Poverty and Inequality not Related — Really?

Vicky Lawson and Sarah Elwood, University of Washington

David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, has recently made the rounds saying that there are no demonstrable links between the causes of poverty and of inequality.  Given our research as social scientists, we find this impossible to understand; but it does make us reflect on how this framing of the disconnect circulates as legitimate and unquestioned.

How is it possible that the argument that poverty and inequality are not related is legitimated on sites such as the New York Times, National Public Radio and the like?  Because it makes those more privileged in the US comfortable to view things this way.

Our research traces the causes of inequality

Poverty is produced by powerful others who lobby from the outside or work on the inside to create a tax code that increasingly benefits those with wealth at the top of our unequal income spectrum.

Poverty is produced by an economic and social system based on extraction and accumulation of value.  Historically, one role of government has been to create opportunity for sure.  But another has been to stem the direst inequalities inherent to our system.  Why have we have let the latter be so thoroughly eroded?

Poverty is produced by elites, think tanks and politicians who circulate ideas and lobby for policies that benefit themselves not the poor.  Think of the debate over the minimum wage which shames the poor for being greedy and for taking jobs away from other (very poor) people.  Think of arguments for de-funding SNAP that suggest this program allows people to “sit on their couch while the federal government feeds them”, think of union-busting behaviors that villainize working people for demanding a living wage, paid sick days and a secure retirement.  Think of corporate welfare, the ultimate hypocrisy that goes unremarked.  Even as we shudder to think that poor people might receive a few hundred dollars in paltry assistance, we unblinkingly allot billions of tax dollars to private corporations that yield millions for executives and stockholders (think Walmart, Boeing, big oil and so on).

Poverty is framed by powerful others who set the terms of debate: that the poor are flawed, lacking and in need of reform.  They say that all poor people need are opportunities rather than a living minimum wage; that poor people need discipline rather than adequate affordable housing; that poor people need our scorn or disgust rather than material supports from our rich country.  It is tough to take advantage of opportunities when you are working as many hours as possible (working poor) to make ends meet – when exactly will the long term and expensive schooling that may actually access a well-paid job happen?

Why don’t we see the double standards, myths and power plays that allow us to continue to claim that poverty and inequality are unrelated?  Because our corporatized media, our education system, our cultural consensus all refuse to look at privilege instead of poverty.  All refuse to interrogate the systematic, structural connections between poverty and inequality.

Of course opportunities matter and individual effort is important.  But, arguing that poor people have responsibility to improve their lives does not mean that we can ignore how inequalities (of money, political voice, etc.) limit what they alone can do.

Let’s shine a light on inequality and privilege.  Let’s diagnose privilege and have a new and different conversation.