To the Editor:
Reading Mr. Kristof’s latest op-ed, I found myself
disappointed and frustrated. As a 17 year-old high
school student I opposed the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA or “welfare reform”) when
it was debated in Congress, and was sickened when President Clinton declared
“ending welfare as we know it.” How, then, could someone as smart and
compassionate as Mr. Kristof have supported this law?
Mr. Kristof provides the answer: without a requirement to
work, the poor would simply take advantage of the free check. To make his point
he quotes Stephanie Johnson, a 35-year-old woman,
“raising four children through odd jobs,” who says: “If it was readily
available, I’d abuse it; I’d say they’re giving me free money.”
Mr. Kristof’s cruel rhetoric
betrays a perverse logic: the victims of poverty and oppression are to blame
for their condition: “If only they would pull up their pants…” “If only they
had a ‘middle-class’ work ethic…” “If only she hadn’t worn that skirt…”
This faulty logic is refuted
by basic arithmetic. Employers in the US simply do not provide enough good-paying
jobs for every able-bodied adult. While economists call our current 4.9% unemployment
rate “full employment,” that too is a lie, for it has only been achieved with the
lowest labor force participation rate since 1977 and the highest incarceration
rates in the world. (The jailed to not count as unemployed.)
And of the jobs
created since the Great Recession, according to the National Employment LawProject, 44% pay between $9.38 and $13.33 an hour: jobs that typically come
with no benefits, little stability or inherent meaning, nor a connection to a
career path that might lead to meaningful employment. Only 30% of the jobs
created since the end of the recession can be considered “higher wage.”
The truth is, if more of the
poor and the discouraged started to look for jobs, unemployment would rise and
wages would fall.
Rather than focus on the
poor, policymakers should set their sights on employers. The goal should not be
to incentivize working, but to
incentivize the creation of more high-paying, meaningful work.
Something like a universal,
guaranteed minimum income would do the trick. Provide each adult in the United
States (rich or poor) with a level of income sufficient to meet their basic
needs, and no one would be coerced into accepting low-wage, demeaning and dead-end
work. Instead, employers would be forced to compete for peoples’ labor by
paying high wages, creating better career-paths and making work more
intrinsically motivating.
In the meantime, people like
Stephanie Johnson should not feel ashamed. Given the choice between struggling
to get by on odd jobs or free money, I would take the free money.
Sincerely,
Matt Hancock
Princeton, NJ
2 comments:
Yes. But...
Can one grasp the number of people put out of work because of an annual guaranteed minimum wage?
I can't. Bu I do know there'd be lots of low level clerks, social work-types and all kinds of administrators walking the streets, jobless, because the bureaucracy supporting the 'old system' was replaced by the guaranteed income for all.
Not that we shouldn't adopt this guarantee, we just had better prepare for social and economic consequences triggered by this appropriate social/economic policy change.
And maybe, just maybe the meek might yet inherit the earth because they'll have some money... Finally.
Interesting point, though it's unclear to me how much job loss would be associated with this, since -- at least in theory -- an employer could lower how much they're paying their employees by an amount equal to what the employee is receiving as a guaranteed wage.
But if job-loss did accompany this policy change, maybe many of us wouldn't mind that so much, especially if we're losing a job that is demeaning, or simply uninteresting. Maybe the extra time -- time for hobbies, for running for school board, for spending with family -- would make up for the loss?
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