Always with Us. . . and wrong about the poor

National Review, Nov 6, 2000 by Richard Nadler

Conservatives are often accused of insensitivity to the plight of the poor. This stereotype of conservatism is invoked to divert attention from some basic truths about the poor. Voluntary self-destructive behaviors-such as sloth, criminality, substance abuse, and sexual promiscuity-contribute significantly to poverty in America. And unimpeded markets help people help themselves, by rewarding hard work, lawfulness, sobriety, and sexual restraint.

Conservatives have held these views for a very long time. King Solomon wrote, "Go to the ant; study its ways and learn. Without leaders, officers, or rulers, it lays up its stores during the summer and gathers in its food at the harvest."

The poor are always with us. But in America, they are not with us for long-because the Solomonic approach to fighting poverty has worked. Our system of freedom has facilitated a level of social mobility unparalleled in human history. During the 1980s, roughly 20 percent of earners in the lowest income quintile moved up each year. In 1992, the Urban Institute found that half of the lowest earners in the 1967-76 period had risen at least one quintile by the 1977-1986 period.

The Department of Commerce recently examined how social mobility affects the poor. Applying standard federal income criteria to Census Bureau statistics for 1993 and 1994, author Mary Naifeh determined that the annual poverty rate in those two years averaged slightly under 13 percent, but that the percentage of people in "chronic poverty" for the entire 24 months was only 5.3 percent.

Naifeh also found that a quarter of those classed as poverty-stricken in the first year ceased to be so in the next. "About 7.6 million individuals who were poor in 1993 became non-poor in 1994," she wrote, "an exit rate of 23.8 percent."

Yes, the poor are always with us; but in America, they aren't necessarily poor. In 1995, 70 percent of impoverished households owned a car (27 percent had two or more); 97 percent owned a color TV; two-thirds, an air-conditioner; and 64 percent, a microwave oven.

Forty-one percent were homeowners. Only 3 percent of poor households reported frequent hunger, while 7.5 percent complained of overcrowding.

"Poor persons," wrote Heritage Foundation analyst Robert Rector, "are more likely to be overweight than are middle-class persons. Nearly half of poor adult women are overweight."

The U.S. Census Bureau classes as poor many individuals who don't lack food, shelter, or clothing. The expenditures of the American poor are roughly twice their reported income. In part, this reflects the failure of the Census Bureau to survey the value of in-kind benefits provided by the various levels of government; in part, it reflects the proclivity of some poor people to lie about income.

But the widespread misclassification of nonpoor households is caused, at least in part, by the desire among welfare advocates to extend poverty programs to the other groups. Using income, rather than family assets, as a determinative criterion qualifies some college students, as well as many nonpoor seniors, for benefits. "Many [seniors] have low expenses, and may have substantial assets," reports policy analyst Bruce Bartlett.

But many of the poor are neither victims of temporary misfortune nor beneficiaries of legal misclassification. The poor are always with us, as is sin; and many of America's chronic poor receive poverty as an advance on the wages of sin.

One great way to be poor in America is to commit a crime. True, most sociopaths do not choose poverty. Incarceration is a remarkable drag on wages, and it also cramps whatever lifestyle caused it. But as King Solomon said, "The way of the wicked is all darkness; they do not know what will make them stumble."

Today, there are nearly 2 million Americans in jail. If you are an adult career criminal, chances are you've been caught; the prison population has sextupled since 1978, and in 1999, violent crime fell to its lowest rate in more than two decades. Conviction for a crime of violence earns you an average sentence of 91 months from a U.S. District Court; a weapons offense, 99 months; larceny, 22 months; fraud, 21; embezzlement, 16; and forgery, 13.

In federal courts, drug offenders are sentenced to an average of 78 months. Drug offenses account for a majority of federal incarcerations. (More than 90 percent of these jailings are for trafficking and manufacture-not mere possession, as our libertarian friends would have it.)

Substance abuse provides another major path to poverty. "In the end, it bites like a snake," said King Solomon. "It spits like a basilisk; your eyes will see strange sights; your heart will speak distorted things." Drug lust has effects all the way up and down the generational ladder. The 1.4 million incarcerated adults with a history of drug use have 2.4 million children who suffer from their, well, decline in earning power. Thirty-two percent of state prisoners had parents who used drugs regularly. Roughly half of all state prisoners, both violent criminals and property felons, were stoned during the commission of their crimes. In the Department of Justice's 1999 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, over 60 percent of arrestees tested toxic.