"What Makes People Poor?" [View all]

[applegrove]

What Makes People Poor?

Opinion, Thomas B. Edsall at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/opinion/what-makes-people-poor.html?smid=re-share

"SNIP......................

In a series of emails to me, Baker argues that the Federal Reserve’s determination to limit inflation has boosted unemployment, that policies that keep the value of the dollar high hurt employees who face foreign competition, and that trade agreements pit American labor against workers in low-wage developing countries.

Despite the conflicting nature of these left and right analyses, there is a strong case to be made that they are, in fact, complementary and that they reinforce each other. What if we put it together this way? Automation, foreign competition and outsourcing lead to a decline in well-paying manufacturing jobs, which, in turn, leads to higher levels of unemployment and diminished upward mobility, which then leads to fewer marriages, a rise in the proportion of nonmarital births, increased withdrawal from the labor force, impermanent cohabitation and a consequent increase in dependence on government support.

The major roadblock to synthesizing competing explanations has been — and continues to be — political polarization. Vested interests on the left and right have delayed, and in some cases prevented, recognition of the overlap between liberal and conservative hypotheses, and have pointedly ignored evidence that contradicts their preconceived partisan positions.

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The emergence of a rough ideological consensus on the causes of poverty and inequality would increase the likelihood of, but by no means guarantee, agreement on such initiatives as raising the minimum wage, increasing and expanding the scope of the earned-income tax credit, programs promoting marriage and paternal involvement, as well as stronger efforts to improve the quality of education, especially in poor neighborhoods.


........................SNIP"