Commentary:
By Jimmy Franco Sr.
It has now been 50 years since the War on Poverty began under President Johnson. Many positive programs were created by the government during that period such as Head Start, food stamps and Medicare and they played an essential role in reducing the level of poverty. However, there have also been many political groups and harmful economic policies enacted that have worked to undermine these efforts.
From the 1970s to the present a negative economic trend has been developing that is creating an unequal distribution of wealth within our society that continues to deepen. This corrosive trend has resulted in a growth of income inequality and reduced social services for the middle and working classes which has had the direct effect of drastically increasing the number of families now living below the poverty line. There are currently about 46 million people existing in poverty throughout the country and this includes 16 million children of which about 12 million are Latino and African-American. Close to 48 million people are still lack health insurance, while the median household income continues to drop due to long-term unemployment and the disappearance of jobs.
The poverty threshold for a family of four is now 24 thousand dollars per year and many millennials are increasingly being pushed down below this level due to a lack of good-paying jobs or being consistently underemployed. Despite the doubling of worker productivity during the last forty years and record corporate profits and stock market earnings in 2013 the real income of most wage earners has stagnated in relation to the rise in prices and general cost of living.
There are various factors that have caused this deteriorating economic situation which is negatively affecting the daily lives and finances of most working people and particularly minority families.
First, the vast and wasteful expense of tax dollars and resources that was expended on the Vietnam War which unleashed a surge of inflation and a rise in prices that have made everyday necessities more expensive. This wasteful expense has been compounded by the costly debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Secondly, the well-financed corporate campaign to reduce the effectiveness of organized labor and reduce the number of higher-paying union jobs which provide health and pension benefits has driven wages downward. In addition, the successful effort to keep the minimum wage at a low level over the years and the enactment of right-to-work laws in over 20 states has effectively lowered union membership and salaries. The economic objective of this corporate strategy is to rollback the overall earning power of the majority of employees in order to increase profits and the result of these actions has been the overall lowering of people’s standard of living.
Thirdly, the restructuring by the US Congress of the tax system over the years into a regressive one that favors the wealthy has caused serious economic and social disparities. People who are at the top of the economic ladder have been provided with tax cuts, loopholes and government subsidies while the tax ratio paid by the majority of middle-class and working-class wage earners has proportionately increased,
Fourthly, the intense drive by corporate America to raise quarterly profits by squeezing even more production out of less employees while cutting health and pension benefits is accelerating. This economic strategy that increasingly applies intense pressure on workers to continually boost productivity and company earnings has kept salaries at low levels or even cut them resulting in a decrease in purchasing power and a growth in family debt. Making this economic situation even worse is the increasing practice by companies of hiring part-time and temporary workers without job stability and benefits while simultaneously exporting hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas where cheap wages and non-existent labor protection laws are readily available.
This increase in the level of poverty also impacts the local schools as inferior educational programs generally tend to reflect the economic and social conditions of their neighborhoods. Contributing to this dire educational situation is the reality that inner-city schools have educators who generally try their best despite the hardships created by funding and program cuts. However, many of these schools also have low expectations for minority children and tend to be staffed by inexperienced administrators and teachers or even by some who have been rotated and transferred there as must-place “lemons”.
This growing economic divide between social classes in society is also increasing the level of physical and mental health problems experienced by low-income parents and their children. These often express themselves through domestic and neighborhood violence and a proliferation in gang membership. These underlying economic problems and deprivation also disrupt the ability of parents to support their children’s academic studies as well as a student’s cognitive ability to concentrate on their schoolwork in a qualitative way.
The strategic drive by corporate employers to drastically boost worker productivity, quarterly profits and implement “cost cutting” which in the real world means chopping wages, benefits and pensions continues to increase. Such an economic offensive against wage earners combined with a resource-draining military budget that has doubled within the last ten years is in direct contradiction to the supposed efforts to truly reform and improve our educational system and the academic needs of children.
Many young people from poor families who lack skills and career options are increasingly left with the sole option of joining the military as a last resort where they face the possibility of becoming victims in unnecessary wars while the children of the well-to-do stay safely at home to pursue their education and careers. This financially-fueled social divide is creating two separate and unequal societies where the more privileged half enjoy more extensive political and social rights with their children being provided with a decent education and an optimistic future. In contrast, the growing working-class sector and their families in our society are generally ignored by politicians, lack sufficient basic needs such as housing and healthcare and have their children attend academically deficient schools from which they face a dismal future due to being given a substandard education that merely provides minimal skills to them.
This accelerating economic transformation is resurrecting old social barriers where economics, social class and race once played a vital role in obstructing progress. Our present financial situation is creating a new form of segregation that adversely affects housing and education within our society.
This prevailing top-down class warfare needs to be resisted organizationally, otherwise, the economic and political rights of the working majority and especially the well-being of their children within our society will be overwhelmed. Poverty is fundamentally inherent to the capitalist system, but we must work collectively to minimize its harmful effects on families and their children. This requires a broad-based organizational effort to increase the minimum wage, expand wages, benefits and the right to unionize in addition to reforming the regressive tax structure. Most important is the urgent need and demand to invest heavily in education and children who are our most valuable resource for the future.
The War of Poverty provided economic betterment, social fairness and expanded opportunity for many people. What is now needed is a war on rising economic and social inequality.
Jimmy Franco Sr. is the moderator and writer of the blog site: “A Latino Point of View in Today’s World” latinopov.com