg
bucolic_frolic
(49,943 posts)Why Congress never got that straight, I have no idea. 94% of Senators haven't met a poor person in 35 years?
essaynnc
(901 posts)Hunger, education, healthcare, infant mortality, gun violence, safety, less crime, drug interdiction, money in politics, the list goes on. We have the technology, we have the money, we just don't have the want to.
I have seen so many polls where the vast majority of Americans want the same thing. Democrats , republicans, independents, it's amazing that we all want the same things. But we don't get them because ....
Why?
I'm afraid we're all being lit around by the nose! Lol what's important?? I'm afraid that our elected officials, even the ones we like to vote for, are not giving us what we want and need. How do we make them more responsive to us?
And that my friends is the question of the century!