You're Not Poor If You Have Cable
Ezra Klein spends a moment debunking the Heritage Foundation's latest spate of nonsense:
Among right-wing think tanks, there's a surprisingly vibrant subset of poverty experts who attempt to disprove the idea that the poor are poor by listing off their appliances. The general of this churlish army is Heritage's Robert Rector, who once made news for claiming that tens of thousands of poor folks had pools and Jacuzzis. The implicit aim is to crush the concept of material deprivation, thus destabilizing the liberal attitude that poverty is, in large part, an issue relating to lack of money. Rector and his ilk would rather claim it as caused by single-mother households or an uncivilized, unemployable underclass.
Among right-wing think tanks, there's a surprisingly vibrant subset of poverty experts who attempt to disprove the idea that the poor are poor by listing off their appliances. The general of this churlish army is Heritage's Robert Rector, who once made news for claiming that tens of thousands of poor folks had pools and Jacuzzis. The implicit aim is to crush the concept of material deprivation, thus destabilizing the liberal attitude that poverty is, in large part, an issue relating to lack of money. Rector and his ilk would rather claim it as caused by single-mother households or an uncivilized, unemployable underclass.
Tags: Class Warfare
posted by Management at 12:27 AM
1 Comments:
APPLIANCE ECONOMICS. The folks over at The Heritage Foundation are very excited about yet another study explaining that the poor aren't, well, poor:
The computer has surpassed the dishwasher as a standard household appliance. The poorest Americans have posted a sharp rise in access to air conditioning. The richest Americans still own the most cars, but they are choosing to own slightly fewer of them than they used to.
And 60 percent have access to a computer! 76 percent have AC! 97 percent have color TV! Poor people in 2005 have access to more technology than rich people in 1612! In fact, they're not poor!
Among right-wing think tanks, there's a surprisingly vibrant subset of poverty experts who attempt to disprove the idea that the poor are poor by listing off their appliances. The general of this churlish army is Heritage's Robert Rector, who once made news for claiming that tens of thousands of poor folks had pools and Jacuzzis. The implicit aim is to crush the concept of material deprivation, thus destabilizing the liberal attitude that poverty is, in large part, an issue relating to lack of money. Rector and his ilk would rather claim it as caused by single-mother households or an uncivilized, unemployable underclass.
Of course, the economics of poverty don't work like that. Folks aren't rational economic actors, and even impoverished households max-out the credit card on a fridge, or TV, or dishwasher now and again. That's why the poor have so much credit debt. And poverty, too, is a transient phenomenon, with bust times bringing good jobs, cash windfalls, and large purchases before leaner periods force debt, deprivation, and even bankruptcy. Add in that major sources of income, notably the Earned Income Tax Credit, are given in one lump sum that's generally spent on big-ticket items, and the appliance counterargument to poverty begins looking fairly unpersuasive.
Nevertheless, I always like to imagine a Thai incarnation of Robert Rector, stamping his feet and insisting that since 79 percent of poor villagers have mortars and pestles, while only 40 percent of rich urbanites had them in 1922, no one in Thailand is poor. Poverty's complicated and America should be proud to know that there's little in the way of severe material deprivation, but, nevertheless, a refrigerator does not a middle class make.
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