Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents
by Mike Kimel
Punishing Irresponsible Parents and Punishing the Children of Irresponsible Parents
Not long ago, my wife came home a bit shocked. My wife has a small business: she buys houses, fixes them up, and puts renters in them. If I may brag about my wife a moment, I note she buys well, is good at fixing houses up, and charges slightly below market prices. The result is that she never has vacancies and that results in pretty good returns year in and year out.
Anyway, it seems she had been speaking to one of her tenants. At some point in the conversation, the tenant mentioned that her sister – a single mom on various forms of social welfare – had recently had another child with the specific purpose of getting increased assistance.
My wife’s politics, like my own, are best described as just slightly left of center. (If you’ve read much of what I’ve written, you probably realized that we tend to reach our conclusions after taking a look at what the data says.) The tenant, as I understand it, also appears to be slightly left of center. But it was evident to the tenant that her sister was making a bad decision on many levels. From a financial perspective alone, despite the increase in assistance (welfare, food stamps, housing, etc.), over the long haul, raising a child costs more than that. Which is why, when some blowhard like Rush Limbaugh, says there are people out there having children they cannot afford for financial reasons, it sounds crazy. But sometimes those blowhards are right.
Which raises a question. What do we do about it? There are plenty of single parents with no prospect of having enough income to keep themselves afloat, much less a family, having additional children while on social assistance. There are plenty of men out there with no marketable skills whatsoever who have fathered multiple children, and then father more while on social assistance. What is worse, the problem is to some degree self-perpetuating. A child raised in squalor by parents who make bad, short-sighted decisions is, in many instances, not developing the skills necessary to do better when he/she reaches adulthood, including decisions about whether and when to have and raise children.
So there is a dilemma… in general, it makes no sense to incentivize or reward people who have few or no marketable skills or prospects for having children. On the flip side, without such support, the children they do have will be raised in worse conditions than they already are.
If there is a real world solution to this problem? Is there a way to ensure that children who are in a bad situation through no fault of their own are well cared for and, at the same time, that nobody benefits financially, receiving rewards from the public purse for having more children than the number for which they could possibly provide good care? And yes, I recognize that there are success stories out there – a single parent raises several children, one of whom becomes a basketball legend or a well-known entertainer jumps to mind – but how many of those are there in the scheme of things?
A few closing comments:
1. I really don’t know how to write this post. I’m more used to looking at statistics involving taxation and economic growth, and this was different and, frankly, uncomfortable to write. I tried to be as straightforward and inoffensive as possible while writing it, and if I failed, please bear in mind what I was trying to accomplish.
2. If you want to leave a comment, please do. But please stick to real world suggestions. Real world means practical, having any likelihood of having political support and being legal. Simply declaring one’s children a bank and getting bail-outs from the Fed and the feds doesn’t qualify.
You know, the best programs are things like HeadStart. Kids get fed, some education, get a head start on life, get socialized, learn better decision making. Provide programs to feed children year round without giving extra food stamps to parents. Clothing allowances directed at the children only. A requirement that the mother (it has to be in this case) get an education, and start being able to pass exams showing she has learned something.
There really isn’t a whole lot you can do unless you are willing to invest in education and in feeding children directly, without providing assistance to the parent directly. Whether this is politically feasible, I don’t know. Most policy decisions are meant to punish poor people.
Perhaps an allowance that all parents get (as they do in Europe), which gets taxed away as income goes up….but no, that isn’t poliitcally feasible.
Even with the support most of these kids are doomed. They are doomed not because of a lack of support, but the parents are just not fit to raise the kids and teach them any skills. I see 3-5 year old children roaming my neighborhood at 2am, and a lot worse.
My neighbor works for Baltimore child services, and the stories she tells are horrifying.
Politically, it is a tough situation. IMO the only solution is to figure out a way to stop people from having more kids after the first, when it is clear they are not fit parents. However, whocan reliably make such a judgment? Some of the solutions such as requiring brith control while on assistence will certainly be very tough political moves.
Many times it is the dad’s fault as they make them, then disappear.
I think this guy is the poster child:
A 33-year-old Knoxville, Tenn. man with 30 children appeared in court this week to ask the state for child-support help, Memphis news station WREG reported Wednesday.
Desmond Hatchett has fathered 30 children — which is believed to be the record in Knox county, according to the Los Angeles Times — with 11 different women. His youngest children are toddlers and his oldest is 14.
Can a judge order a vasectomy?
Mike, you’ve stumbled upon the conundrum of the individual with a social conscience trying to come to grips with the fact that the world has a great many other people with no sense of social responsibility. And those other people are both rich and poor. And there are always so many more poor peopel than there are rich ones. And poverty mixed together with an irresponsible social view of the world is a devastating combination to both the individual and the community. Of course the children of such circumstances suffer most of all which results, worse yet, in the problem becomiing self perpetuating. What to do?
You are asking too much to resolve that conflict on these pages. A social conscience doesn’t necessarily give rise to a resolution of the dilemma of the fall out brought on by social irresponsibility. Possibly this seemingly intractable conflict between one’s social conscience and one’s recognition of the often irresponsible behavior of others is what first gave rise to a need for a concept of God in the mind of the socially responsible person. That is the nature of the insurmountable problem. Wish for god like intervention. It otherwise and also leads to our presnt day conflicts between those with a conscience and those who are either irresponsible for themselves or those who feel no responsibility for their fellow men and women.
And Mike’s recognition is, inn this case, limited to the irresponsible character of some of the poor. Consider the equally confounding issue of the irresponsible nature of wealth in the mind of the individual with a social conscience. It is a conflict which comes into conflict with the conundrum first stated, above, and by Mke. In a nut shell, I’ve got mine. I want or need more. Fuck you!!! What to do about either form of irresponsibility? God only knows, and I don’t even believe the concept of God is based in reality.
Let’s see: You say you only reach conclusions after “looking waht the data says.” You also have decided there is a widespread problem of people being encouraged by welfare to have children they can’t support, based on, let me see, something that the sister of a tenant of your wife supposedly said about why she was having a child.
We have different defintions of data, I guess.
Let’s see: You say you only reach conclusions after “looking waht the data says.” You also have decided there is a widespread problem of people being encouraged by welfare to have children they can’t support, based on, let me see, something that the sister of a tenant of your wife supposedly said about why she was having a child.
We have different defintions of data, I guess.
Let’s see: You say you only reach conclusions after “looking waht the data says.” You also have decided there is a widespread problem of people being encouraged by welfare to have children they can’t support, based on, let me see, something that the sister of a tenant of your wife supposedly said about why she was having a child.
We have different defintions of data, I guess.
JW Mason,
Read the post more carefully. I mentioned one anecdote that supports what we might call the “Rush Limbaugh” view of the world. But that was a lead in. What I said the problem is was this:
“ There are plenty of single parents with no prospect of having enough income to keep themselves afloat, much less a family, having additional children while on social assistance. There are plenty of men out there with no marketable skills whatsoever who have fathered multiple children, and then father more while on social assistance. What is worse, the problem is to some degree self-perpetuating. A child raised in squalor by parents who make bad, short-sighted decisions is, in many instances, not developing the skills necessary to do better when he/she reaches adulthood, including decisions about whether and when to have and raise children.”
That is very different from “ there is a widespread problem of people being encouraged by welfare to have children they can’t support.” In fact, to me the problem is people having children they can’t support, for whatever reason. I hope you don’t think that’s a problem I just made up out of whole cloth.
Carolannie – it’s tough to help the kid without rewarding the parent, and its tough to punish the parent without hurting the kid.
mcwop,
Perhaps the problem in this country is that we have a “Bill of Rights” but no “Bill of Responsibilities.”
Ah yes, the Problem That Dare Not Lay Out Its Premises. Elements of the problem are pretty simple, and are NOT primarily fiscal. They’re built into the hardware.
A) pregnancy is the default. If a woman does nothing to stop it, she’s virtually guaranteed to get pregnant (yes there are infertile women, but that’s not our problem.) So task 1 is : make pregnancy elective.
B) Like it or not, this is the woman’s problem. You can have 100,000 randy men and ten randy women, and you will still only get ten babies. Task 2: Make pregnancy women’s business only.
C) Careless, impulsive or intoxicated people will tend to have more children than the very careful and cautious ones. Ask Mr Darwin what that means. Task 3 : help impulsive people plan, help careful people prosper.
D) Once children exist, emotion takes over and then they must be nurtured and protected. Task 4 : prevent the problem from arising in the first place, but when it does, pull out all the stops in valuing the children.
E) It seems cold and calculating, but population size and demographics cannot any longer be left to chance. Task 5 : Plan, understand, predict and prepare for the generations to come, with a view to the capacity of our land to support us and the people to support each other.
Wrap our heads around the idea that cold and calculating is the only way to approach the future compassionately.
Our population used to be controlled by disease and accidents, with the help of a few cave bears. But now it’s down to us. Can we learn from Wanda Gag’s children’s book, “Millions of Cats?”?
One baby is a treasure for whom I would throw myself in a river, but 1,000,000,000 babies, however sweet and perfect, will devour the world, and can’t help it.
Jack,
“ limited to the irresponsible character of some of the poor. “
This problem is important, and worthy of attention. It doesn’t have as a proximate cause tax evasion or bail outs received by banks gambling irresponsibly which are my normal beats these days.
Just because the parent has chosen a mooching economic life doesn’t necessarily mean they will be a bad, as in inattentive parent.
Much of this kind of low end, give-up-trying behavior has its wellspring in America’s, what I call, post apocalyptic labor market — where the median wage may not be any higher, at least not more than 20% higher than it was in 1968 and the minimum wage is actually $3.25/hr lower (!) — double the average income later.
The political scientist author of “Cracks in the Pavement” spent nine years on the ground in five New York and Los Angeles suburbs and is firm and clear that the reason ghetto schools do not educate is that students and teachers there perceive there is nothing waiting for them in the labor market and therefore it is not worth it putting out the extra effort.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracks-Pavement-Social-Resilience-Neighborhoods/dp/0520256751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339438267&sr=8-1
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I have the same answer for almost every problem so allow me to just repost my last “open thread” post — with a new free market wrinkle:
If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.
A wage of $15/hr would double the take home pay of fast food labor while raising prices one-third. Fast food has the largest by far labor usage (one-third of all costs).
Other businesses tend towards one-tenth of costs. Think Target (“Can somebody help me?”)
If fast food can pay $15/hr, most any business should be able to (sounds like).
$15/hr is now the median wage in the US labor market. Give half the country (the half at or below the median) a raise to $15/hr and McDonald’s should do wonderfully.
Roughly, 90-97 percentile earners have kept the same share of income the same earners had in 1968 — double the average income since. This suggests that the reason for so-called “inequality” (would the average non-academic recognize that phrase — how about something like the “post-apocalyptic American labor market”?) is not a higher-tech economy making unskilled labor worth less. Ball players, CEOs and news anchors are not the reason for economic growth. Robots and programs are — humans, I suspect, retain the same economic worth relative to each other.
Just because the parent has chosen a mooching economic life doesn’t necessarily mean they will be a bad, as in inattentive parent.
Much of this kind of low end, give-up-trying behavior has its wellspring in America’s, what I call, post apocalyptic labor market — where the median wage may not be any higher, at least not more than 20% higher than it was in 1968 and the minimum wage is actually $3.25/hr lower (!) — double the average income later.
The political scientist author of “Cracks in the Pavement” spent nine years on the ground in five New York and Los Angeles suburbs and is firm and clear that the reason ghetto schools do not educate is that students and teachers there perceive there is nothing waiting for them in the labor market and therefore it is not worth it putting out the extra effort.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracks-Pavement-Social-Resilience-Neighborhoods/dp/0520256751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339438267&sr=8-1
******
I have the same answer for almost every problem — SECTOR WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS!!! — so allow me to just repost my last “open thread” post on labor — with a new free market wrinkle:
If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.
A wage of $15/hr would double the take home pay of fast food labor while raising prices one-third. Fast food has the largest by far labor usage (one-third of all costs).
Other businesses tend towards one-tenth of costs. Think Target (“Can somebody help me?”)
If fast food can pay $15/hr, most any business should be able to (sounds like).
$15/hr is now the median wage in the US labor market. Give half the country (the half at or below the median) a raise to $15/hr and McDonald’s should do wonderfully.
Roughly, 90-97 percentile earners have kept the same share of income the same earners had in 1968 — double the average income since. This suggests that the reason for so-called “inequality” (would the average non-academic recognize that phrase — how about something like the “post-apocalyptic American labor market”?) is not a higher-tech economy making unskilled labor worth less. Ball players, CEOs and news anchors are not the reason for economic growth. Robots and programs are — humans, I suspect, retain the same economic worth relative to each other.
And make no judgements regarding the resolution of thorny (intractable) social issues based upon a description of one eggregious example. Lousy behavior can be found all across the continuum of human activities and class standing. The concept of class only allows for a superficial differenciation of financial status. It tells us nothing about socially responsible inclinations or the stature of one’s social conscience.
Rest your fevered brow. There will be no answer to this issue. It is why so many people either go to temples to pray to God while others flail about invoking the wrath of God on others. Note that in either case there is thought to be no Earth bound resolution to the many questions tied and tangled up in the conflict between a social conscience and social irresponsibility. What we can do is recognize that such irresponsibility is not limited to the impoverished either in fact or in consequence. In fact I’d venture to suggest that it is the irresponsible behavior of those who are not at all impoverished that has the more dire consequences on their fellow citizens. The impoversihed are only begging for a hand out. The wealthy are more often looking for yet more and greater riches. Where do you think such additional wealth is going to come from?
I agree that irresponsible parenting is a big issue. Poor people can be irresponsible, but rich people are probably more universally irrepsonsible, because as a class they see that it is OK to have children that they canpay someone else to raise, regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, if the constraints are to use probable pulic policy as opposed to ideal public policy, then we have to forget that poor people being irresponsible are no more unworthy than rich people. The warping of rich people’s children is often psychological (see the mental deformities present in the Bush and Romney offspring, such as lack of empathy, lask of self-awareness, lack of ability to differentiate between merit and wealth) but poor children often suffer the additional burden of lack of food, shelter and clothing. So, first clothe, feed and shelter them, then address that strange mind set whcih says that everyone has a “right” to own a child of its very own.
I would note that a conservative would have to be very, very careful writing this piece.
I was once young and idealistic about how many things could be fixed. We certainly have a better society today in many ways than in 1960. Life has however, stomped most of the idealism out of me (not all).
Perhaps because I move often between the white collar and blue collar worlds I have seen a lilttle more of various lives and lifestyles than some of you. My parents’ both came from somewhat messed up depression-era families, although at least they stayed families.
My years as a landlord and small time rental manager certainly opened my eyes. Working with drug abuse and mentalhealth providers is an eye opener. Having played some role in mentoring and rescueing some kids with tough lives gave me slight reason for a little optimism.
I despair for the children, in places like Detroit and Flint they are killing each other at a stunning rate. Many children are doomed from the day they are born, and that sickens me.
But I don’t know how to fix all of it, some of it yes, all of it no. We have to continue trying.
They wouldn’t be killing each other if the minimum wage were $15/hr (50% higher than 1968 — 100% higher average income later). They’d be saying “Will you have fries with that?” instead of “Five-o!”.
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
The “Bill of Responsibilities” exists even if only on a de facto basis, but such a bill of particulars requires exemplars. Those who are both impoverished and irresponsible need to look to those who hold significant wealth and see that responsiblity is pervasive in their day to day lives. Those irresponsible poor will see thenselves as the anomaly. As things are now the impoverished can only see that as their difference from the rest. As I think I made abundantly clear Mike, irresponsible social behavior knows no class distinction other than that it may be far more prevalent amongst the weathiest among us. Especially in regards to social interactions, we learn by the examples of others. The poor ask for crumbs. Others demand nuggets.
Mr. Kimel: As I’ve written before my wife is a labor and delivery nurse in a (for-profit) hospital that last year delivered 6500 babies, 95% paid for by Medicaid and with a significant portion of the parents (unusual to have a married mother and father)on social assistance. Occasionally a patient will tell my wife a similar story as has been told your wife. I personally don’t think you can fix it without harming legitimate relief recipients. But one thing does puzzle me: Why after decades of effort and trillions of dollars do we have a poverty rate that is essentially unchanged from the poverty rate of forty years ago? It is my understanding that pre-1965 poverty was much higher than today’s rate but since 65 the rate has stayed in the 10%-14% range. Why hasn’t poverty declined even further?
Sorry Mke, but the premise of the post is absurd first off and foremost. Yes, there are poor people who are irresponsible. Why distinguish them from the wealthy who can be equally, and more so, irresponsible. Mr. Madoff absconded with more money than a million of the poor. GE Corps’ tax “evation”, made legal by its lackies in the Congress, has allowed it to withhold more wealth than another million impoverished people. There are a great many other examples of same. The poor will never bankrupt the Treasury. Only the wealthiest have the ability to take enough wealth out of the economy to do it dire harm by putting little or nothing back. You may recall this graph from Noni Mausa recently posted on AB:
The percentage of the wealthy who pay no tax, the moral equivalent of welfare, is growing. And note that the group in Noni’s post is people with incomes over $200,000. Would the percentage of wealthy no tax payers be even greater in a group with incomes over $1,000,000? Lumping the truly wealthy with the upper middle class is always a convenient way to hide the exorbitant extravagance of the truly rich. Those with great wealth take from the economy in a two fold manner. First they take out enormous incomes. Then they withhold paying their share of the financial cost of maitaining the government that makes their great wealth possible.
As I keep saying over and over in these pages: it’s the post apocalyptic American labor market that’s at fault for almost everything. If you could have predicted to Americans in 1968 that by early 2007 the minimum wage would have sunk from $10.50/hr (in 2012 dollars) to $5.75/hr — when the ordinary understanding is that productivity (and income) should double over 40 years — they would have speculated a comet strike, a nuclear exchange, etc. If told that average income did double over time they would have concluded that labor in the USA is mad, madly exploited.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
Meantime the median wage has not grown — or at most 20%. Top 90-97 percentile incomes kept the same share — so its not a matter of higher skills getting all the money in a higher tech economy (robots and programming).
Simple solution to me: tell people of 2012 (like you) what happened. Then suggest the one and only way to reconstruct a labor market to give labor and ownership equal power: legally mandated, SECTOR WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS — wherein everyone working the same kind of job in the same geo locale works under a single collectively bargained contract.
Instituted by (presumably right wing) European industrialists after WWII to keep left wing European labor from going on a crazy race (with each other) to the top — sector wide agreement thwarts the race to the bottom, too. Wal-Mart pulled 88 big boxes out of Germany — unable to compete paying the same wages and benefits.
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
As I keep saying over and over in these pages: it’s the post apocalyptic American labor market that’s at fault for almost everything. If you could have predicted to Americans in 1968 that by early 2007 the minimum wage would have sunk from $10.50/hr (in 2012 dollars) to $5.75/hr — when the ordinary understanding is that productivity (and income) should double over 40 years — they would have speculated a comet strike, a nuclear exchange, etc. If told that average income did double over time they would have concluded that labor in the USA is mad, madly exploited.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
Meantime the median wage has not grown — or at most 20%. Top 90-97 percentile incomes kept the same share — so its not a matter of higher skills getting all the money in a higher tech economy (robots and programming).
Simple solution to me: tell people of 2012 (like you) what happened. Then suggest the one and only way to reconstruct a labor market to give labor and ownership equal power: legally mandated, SECTOR WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS — wherein everyone working the same kind of job in the same geo locale works under a single collectively bargained contract.
Instituted by (presumably right wing) European industrialists after WWII to keep left wing European labor from going on a crazy race (with each other) to the top — sector wide agreement thwarts the race to the bottom, too. Wal-Mart pulled 88 big boxes out of Germany — unable to compete paying the same wages and benefits.
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
Having been in Baltimore for nearly 20 years my oberservation is that there is a vicious cycle many poor are caught in – so the spirit of Mike’s post is very accurate. I won’t say welfare is the primary or only cause, but bad policy can be a contributor (think high rise public housing which was a disater in Baltimore, Pruit igo etc…poverty cycle breeding grounds). I also think there are many things policy will never be able to correct for.
“At some point in the conversation, the tenant mentioned that her sister – a single mom on various forms of social welfare – had recently had another child with the specific purpose of getting increased assistance.”
Sigh! We need better education in math.
“At some point in the conversation, the tenant mentioned that her sister – a single mom on various forms of social welfare – had recently had another child with the specific purpose of getting increased assistance.”
Sigh! We need better education in math.
“At some point in the conversation, the tenant mentioned that her sister – a single mom on various forms of social welfare – had recently had another child with the specific purpose of getting increased assistance.”
Sigh! We need better education in math.
This is part of an old, wide-spread problem. The number of children in a family is associated with poverty in the modern world. You have hearsay evidence that some people have children in order to get money from the gov’t (and maybe from charities). It makes sense that some people may do that. However, it does not make sense that most poor people do so. For one thing, they do so (and did so) even when they do not get money from the gov’t. Better to eschew moral argument for the broader problem.
Large families are part of the culture of poverty. Actually, large families are probably the basic human pattern, and it is small families that are part of the culture of prosperity. 🙂 If you think of children as investments, rich parents can raise a small number of children to become successful; poor parents are unable to do so, and increase their chances of having a successful offspring by having more of them. (Super-rich parents can raise a lot of successful children.)
I am sure that there is an extensive literature about all of this. It has been a long time since I have looked at any of it. AFAIK, the surest answer is still to eliminate or alleviate poverty. And that is not a very sure answer, is it?
This is part of an old, wide-spread problem. The number of children in a family is associated with poverty in the modern world. You have hearsay evidence that some people have children in order to get money from the gov’t (and maybe from charities). It makes sense that some people may do that. However, it does not make sense that most poor people do so. For one thing, they do so (and did so) even when they do not get money from the gov’t. Better to eschew moral argument for the broader problem.
Large families are part of the culture of poverty. Actually, large families are probably the basic human pattern, and it is small families that are part of the culture of prosperity. 🙂 If you think of children as investments, rich parents can raise a small number of children to become successful; poor parents are unable to do so, and increase their chances of having a successful offspring by having more of them. (Super-rich parents can raise a lot of successful children.)
I am sure that there is an extensive literature about all of this. It has been a long time since I have looked at any of it. AFAIK, the surest answer is still to eliminate or alleviate poverty. And that is not a very sure answer, is it?
This is part of an old, wide-spread problem. The number of children in a family is associated with poverty in the modern world. You have hearsay evidence that some people have children in order to get money from the gov’t (and maybe from charities). It makes sense that some people may do that. However, it does not make sense that most poor people do so. For one thing, they do so (and did so) even when they do not get money from the gov’t. Better to eschew moral argument for the broader problem.
Large families are part of the culture of poverty. Actually, large families are probably the basic human pattern, and it is small families that are part of the culture of prosperity. 🙂 If you think of children as investments, rich parents can raise a small number of children to become successful; poor parents are unable to do so, and increase their chances of having a successful offspring by having more of them. (Super-rich parents can raise a lot of successful children.)
I am sure that there is an extensive literature about all of this. It has been a long time since I have looked at any of it. AFAIK, the surest answer is still to eliminate or alleviate poverty. And that is not a very sure answer, is it?
Can a judge order a vasectomy? No. And Oklahoma couldn’t do it years ago to prevent multiple generations of “morons”.
ddrew2u: “If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.”
Yes. To get more rational results to n-person games, reduce the number of players by forming coalitions. 🙂
ddrew2u: “If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.”
Yes. To get more rational results to n-person games, reduce the number of players by forming coalitions. 🙂
ddrew2u: “If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.”
Yes. To get more rational results to n-person games, reduce the number of players by forming coalitions. 🙂
You have to look at the emotional aspects of having kids. For people with nothing else interesting and exciting and worth sacrificing for, having kids is easy. Look at how much a middle class woman gives up to have kids, vs. a low income woman. The low income woman doesn’t drop much farther. Look at what she gives up socially, intellectually, career-wise. McDonalds or the Hotel maid job will still be there 5 years from now, which is not true for the woman on a career track in finance or someone getting ready to go to grad school.
If you started to look at it differently, you could find an answer. Begin with the idea that most woman want to have kids. Assume most will have kids before age 25 UNLESS they have a really good reason not to. And then give them that reason not to. There are few welfare moms that were properly cared for between the ages of 12 and 18. Take care of the teen girls and you’ll have fewer births in the under 25 crowd. You’ve got to have a clear goal worth sacrificing for before you’re 18 to make it to 25 without a baby, and most poor young women don’t. Find out what these welfare moms were doing between high school and age 25, when well cared for women are done with school or job training or whatever, and ready to begin their adult life. Almost always young mothers have been emotionally abandoned in the early teens. They often try to get a good job or go to school, but with no support, once something goes wrong, they fail, and don’t have the money or help to get started again. So having babies doesn’t look so bad, they aren’t missing out on the assistant professorship because they had a kid.
Welfare moms what happens when you don’t take care of young teen girls. You don’t see that when you look at 13 year olds, but that’s when the wheels begin to come off.
Mike, that’s true, but Carolannie is right- rather than increasing the amount of cash assistance for a child, restricting assistance to non-monitary things like free school lunches, the school food backpack programs, free daycare, perhaps sponsoring field trips to thrift stores and buying the kids clothes, etc., would decrease the incentive for a woman to have a child just to get more money. Of course, all of that is hard to wrangle in a punish-the-poor environment, but it’s a place to start.
Yes. Or another way to look at it is: we love and treasure our children, so can we tell the poorest among us that they may never have kids?
And by “the poorest,” I don’t mean the very poorest, but roughly 1/3 of the population, at least according to this old Angry Bear post http://www.angrybearblog.com/2008/03/noni-mausa-who-should-have-children-or.html.
Of course if the poorest people had no children, then one generation down the line the children of the better-off people will get to be the poorest. And if only rich people were allowed to have children, then their kids would have to fight it out for the bottom of the heap — there would be stiff competition for all the office-cleaner jobs.
Sump’in wrong with that logic.
Okay. No policy remedies here. Just context. Also, this only applies to black families.
http://www.amazon.com/Aint-Woman-Black-Women-Feminism/dp/089608129X/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339526563&sr=1-8&keywords=bell+hooks
That link is to a bell hooks book, talking about how white plantation owners treated their female slaves. You can read enough excerpts from the book at that link to get an idea of where the writer is going. I’m not posting this to say that what happened back then is a proximate reason to excuse irresponsible behavior today. I’m posting this as a response to the idea that people with more power set the highest moral examples.
Also, if people in developing countries who have no pensions traditionally have many children so there will be someone to care for them when they are old, well … isn’t that true here in good ole America too? Aren’t we busy dismantling pensions for public employees and eventually Social Security too? Honestly, as a responsible middle class person myself, who had no children because she could not afford them, what am I supposed to do now that I’m old and won’t have a pension that will support me? I might have been much better off if I had been irresponsible too.
Under Eisenhower, the poverty rate was ~22%. Significant regardless of how it was calculated.
To answer the other question, it is deemed necessary to have a segment of people who are always living in poverty and broken into races so one group can still feel racially superior due to skin color and not join in revolt. They are disposable as they are invisible to much of society. Think about it though, 30-40 million people acting in unison could certainly cause some political and economic commotion. From a paper I wrote and will revive soon, This distraction of a class level lower than the poorest of the white has kept them from concentrating on the disproportionate, and growing, distribution of income and wealth in the US. For the lower class, an allowed luxury, a place in the hierarchy and a sure form of self esteem insurance.
john:
Under Eisenhower, the poverty rate was ~22%. Significant regardless of how it was calculated.
To answer the other question, it is deemed necessary to have a segment of people who are always living in poverty and broken into races so one group can still feel racially superior due to skin color and not join in revolt. They are disposable as they are invisible to much of society. Think about it though, 30-40 million people acting in unison could certainly cause some political and economic commotion. From a paper I wrote and will revive soon, This distraction of a class level lower than the poorest of the white has kept them from concentrating on the disproportionate, and growing, distribution of income and wealth in the US. For the lower class, an allowed luxury, a place in the hierarchy and a sure form of self esteem insurance.
I worry about the rich far more than the poor. It’s the rich who broke the world economic system and have done their best to destroy democratic government in the US. What do we do about poverty and the behavior that it can produce? Put money into creating jobs. Rebuild the American infrastructure. Insulate every house in the US. Paint the roofs of buildings white. Put money into education, Head Start, after school programs, summer programs. Make sure kids (and adults) have adequate food and health care. (A local school system in the Twin Cities opened a clinic at the school for the kids and their families. I think they were also feeding the kids and their families.)
Years ago I noticed that when the rich have a problem, they throw money at it. If it works for them, it will work for the rest of us. Where do we get the money? If the MMT people are right, the government can make it out of thin air. Otherwise, tax the rich. Tax the rich anyway, since they use their money in socially dangerous ways, such as creating asset bubbles and buying elections.
Finally, the woman described in the original post sounds mentally ill, dumb as a brick or both. She could probably benefit from adequate health care, including mental health care, and a case worker. Our society does a very bad job of caring for vulnerable adults and everyone in need of help.
@JW
I’m sure you’ve heard it already: “‘data’ is the plural of ‘anecdote'”. 😉
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