Living on the Edge - A Review

There is plenty that is not right in America right now. Political divisions are leading to violence and hatred among people with opposing views. The middle class is shrinking as more people move into upper tiers of income, leaving some members of society behind. Debates about race rage on, with insults hurled on every side, and little hope of resolution. There is a lack of respect for the struggling class and sometimes sheer hatred for those that have done better financially.

Sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale attempts to find the solution to these problems and present them in her book, Living on the Edge: When Hard Times Become a Way of Life.

There are several underlying premises in the book that shape her results. First, she believes that the economy is a fixed size, so that when some people have more it necessarily comes at the expense of those who have less. (xii) This, of course, sets the course for the necessary solution. The chief problem she finds is not access to economic on-ramps but distribution of resources. Second, that the existence of poverty “has not happened by accident,” but “It is the result of decades of collusion between business and government to maximize corporate profits at the expense of workers.” (x) As a result, as the author describes her project, “Ultimately, it is a book about power that has been leveraged by government and corporations at the expense of ordinary people.” (xi)

The book is a mix of quantitative analysis and personal interviews. It is to Pascale’s credit that she traveled to Appalachia and other economically disadvantaged areas to actually meet people and find out how they lived.  Along the way, Pascale uncovers a number of unfortunate structural problems in society. For example, as she notes, “in many communities it is impossible to hold a job if you don’t own a car.” (1) This, of course, puts those on the hairy edge of subsistence in constant jeopardy, because a deer crossing the road, a bad transmission, or a careless driver can jeopardize employment and financial stability. Pascale also attempts to discuss the issue of class prejudice, which is an often-neglected element in these discussions. But it is apparent to many on the bottom end of the economic latter that, whatever the rhetoric, the upper classes despise them. The book is to be commended for recognizing these challenges.

At the same time, Pascale’s attempt to make this a mix on anecdote and analysis ends up undermining her case and displaying her own prejudices against the people she is studying. A few examples:

To take a break from driving, I stop at a shop in a small town in Tennessee. The shop keeper greets me and proudly explains that her store belongs to God. ‘I just mind it for him,’ she says with a great smile. Before I could blink twice, we are in a conversation about faith and I am asking about her relationship to the Bible.

‘The Bible—start to finish—is the word of God.”

‘Old Testament and New?’

‘Yes, word for word.’

I’m a little unsettled by this, but not surprised.

Pascale—a Buddhist—then goes out of her way to ask highly speculative questions about the nature of a soul and then critiques the woman because “she seems less certain and her answers grow vague.” (64)

It’s not the account or making religion a part of the interview that is striking—that is certainly a part of good sociological research—but it is Pascale’s obvious bias. How does someone go into Appalachia with the intent to interview folks and not understand some of the basic beliefs of evangelical Christianity—for example, that the Bible is the word of God? And then to be willing to express that one is “unsettled” by this entirely ordinary belief? And then to follow this with an account of digging into a complex philosophical question about the soul to emphasize that the shop keeper was not was well educated in philosophy as the author seems odd. There is a patronizing tone to many of these anecdotes.

In another personal interjection into the analysis, Pascale records her observations while driving in the South, while driving near the site of several Civil War Battles, along the Blue-Gray Highway. She writes, “Although I don’t see mention of the battles, I count three Confederate flags on this stretch of road – fewer than I has expected. Even so, I find them unnerving. Carried today by white supremacists on their marches, the flag is an emblem of the Confederacy and feels like a warning.” (18)

In the context, this memory serves no purpose in advancing the author’s argument. It seems an honest reflection on her experience along her journey, but it also reflects why Pascale’s work does not result in truly helpful analysis along the methods she has chosen. One need not defend the flying of a Confederate flag to recognize that symbols may convey messages we may not understand and which may not be as nefarious as we would like to portray them. Pascale never explores that possibility or the social dynamics that might drive someone to rebel against the genteel classes by flying the Confederate battle flag considering race.

There are other examples that show Pascale is too disconnected from the people she seeks to help to be properly diagnostic, as when she gets into a tense, racial confrontation with a gas station attendant (who may have been its owner) because she does not understand how to pump her gasoline. (30-31) But toward the end of the confrontation, the man expressed distaste for Trump—his “white president” as she calls him—and frustration at the political class, so she expressed hope that she is “on his side of the fence now.” Unexplored in this account—and likely the really interesting question—is whether the man’s underlying frustration that led to a comment about the blackness of the “former Black president” was driven by poorly considered regulation by the Obama administration. Perhaps it was those regulations that cost the man a great deal of money by forcing him to get new pumps that were likely more complex and expensive than needed. The world will not know, because Pascale inserted herself into the story rather than doing the investigation.

Living on the Edge tackles a worthy topic. There are certainly a large number of people who are in economic strait jackets due to systemic injustices of various sorts. Pascale presents the conspiracy theory that “decades of collusion between business and government” have caused all of the problems of the poor. Her proposal is to expand government social programs, eliminate the Electoral College to increase the power of urban centers over Appalachia, and other proposals borrowed from the talking points from the populist Left. There is nothing innovative about her solutions.

The book ends where it began, which comes as little surprise to those that read the preface. There is little new ground covered—new stories, but very few new nuggets of thoughtful analysis—and mainly an attempt to embolden the already convinced.

Pascale concludes the book with the statement: “Regaining a democracy will mean ending the exploitation of the many by the few. With vision, effort, and some luck, it will be a win for the people of the country. It is past time that ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually means something.” (232)

To the reader who believes there is a significant problem with poverty and stagnation of classes, but who sees different solutions, this book offers very little helpful analysis. It’s hard to take someone seriously who claims to be speaking for a class of people who she so poorly understands and seems to respect so little.

Though Pascale tries to establish her poverty street cred with a brief story about her impoverished childhood (1-2), what comes through in this book is a naturalist trying to study a common species by stopping in their habitat to take a few notes, then rushing back to her office to slip the evidence back into the argument that had already been drawn up. This book reminds me of overhearing some well-dressed youngsters drinking Starbucks drinks discussing how “bougie” someone was for asking them not to break in line at the post office—there is a disconnect between reality and self-perception.

In the end, Pascale fails to explain how granting more centralized control to the entities that she claims are colluding against people helps the people being colluded against. She does not explain why removing political power from more rural states and concentrating it in densely populated areas—the areas that will be best served by concentrated government power—advances representative democracy and serves better the people she will effectively disempower. One may share Pascale’s concerns over “exploitation of the many by the few” and recognize that her solutions would simply make matters worse.

Living on the Edge: When Hard Times Become a Way of Life

By Pascale, Celine-Marie

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Something Needs to Change - A Review

David Platt wrote Radical in 2010. The subtitle of that book was Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. That compelling book was a call to resist the materialism and superfluous comforts of the idealized American existence and pursue a missional alternative that included frugal living, generous giving, and the willingness to go to all the nations with the gospel.

In the years since I’ve met many people who have read the book, who studied it in a small group or as a church, or who have heard its core message summarized. Most of them continue to live a typical American middle-class lifestyle, with a comfy house, fun vacations, and a great hope in retirement. Many of the accounts of studying the book include Christians meeting in the expansive homes of the American suburbs enjoying rich desserts. The irony is often lost on those who recount it.

For Platt, who spent four years at the helm of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, the irony still seems to be too much. He has recently published a volume, Something Needs to Change: A Call to Make Your Life Count in a World of Urgent Need, that reissues the call of Radical and seeks to make it more personal.

Something Needs to Change is a memoir or sorts that recounts a seven-day trip Platt took through the Himalayas just before he accepted the call to the International Mission Board. He outlines the devastating poverty he encountered, the horrific lostness, and the depths of human depravity that were evidenced in the communities Platt encountered.

This book is nuanced. It is not merely a 200-page guilt trip. It is an extended meditation about real needs by someone who does not have all of the answers. Platt seeks to uncover the desperate needs of the world, while still wrestling with our call to live in the place God has given us. By the end of the book, it should be clear to the reader that Platt is not proposing a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather calling for an unfettered reconsideration of our priorities and actions.

Platt is likely to face criticism from both political poles about this volume. He recognizes the deep humanitarian needs of those living in abject poverty and sees that as humans we cannot ignore them. At the same time, he cannot fail to note the even deeper need to meet to alleviate the spiritual poverty of those living apart from Christ. His proposal is to develop a both-and solution, but by all means to do something.

To often good theory dies on the pages of the book and never makes it to the hands of the reader. In Western culture we talk about the needs of the poor, but try to pay off the government to deal with their problems while hoping to keep their hands (and lives) free of the concerns of the dirty poor. In the same way, some groups claim earnest concern for the environment, but continue to drive excessively large vehicles excessively long distances while consuming excessively large quantities of beverages shipped and excessively long distance and presented in excessively wasteful packaging.

As Platt notes, something has to change. His book is a call for people to consider what that change will look like in their lives. For the business person, it may be to expand their company into a lesser served area of the world to provide jobs and resources to those who need it. For some, it may be to take marketable skills they have acquired and apply them to humanitarian solutions for areas reached neither by the gospel nor the material abundance of Western culture. There are no firm prescriptions because for each of us the task is different and our ability to contribute is uniquely shaped by God’s gifts to us.

Above all, however, we need to stop doing nothing and do something.

Platt’s book in another reminder that many of us live lives of self-satisfaction, oblivious to the great needs of the world. We will be accountable for how we have used our time and resources one day when we stand before a holy God. On that day some of our accounts of purchased comforts and wasted days will be a source of sorrow. Something Needs to Change is a reminder that day is coming. We should live like we expect it.

Something Needs to Change: A Call to Make Your Life Count in a World of Urgent Need

By David Platt

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Great Risk Shift - A Review

There has been a shift in recent decades in the United States on several fronts. The rise of the internet has both fragmented local communities and allowed cliques to form over great distances around a common (and sometimes really weird) interest. Politically, the two dominant parties in the United States have become more polarized than in the middle of the 20th century. And, according to Jacob Hacker, there has been an invidious shift in risk from broad risk pools to individuals.

Hacker’s book, The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, is meant to show that injustice perpetrated by Republicans and other economic and social conservatives that tend to lean that direction (particularly given the options) is keeping the little guy down. The nation has seen continued attacks on the policies of redistribution imposed by FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society movements. Defined benefit corporate pensions have been replaced by 401k plans, which force individuals to take responsibility for their own saving.

In The Great Risk Shift, Hacker presents a declinist narrative with a call to make America great again by expanding government programs, moving back toward pensions in corporate jobs, and generally trying to spread out risk to the entire nation. He begins by painting an apocalyptic picture of economic insecurity, focusing particularly on the financial crisis of the last decade. That shows, according to Hacker, how precarious life must be. In the second chapter he puts a line in the sand between those who feel that there should be a measure of accountability in risky decisions to those who believe risk should be shared equally. In the remaining four content chapters Hacker presents some data that illustrates his point about the risk to jobs, families, retirement, and due to the rising costs of health care based on a refusal to nationalize all risk. He concludes the book by a call to create new government programs, expand the ones we have nearly indefinitely, increases taxes dramatically, and hopefully get a robust economy that makes everyone reasonably wealthy simultaneously.

Hacker teaches at Yale, so he likely has done careful, well-reasoned scholarship to ascend to that level. This book is not that, but is a call to action intended to mobilize the already outraged. The argument, such as it is, in The Great Risk Shift is likely to galvanize the convinced, but has little power to convince those (like me, for example) who might agree with a number of his premises, but want an approach that takes reality into account. After the first couple of chapters, the book is a tedious tirade that is likely to ensure Hacker gets to speak on cable news, but does little to expand the range of human knowledge.

At the same time, Hacker has some worthwhile observations. There has been a significant shift in the last few decades toward a more individualized burden of risk. The shift away from the life-long, supposedly guaranteed, defined benefit corporate pension has changed the landscape of employment. To Hacker’s mind, that has been entirely to the negative. This example is perhaps the best way to show the major flaws in Hacker’s argument.

Based on Hacker’s argument, corporate pensions have been replaced by the 401k. That is entirely bad because fewer people have access to permanent security that gets funded on their behalf. All people had to do back in the good old days of pensions (when America was great?) is work at the same job for a few decades and, if they made it to 20, 30, 35 years, or whatever, they would walk away with a gold watch and a steady stream of replacement income for life.

Missing from Hacker’s account, however, is that when you get a jerk boss and you are five years from retirement, you are now forced to sit and take it or lose your permanent financial security. Also missing from the rosy story is that if both spouses work (something he laments and celebrates at the same time) and one gets the opportunity for a relocation, you now have a much bigger decision to make. Finally, Hacker ignores the accounts of the pension plans that have gone bankrupt or been significantly reduced because they were underfunded (in part due to changing assumptions for longevity, but also due to bad actuarial assumptions). In Hacker’s paradise, the risk seems reduced, but it merely makes the fall so much more stunning when the collapse cuts your supposedly guaranteed pension in half.

We can have a meaningful debate about the duties of a company (which may not exist by the time you retire) to permanently fund your future life, but the data to have that debate is missing from this book. Additionally, Hacker ignores the real benefits of individual retirement accounts, because of the mobility they provide. As someone who has changed careers several times, I appreciate having a retirement account that follows me rather than having wasted those years of accrued service.

For Hacker, people like me are waging a war against the rights of the poor to be protected because we see the benefits of portable retirement accounts, the ability to purchase insurance plans that cover the most likely risks for me and my family, and who see the benefit in allowing workers at all levels to keep more of their earnings. There are certainly those among fiscal conservatives who embody a more Randian individualism and think all risk should be individual. However, there are others (like myself) who think there is a place for pooling of risk, but that it need not be at the level envisioned by communism, democratic socialism, or lighter variations like those proposed in the so-called Great Society, New Deal, or the (not very green) Green New Deal.

What Hacker and others that urge greater government intrusion in life through more expansive redistribution programs is that a reduction in risk is typically coupled with a significant loss of potential. So, for example, a minimum of 15% of my lifetime earnings have already been assigned to the government’s preferred vision of a retirement plan through social security and FICA taxes (both my share and that deducted before my salary is offered by the company). If 15% of my productivity isn’t enough to satisfy Hacker, then how much of the reward of my labor should be dedicated to satisfying his need to avoid economic difficulty? Is 50% enough, or 75%? Or, should we shift to simply pooling our goods and then distributing the results according to government’s needs? Never mind that the progressive tax system already discourages me from being more productive because having the top end of my wages reduced by 50% through various state and federal taxes makes it not worth earning more. (Never mind the realization that for the first $388k a person earns, they make out like a bandit from Social security, but it becomes a rip off after that point.)

All of this is to say that a safety net a real need, especially in an industrial economy that draws people away from their families and has, as a discernable downside, the disruption of lifelong communities. However, some thought might go into being more efficient with the large portion of people’s wealth that is already taken for redistribution and reducing risk before we plan on taking a bigger chunk of the available resources to use according to the planners’ desires. Additionally, if books on important topics like The Great Risk Shift are to be taken seriously, then they ought to consider the existence of real arguments against their positions and the fact that there is no proposed solution that does not have obvious and likely downsides.

The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, Second Edition

By Jacob S. Hacker

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Radical Help - A Review

Marvin Olasky’s 1992 book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, reframed the way many Americans thought about welfare and compassion. Toward the end of the century that promised to bring utopia to the shores of North America through the New Deal and the Great Society, poverty continued to persist and, at times, threatened to upend society. Throughout the twentieth century, the United States invested billions of dollars in government programs, especially those at the federal level, designed to bring an end to poverty for good.

Looking around, many people recognized that the ever-growing network of programs and promises were not having the desired effect. Olasky’s book proved to be a catalyst for many to rethink their expectations for government poverty relief. The basic thesis of his book is that community solutions have been much more effective at poverty alleviation than impersonal government programs. His theory has largely been met with antipathy from progressives, affirmation from many conservatives, and skepticism by many between.

To some, the problem of poverty is too widespread and too significant for local solutions. Person-to-person charitable efforts are well-intentioned and often beneficial, but cannot hope to solve the needs of the poor. That is the argument made by many proponents of the growth of centralized welfare programs. However, it is less clear to many people that expanding existing programs or creating new offerings with the same bureaucratic model can achieve a better outcome.

In her recent book, Radical Help, Hilary Cottam challenges the expansion of centrally planned model of government poverty alleviation. Writing from progressive perspective, Cottam makes an argument that will sound familiar and welcome to conservative ears: The most effective means of poverty alleviation is the development of community.

Determined to do something practical about the problem of poverty, Cottam set to work redesigning portions of the welfare system in the United Kingdom. She challenged the status quo by asking a profound question of workers within a number of social programs: Who has been helped by your social program so that they are no longer enmeshed in the welfare system?

The inability of any program to show a single family that had been freed from the shackles of poverty through the work of the state led Cottam to conclude, “We had hoped for safety nets that would give us the weft and propulsion of a trampoline but instead we are woven into a tight trap.”

Radical Help documents five experiments that Cottam conducted in an attempt to uncover alternative solutions to poverty alleviation. Four of the five have been deemed successes. All five have in common that they rely on the individuals receiving help to drive the change, that the solutions are locally centered, and that they leverage technology as a means to coordinate human connection rather than as a replacement for it.

The first experiment allowed particular families to coordinate the host of poverty alleviation services they required to chart a course out of poverty. Instead of working with a wide range of social workers from a dozen different government programs, the Family Life experiment allowed a family to pick what help they would get, chart their own course, and get the help they needed to actually make it out of poverty. While this program was expensive in the short term, it reduced the long-term costs by getting multiple families in the experiment off the welfare rolls.

The second experiment helped teens find meaning and purpose by putting them into short-term internships in local businesses. These voluntary programs were coordinated using social technologies and gave teens a glimpse of a world outside the local recreation center. Although the program was scuttled due to the perceived risk of coordinating contact between minors and adults, it illustrates the power of a social network.

Experiment #3 replaced the queues of the unemployment office with a small support group filled with employed, underemployed, and unemployed individuals. Rather than seeking the first possible placement, the Good Work program looked for ways to motivate the unmotivated, focus the undirected, and assist the willing to make personal connections to make progress toward a vocation, not merely a job. Cottam notes that the idea of work as merely a means of earning bread is insufficient, which leads many of the unemployed to bounce from one dead end job to another.

The fourth experiment challenged the idea that the best solution to the stress on the National Health Service (NHS) is simply to dump in more money. Cottam rightly notes that the majority of medical spending is used treat chronic diseases like diabetes, which are often caused and exacerbated by lifestyle choices. The bureaucratic systems of the NHS was designed in industrial fashion to deal with punctiliar events like providing pregnancy services, solving medical emergencies, and performing needed surgeries. Cottam created the Wellogram project, which put healthcare professionals in direct and durable contact with people. By listening to people, asking follow up questions, and getting to know them, the healthcare professionals were able to help people improve their overall health, which in turn reduced their need for expensive medical interventions over a sustained period.

Cottam’s final experiment was designed to serve the aged. Her team created the Circle program, which she describes as “part social club, part concierge service, and part cooperative self-help group.” The basic function of the program was to break down the isolation in communities by putting people, particularly the elderly, in contact with others with similar interests. It also enabled willing volunteers to help their hidden neighbors by doing small things, like picking up groceries; there are many willing people who simply lacked the personal connections to perform these simple services for others. The Circle program used a basic technological platform to help people to help other people––technology was a means to the desired end, not the solution to the problem.

Each of the programs listed above used grants from the government, but relied on localized implementations to create contextual solutions to pervasive dehumanization caused by relational poverty. Cottam’s approach reminds us that we were designed for community, and those programs that encourage personal relationships tend to enhance flourishing in ways that a blank check never will. The goal was not to eliminate all government action for the poor, but to leverage government resources efficiently to accomplish the intended purpose.

As it becomes increasingly apparent that America’s welfare system is ineffective in winning the war on poverty, Cottam’s approach of innovating local solutions with a relational focus may provide a way forward for those who genuinely desire to help the poor, but recognize the devastating social impact of impersonal bureaucratic poverty alleviation strategies.

Radical Help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionize the welfare state

By Hilary Cottam

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Squeezed - A Review

Even before the Great Recession and the slow climb out of it, many people expressed angst over their economic situation. As long as I can remember, and likely for all of human history, most people have expressed a sense that they can’t get ahead and that true financial stability is just out of reach. One thing that has shifted in the last few generations, however, is that people have argued that having a family is financially out of reach because of their current economic situation.

A desire for economic stability is leading many young people to delay marriage until their late 20s or early 30s. Then, once couples do get married, they often decide to wait to have children “until they can afford it.” The frequent, repeated news articles that tell people it costs a quarter million dollars or more to raise a child tend to entrench such arguments.

In her recent book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America, Alissa Quart attempts to make these arguments in a book length format. She uses a journalistic-style, with supporting statistics interwoven with sympathetic anecdotes to make her case. The style itself is useful for convincing either (a) non-critical readers or (b) those already convinced. For those skeptical that centralized government solutions like UBI are the best solution for people’s feelings of dis-ease, the content of Quart’s book tends to make quite the opposite case that Quart intends.

There are certainly problems within our current economic system. Some of the cases that Quart outlines help to show what those problems are. For example, the injustice of our broken immigration system is evident in Chapter 5 of Squeezed and, in some ways, represents reality. However, what Quart actually shows is that consumerism is a miserable disease and that, in general, life would get a whole lot better for people if they turned off their televisions, got off the internet, and focused on living the life they can afford and loving the people around them.

A couple of the stories Quart highlights show the main problems with Americans that keep them from feeling they can afford a family are (a) a lack of permanent commitment in marriage and (b) covetousness.

The Damage of Impermanent Marriages

Quart begins the book with her own story. She and her husband were freelance writers living in a rent-controlled apartment in New York City when they had their first child. She describes the burden of paying $1,500 for the medical care she and her daughter incurred during delivery. Subsequently, they experienced “financial vertigo” because, “We first hired a nearly full-time sitter and most of my own take-home earnings as an editor went directly to her. Eventually, my earnings also flowed to my daughter’s cheerfully boho day care . . .” (pg. 3). The financial pressure they felt was primarily self-induced fear of “tumbling out of [their] class position.” (pg. 4) Contributing to this is the apparent sense that one must maintain one’s career even if it is financially unwise to do so.

Though it is not clearly defined, “middle class” in this book appears to be defined as living above your means without fear of financial repercussions. So, for Quart, it was essential for her to be able to fund a nanny so she could retain professional pride and independence from her husband, no matter what the financial burden or social cost to her offspring.

There are several cases throughout this volume that illustrate that fear of being left or getting divorced is what drives a lot of the financial pressure on her subjects. In other words, when a spouse fears that his or her marriage is impermanent and the spouse and their income may disappear at any moment, then there is terrific pressure to maintain a career at any and all costs. Quart does not identify this fear explicitly, but it is an obvious undercurrent throughout the book for those with eyes to see it. This is why the supposed 70% gender pay gap is so insidious in the eyes of many progressives.

If couples both valued and were committed to the permanence of marriage, much of the angst that Quart describes about finding suitable and cost-effective child care would diminish.

Covetousness

The other major problem illustrated by this book is not injustice, but covetousness. This is apparent in Quart’s story again, as she requires a personal baby sitter and then “boho daycare” for her child.

A more striking example of the problem of economic myopia and covetousness is documented in Chapter 2. Quart describes a case of “modest oppression” of a couple who made a combined household income of “around $160,000” as the department chair at a college (wife) and a part-time music composer, director of a music organization, and church organist (husband). Even given the high cost of living in New York City, it is hard to describe a couple making north of $150K as being oppressed in meaningful sense. Apparent in Quart’s description is that their unhappiness was largely due to the existence of people that appeared to be more comfortable and have fewer financial worries. Absent from Quart’s telling of their story is the idea that they might consider making different decisions (e.g., having the husband stay at home with the kids) that might alleviate the problem and result in better outcomes for everyone.

Similarly, in the same chapter Quart tells the story of an adjunct professor whose PhD was in avant garde poetry. She has a disabled son, conceived in a fling with a member of an indie rock group. There are multiple commendable aspects of the story: the adjunct was willing to work hard and she was committed first to not killing her child in utero and then to seeking proper care for him. The covetousness in this story is apparent because the adjunct believed herself to be entitled to the career of her choice––that is to be fully supported through adjuncting––because she had chosen to get an advanced degree in a particular field. There is some hope in this story because the chapter closes noting that Bolin had decided to pursue more regular employment.

Quart’s telling of these stories is intended to illicit the response that there is obvious injustice in the struggle of both of these families. However, it is clear to the casual reader that the greater portion of the financial distress in both these situations is a desire for something that is just out of reach: the idealized existence as a career advancing professional in the exact job one desires. The underlying assumption is that the world owes everyone their personally preferred lifestyle and existence. As long as people base their happiness on hanging on to social positions that are just above their income level or seeking the perfect working situation, their covetousness is destined to enhance their unhappiness.

Positives of the Book

The general premise of Squeezed is flawed, but there is value in the book.

First, there are multiple anecdotes that illustrate how significant the family and community are for financial stability. Though Quart does not draw the conclusion (instead calling for government intervention at nearly every level), it is apparent that stronger nuclear families and mediating institutions like the local church are essential to the flourishing of society. In many of the examples Quart provides, the reader can see how a strong connection to a local congregation that is functioning as the body of Christ could alleviate a great deal of stress.

Second, as noted above, the permanence of marriage tends to alleviate a lot of cost and stress. Both spouses need not pursue their careers full-bore if they trust each other to remain around. Additionally, the cost of living can be substantially reduced when both parents and children live together in the same house.

Third, in Chapter Ten, Quart highlights the work that television (or other versions of video entertainment) does in making people believe they are not well-off. Supposed “middle-class” families in SitComs are really incredibly rich. Everything on the set is in perfect condition, no one is really struggling for money, etc. The old puzzle about how the characters in Friends were able to live such apparently lavish lives in New York City is still a real phenomenon. Part of the work of the Church, then, should be to disabuse people of the fantasies of contemporary entertainment.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this is a popular-level book that will tend to convince the already convinced that a bigger government is needed to fix supposed injustices in the economy. What it really highlights is that much of our ongoing social misery is self-induced. If we readjust our expectations toward reality and focus on enjoying the relative wonders most of us experience on a daily basis, our satisfaction in life is bound to be enhanced.

Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America

By Alissa Quart

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Start a Tradition of Giving This Year

Now that the wreckage of Christmas morning is now settled into piles of colored paper, with loose scraps skulking in the corners and under the couch, and the food-induced coma from a hefty lunch is beginning to wane, the children—ever energetic—are beginning to come down off their dopamine high from the frenzy of gift opening this morning. The widget that seemed so enticing at 8AM is now, perhaps, stuck in a couch cushion and the thrill of the hunt—the search for the last present under the tree—has faded.

Before the boredom of the day sets in and the squabbling over taking turns with the gifts of another, consider taking the time to reinforce the power of giving on Christmas.

Of course, in all likelihood, this was planned before hand with kids picking out trinkets for loved ones in the store or helping to wrap the presents for Mom and Dad. But so many of our gifts are from people with much to people that have much. Though there are certainly exceptions, Christmas tends to be a day of excess, where some of that excess flows over in generosity for those with little real need.

To help combat this, several years ago we started a tradition in our family. It certainly isn’t earth shattering or worthy of high esteem, but it is a method to help all of us, and especially the kids, remember that our abundance is far from universal and, within the broader history of humanity, is an extreme rarity.

Our tradition is to assign a certain amount of money to each child for the purpose of giving through a charitable organization. For consistency and because I believe in their mission, we use the Compassion gift catalog.

For those of you who aren’t already on their mailing list, consider clicking here to go to their online gift catalog. Pass the tablet to your children or bring them alongside you as you look through the options.

Given that the average American household who gives any gifts on Christmas planned on spending $962 this year, another $50 or even $300  that will help those with legitimate needs is not an overly large gift. One practice that I’ve heard commended is giving the amount of the largest single gift for a person or group to some missions or aid organization.

More significant than the actual gift, however, is the act of giving. I think there is power even in clicking on one’s choice of gift for someone really in need, even while the aroma of ham, turkey, and mashed potatoes permeates the space of you abundance.

NOTE: Images on this page are courtesy of the International Mission Board: https://www.imb.org/photo-library/

Patrick's Corner - A Review

Poverty today is something like leprosy in the Middle Ages. Most of us are aware of it, but we’re uncertain how it is contracted, terrified to come in contact with it, and hope it stays quarantined geographically so that it doesn’t spread.

For many, the concept of deprivation at any level causes them to lobby against “income inequality,” without acknowledging that the removal of natural incentives for productivity that enforcing income equality would need might well destroy the goods of society they wish were shared more equally.

The Silence of the Poor

To many on the political and economic right, poverty is the divine punishment of losers and lazy people. To many on the left, it is the result of defenseless people being taken advantage of (consider that the most common epithet for those in poverty from the left is “the oppressed”). Both are, at various times. Both positions, when seen in the extreme, are also exceedingly condescending. Seeing poor as perpetrator and poor as victim both do a great deal to undermine the fundamental humanness of those in poverty.

One reason why the poor are often dehumanized is that their voices are seldom heard. Unlike those of us with extra resources and time to host blogs, often the poor are more concerned with hustling to survive. When we hear from them, it is often after they have arisen from poverty. In those cases, they have often been assimilated into the political patterns of the right or the left. It is often hard to hear the real human stories of the poor, unless you are in regular contact with people in poverty.

As a result, balanced memoirs like that of Sean Patrick are helpful. In his book, Patrick’s Corner, he documents the humanity of his large family in Cleveland. It’s the story of the survival and flourishing of six boys and their widowed mother in an ethnically Irish neighborhood. It’s a collection of tales that offer a vision into the real poverty of a real family. While it is certain we don’t get the full weight of the struggles of poverty in this memoir, the overall thread is realistic, hopeful, and compelling.

The Story

The story, which is well told in a journalistic style, is a fundamentally human one about a family’s pursuit of survival, goodness, and joy:

The Patricks, left by God as a family with one parent––a matriarch, at that––shortly after the birth of the youngest child, existed in material poverty. They inhabited for many years, a small, two-bedroom apartment in the tenement district of a major northeastern city on the shores of one of the Great Lakes. Their neighborhood, like most neighborhoods of such cities, was identified by nationalities. (11)

Neighborliness and a sense of place is an essential element in this story. Sean Patrick, as we see in the chapters of this volume, benefited from the geographic limitations of his world. He knew and was known by those in his neighborhood, which enhanced the richness and moral formation of his childhood. This sort of limitedness is, in our world, something foreign, and this is much to our detriment:

The compressed neighborhood of Sean’s childhood has given way, through the miracle of modern transportation and technology, to the expanded world of the shopping mall, the computer, and the television set. Sean’s world was bounded by the distance one could comfortably travel on foot or on the city streetcar. (11)

Because the Patrick’s were limited in their travels, the cast of characters in this volume is rich. There are intergenerational connections that can only form through casual sidewalk contact over time. Poor men who invested a dime into the Patricks each week by getting a shoeshine they couldn’t entirely afford. Old men who needed a bit of help from time to time from the Patricks, but in return who gave them love and spiritual concern. This sort of community would be a miracle in our day.

The Goodness of Work

One of the significant themes in these stories is the goodness of work. The Patrick boys were all pressed into work of necessity, because of their economic station. However, that work was not pure drudgery. It was an opportunity for marketplace engagement with the surrounding world. It provided a chance for entrepreneurial growth and imagination. In short, the work the Patricks did enhanced their humanity, it did not detract from it, as some so often depict.

All of us worked almost as soon as we were able. The positions we held were not exactly what one would consider real jobs by today’s standards. But, for us, it was work and we did it with a vengeance. … As each of us reached our two-digit birthdays, we became Associate Breadwinners. We had to if we wanted a little money to jingle in our pocket or to spend at the neighborhood movie theater on Saturday. (13)

From shoe shiner to newspaper boy to working in the poultry shop, the Patrick boys progressed through various jobs. These jobs were managed around their studies and their sports. It did not crush their childlike spirits or diminish the goodness of their waking hours.

Unfortunately, so many of these opportunities have been legislated out of existence. For fear of bringing back the oppressive child labor of the early Industrial Revolution, we have largely made it illegal or financially impossible to allow kids to do the sorts of work they are able to meaningfully do. There are many fewer opportunities to be delivery boy or shop assistance because well-meaning laws have prevented the good in attempt to weed out the evil. It has made the path to adulthood much more difficult for children to follow.

One thing is clear, though the author does not state it overtly, and that is the Patrick boy all benefited from the work they did. Not just financially, but also personally.

Conclusion

This is not an academic treatise, but a book that tells stories about poverty, family, faith, and hope through all of the above. The stories are beautifully written, but more importantly, they expose a beauty of experience even amid the struggles of poverty. This book is valuable (certainly much more than its sales numbers likely allowed) because it humanizes poverty, showing that the best forms of poverty alleviation involve personal contact rather than simply writing a check.

Patrick's Corner

By Sean Patrick

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The Poverty Industry

Perverse incentives woven into the fabric of systems have the tendency to undermine positive outcomes and exacerbate abuses of the most well-intentioned programs. In his 2016 book, The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America’s Most Vulnerable Citizens, Daniel L. Hatcher, a law professor, exposes the manifold perverse incentives of our various contemporary aid systems.

From the start, it should be clear that Hatcher is not an angry Republican bemoaning money wasted on the bottom end of the social scale. In fact, the book is published by New York University Press, which is not known for being a bastion of conservativism. Also, Hatcher especially highlights as many as Republicans who are abusing the intent of various Federal aid programs, while being much less intrusive and accusatory toward Democrats. Toward the end of the volume, he makes it clear that he is not calling for an end to the Federal programs or a reduction in their expenditures, but rather a deeper look at abuses that prevent the programs from achieving their ends.

There are several examples, but Hatcher spends a great deal of time walking through abuses that are endemic in the child protection systems. In an attempt to recoup funds, these government departments often confiscate property from their wards, seek ways to maximize streams of income from the Federal government, and fail to use the resultant funds for the benefit of the children. It becomes advantageous, given the current arrangement, for agents to terminate parental rights from poorer kids, refuse to place them, and lengthen adoption processes because the lower the income the child’s parents have, the larger the aid income stream the state can harvest.

Similarly, Hatcher highlights Medicaid programs in which states transfer large sums of money to hospitals to garner matching grants from the Federal government. The state “expenditures” are then funneled back into state coffers via bed taxes or ledger transfers. This means that the state actually does not spend the money that the Federal government was intended to match. It also means that the intended recipients of the redistribution—the poor—do not receive the intended benefit.

Clearly, Hatcher is highlighting abuses, which may be representative, but likely are not normative. Much of the social work done by agents of the state is heartbreaking and hard, so we should not read his book in a condemnatory manner. However, there are fundamental systemic flaws and, more significantly, failures of virtue in the people overseeing the systems.

The vast majority of the abuses Hatcher cites are, in fact, legal. If a hospital is owned by the government, then a ledger transfer is a legitimate means for it to transfer excess funds back to the parent government. However, when such transfers are examples of playing shell games with money, since money is fungible, then it undermines the sense of fair play and incentivizes everyone to misuse the system.

Some of the systemic failures Hatcher highlights can be remedied by law. For example, the practice of the state receiving child support on behalf of its wards and then attempting to collect debts from often poverty-stricken “dead beat dads” can lead to the permanent estrangement of fathers from their children and warrants for the arrest of men and women who simply cannot pay the demanded support. This is, in one sense, the criminalization of poverty, which may lead to parents in arrears on their support payments fleeing from officers and, perhaps, being shot repeatedly in the back. Welfare is an indication of a failure of our economic system, so at some point, the law should simply recognize that much of that money is sunk and stop trying to claw it back from the poor.

The greater problem, however, is an absence of virtue in society. (This is my conclusion, not Hatchers.) When legislators, governors, and administrators do legal, but unintended things to maximize their take from the Federal government it represents a failure of virtue. Economists and politicians can debate the relative merits of various social programs, but people should have the integrity not to attempt to game the system. Or, at least, if they do choose to milk the system for every advantage, they should pass those advantages on to the targeted recipient. Unfortunately, there is a too broad acceptance of the equivalence of legality with morality, which is intellectually sloppy and spiritually damaging.

Hatcher’s book is an important one for understanding some of the reasons the so-called war on poverty has been so ineffective. The problem of poverty is not going away, and it may be that systemic flaws and a lack of virtue are contributing as much as the oft-cited lack of funding.

The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America's Most Vulnerable Citizens (Families, Law, and Society)

$24.13

By Daniel L. Hatcher

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Hillbilly Elegy - A Review

I’ve now read the much discussed book by J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. It was promised to be a gritty read, revealing the reality of poverty in the Appalachian region that is often overlooked. The book largely lives up to its reputation.

Vance notes early on that it seems odd for someone his age—he’s in his early thirties—to write a memoir.  Unlike the biographies of young Christian athletes that seem to lurk on the shelves of Christian bookstores, Vance’s memoir is not presumptuous but worth the time it takes to read it.

So much time and effort is spent in explaining urban poverty. The breakdown of the urban family. The overloading of the urban school systems. Often the term “urban” is a code word for racial minorities.

While cyclic poverty is an issue in cities, Vance exposes the reality of rural poverty and shows that in many ways it may just as severe a problem as the urban variety. In fact, for some, rural poverty has a strong potential to be more severe. One reason for this is that many of the resources the urban poor rely upon are simply unavailable for the rural poor, or they are located too far away to be useful.

Vance succeeds in painting an accurate picture of some of the worst off among the so-called hillbillies. Having grown up in the foothills of the Appalachians, surrounded by people that fit the description of Vance’s hillbillies, I’ve heard some of the stories, seen some of the stress on kids, and smelled some of the misery he’s talking about. Thankfully I’ve never lived it, but it was close by. (I’m thinking about, for example, my friend whose dad was in jail for killing his mom with a hammer while high on some form of drugs.) Reading Vance describe what he went through gives me a bit more empathy for some of my acquaintances who were surviving bad situations.

If there is one key takeaway from reading this book, it should be empathy. It is likely that Vance’s story represents both the low end of hillbilly culture with the drug addicted mother, revolving door father-figures, and unawareness of the outside world. At the same time, it also represents an atypical result where someone was able to overcome the difficult start and had the talent to make it to and graduate from Yale’s law school. However, reading about the domestic abuse and social stigma Vance dealt with should work to kill some of the unforgiving dismissal of hicks, bumpkins, and swamp people that is common in suburban and urban culture. (I state that it is common based on anecdotal data, rather than empirical evidence)

Just as telling the stories of ethnic minorities suffering simply because of their ethnicity are part of the narrative of identity politics on the left, so might listening to stories of legitimate hardship among the many white, rural poor are a necessary part of understanding the perspective of a large swath of the nation.

Vance’s story helps explain why it took me years to be able to understand the racially stilted form of identity politics common among some of my more liberal and well to do friends at the Naval Academy. I knew that poverty, broken families, and systemic disadvantages were not solely owned by today’s preferred protected classes. Thankfully, I’ve had good people patiently explain why systemic injustice is still largely a racial issue instead of screaming at me. I’ve also known enough ethnic minorities to hear their stories to understand the biases against them and lived in the South long enough to recognize the historical proximity of Jim Crow to today.

At the same time, many more cosmopolitan Americans still fail to recognize that being among the rural poor can be nearly as socially damning as being an ethnic minority, but without the protection of the media, the judicial system, and the cultural left. Hillbilly Elegy helps explain why some people don’t believe in “White Privilege” and think that affirmative action is a form of vile racism. They feel feel like they are on the bottom of the social ladder and the zero-sum game policies of the political left keep them down. In some cases, that’s likely the case. As Vance explains, being white doesn’t grant as much social capital as those who equate whiteness with established families and well-positioned social networks seem to believe. It’s not that there is no benefit in some segments of society to being white, but that it isn’t quite the pass to an easy life that some seem to describe.

Hillbilly Elegy doesn’t answer every question about the white working class and its struggles. It doesn’t offer a master theory that will unite the nation politically after a turbulent election year. The book is not an academic treatise that considers all potential historical causes, nor does it reconcile all of the possible sociological implications of rural poverty. However, this memoir of a kid who lived rough but is doing pretty well so far helps to give a view into a world that many people never see from the interstates. It challenges racial narratives and, if read for empathy’s sake, could break down some of the bubble many appear to live in.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

$16.79

By J. D. Vance

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Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.