Why It's so Hard to Escape America's "Anti-Poverty" Programs | Justin Murray mises.org/wire/why-its-s…
Based on its poor track record, one wonders if government even wants to solve the poverty problem. Seattle, for instance, spends roughly $100,000 per homeless resident of the city on homeless relief programs.
The major beneficiaries of this public largess are charity organizations that claim to assist the poor but use that money to pay themselves salaries in excess of $200,000 for a single executive.
Major agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, employ tens of thousands of people.
What would happen should poverty and homelessness be eradicated? No more $200,000 salary. No more job for tens of thousands of people. No more $8 million temporary tents.
What would happen should poverty and homelessness be eradicated? No more $200,000 salary. No more job for tens of thousands of people. No more $8 million temporary tents.
Poverty and homeless assistance has turned into a big business. We now have a Homeless Industrial Complex, and poverty assistance has become big business. The public sector appears to be fully invested in ensuring that poverty and homelessness persist.
Without the homeless, why do we need a Low-Income Housing Institute? Without the poor, how could the Department of Agriculture justify $100 billion a year in the farm bill?
There is little evidence that the state cares to solve the issue, only caring to make homelessness and poverty a viable lifestyle choice.
The state has, by accident or by design, created a permanent underclass. Radical elimination of regulatory impositions and the elimination of the minimum wage are merely the first steps toward solving the problem of poverty.
The underlying issue is that the transition into a nation that can truly eradicate poverty will be painful. People trapped in public dependency won’t develop skills overnight, and odds are that they may never develop the skills needed for well-paid employment.
Breaking habits is difficult and the sad reality is that catching up is a myth. People behind now will always be behind; if there were a magical means to accelerate skill development, everyone would be using it and the same person would still be behind.
But we can lay the groundwork for future generations not to have to battle through these public sector barriers, and we can return to the poverty improvement rate seen before the Great Society disrupted the process.
