The Poison of Poverty

Paul Krugman’s editorial does a lot of stating the glaringly obvious. And while it could serve as a primer for “Social Inequality 101,” it perhaps simplifies things a bit too dangerously.

I mean revelations like this “in modern America parental status trumps ability: students who did very well on a standardized test but came from low-status families were slightly less likely to get through college than students who tested poorly but had well-off parents.”

Uh, duh. You needed a study to realize this? Poor people can’t pay for college like rich people can regardless of how smart you are, the whole “free ride” thing doesn’t really happen, and dumb rich people end up going to Yale and becoming President, not exactly a news flash.

Most of the article is like that, totally true, but painfully obvious.

Here however, are my two problems with it:

1) “Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are proposing new initiatives against poverty. But their proposals are modest in scope and far from central to their campaigns. I’m not blaming them for that; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor.”

Why? Aren’t there poor democrats and republicans, and don’t they vote? And if poor people don’t vote, wouldn’t a candidate who doesn’t deny their existence stir them to vote? Am I being naive to assume that a “progressive” candidate who actually acts progressive and don’t play to the middle of the road would win more admiration than a panderer? And that this kind of settling, excusing, and letting off the hook-ness is what has got us in such a mess? Krugman says that health care not poverty should be the #1 priority, but aren’t the two hugely linked?

2)The ills and burdens of poverty, in childhood, in rich countries, in the world in general can’t be emphasized enough, but lines like “Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” Make me a little itchy, it seems like a statement that could be misused to say things like “Poor people aren’t as bright as rich people, because they are poor and because they aren’t so smart, that’s why they stay poor.” Which I realize is not at all what they are saying, but sound-byte able quotes like that often get co-opted by the enemy.