BTW, that was $3.50 an hour - I doubt you'de be able to work that out Pinkerton, as you seem to believe against all evidence that I was born with a platinum spoon in my mouth.

On evidence I think you may have been born with a silver foot in your mouth (thanks to Governor Anne Richrds for that apposite crack)....

Pinkerton, your feelings are easily bruised. I reget that.

Please do a little math next time before assuming I made $15K 25 years ago! $3.50 * 2000 hours a year = $7000 a year, and that was a theoretical maximum. More usually it was $5000 before tax. After Uncle Sam took his cut it was $4500-$6000.

I was going to college paying my tuition on the installment plan. Tuition was a good deal for me at $1000 a year on average - but they didn't take IOU's. So I was actually living on between $3500 and $5000 a year for 5 years working (mostly) full time and taking 12 hours a semester.

Two parent family? Nope. Never. A rough timeline: First 3 or 4 years I was on welfare. The welfare office decided it was best for mother the finish her teaching degree (2 years left) so that's why we stayed as long as that. Mom graduated and we moved into the lower middle class until I was about 12. Then downward mobility whacked up and we became working poor until I was three years out of college, about age 26 or so. Since then it's (mostly) been better than that - but never rich. Mom got married right after I left home at 17 and landed on my back while I was in college.

And - get this. It's not a tale of woe or whining; I'm PROUD of it!

Not everyone is as fortunate as I was. There are different kinds of poverty; one is minded of Tolstoy's epigram that happy families are all alike and unhappy ones are all different.

Even so - the kind of long-term poverty you moan about usually isin't a coincidence. Bad things can come out of the blue like a tornado. My father was institutionalised when my mother was 5 months pregnant with me - leading to a trip to the welfare office a couple months later.

It's what you do when the tornado passes which matters.

The state has no business subsidising laziness among the able-bodied and able-minded - and that is what the welfare system was doing before Clinton. The state does have a business in helping people help themselves after a tornado hits. It's as simple as that; and all your moral catechisms otherwise are bootless....

I'd like to open this discussion to more of what Joerg actually seems to be getting at. Thus far we've been able to establish that there is a real difference of opinion between Americans about the desireability of a 'sufficient' welfare state (as Pinkerton might call it). I'd call it something else - but I doubt I need to further explain that fact.

Joerg posts two other interesting links which we have been neglecting; to the pieces by Bruce Stokes and Tony Judt. The Stokes article seems fairly straitforward - German reform is important and it's not easy. What I don't understand is why certain forms of deregulation seem to be so hard to do - things like making it easier to rent an office and set up business, which Stokes says takes 6 months in Berlin versus a week in London. Seems to me that making these kinds of reforms are a no-brainer; Germany would get some economic growth almost for 'free' by this kind of thing. One statistic Stokes cites really concerns me - how few people in Germany under thw age of 25 are working. Only 42%. It may be double that in the US. Workforce participation at an early age is pretty important in my view because it builds skills and habits which make one employable in future years - or not. Not only 'hard' skills such as literacy, numeracy, business, financial, computer, and trading skills - but something as simple as learing to show up on time - to be reliable.

The Judt piece is more thought-provoking in a way. While I can accept his premise that the postwar welfare state was not 'revolutionary' I don't see the link between the welfare state and the stability of the international order? Surely things have changed a great deal since 1945? Thomas Jefferson once said that each generation neds it's own revolution; what is it about the postwar vision of Monnet, Bevan, and Schumann which is universal to every time and circumstance? These men were all adults before WWI began; haven't we learned anything new since then? Hasn't the world changed profoundly? Look at China, Japan, the US even. The world is not what it was circa 1914 - or even circa 1950.

"A question I have: When Katrina stuck the Gulf Coast, the faces of poverty hit the TV screens big time. Many Americans were shocked. Many US papers and politicans said that poverty is now a much bigger issue for politics. That America has to confront poverty more. That it is not primarily a personal problem, but a public problem etc."

I'm not sure Katrina taught us anything which wasn't apparent before - except perhaps the depths of depravity which some can descend to.

You may have noticed that all the TV cameras were in New Orleans - not in harder-hit Misissippi. Because the Story du Jour was that Bush had failed! The National Guard had failed! FEMA had failed! And look what happened! Ten Thousand dead! was the headlines of the BBC and CNN. Later on the actual death figure of less than 1500 was duely reported by these fine responsible news organization. On page 26 below the fold, metaphorically speaking.

Another thing which got lost in translation is that FEMA and the National Guard actually performed considerably better than in other disasters - such as Hurricane Andrew.

The real story wasn't poverty. The story was that a bad hurricane hit arguably the most crime-ridden city in the US, with a complete failure of local services. Not poverty - crime. And Bush, FEMA, or the National Guard have nothing to do with controlling crime in New Orleans. Not the poorest place - East St Louis, IL or Camden NJ probably qualifies there.

The other big story was the failure of the levees. Bad civil engineering and corruption endemic in Lousiana. Again not Bush's fault - though you could possibly blame his father - along with every other President dating back to Lyndon Johnson - at least. Also not Ray Nagin's fault - or the fault of the black political establishment of New Orleans. Some of them may have been complicit - but not Nagin as far as I understand. He was at worst incompetent. The established white pols and their predecessors - that is another story completely. Politics is a family matter in Lousiana and you don't have to look very far. Don't exclude the senior senator and governor of the state - their families were into the swag up to the elbows. And the Army Corps of Engineers, who screwed the pooch big time.

But this mostly didn't get reported, and when the press cannot get the story right what hope is there for real reform so it won't happen again?

What did Katrina tell us about poverty in America? Not that much really. Poverty does not equal depravity. Parge parts of Mississippi are poorer than New Orleans yet public order was not lost and (for the most part) the poor of Mississippi didn't go wild.

"Later on, some papers and bloggers wrote that the media exaggerated the poverty etc."

I think the media did exaggurate the poverty, but poverty there is. But it wasn't poverty which caused the breakdown in public order in New Orleans - it was the complete break down of the New Orleans Police Department combined with a culture of depravity and corruption from top to bottom, with a few honorable exceptions such as Nagin.

"Now, what happened? Has Katrina changed anything in US politics regarding poverty? Any polls on American views on poverty? Who else besides John Edwards is making poverty a campaign issue?"

Probably not in any fundamental way. A few more people may feel more strongly about it but that's about all. The fact is that poverty is much less prevalent than it was. We have solved what we could easily solve - and some whoich wasn't so easy to solve. What is left is caused by some extremely touchy facts which nobody wants to admit.

The most notable fact is that very large percentages of the adult black male population in cities like New Orleans, Washington DC, East St. Louis, Camden, Newark, etc are not fit to be husbands and fathers. Lack of jobs, criminal records, virtually every problem one could imagine. Until we figure out how to change that we're not going to be able to 'solve' poverty in any general sense. Merely increasing welfare benefits to the women won't help - been there, tried that.

Arguably the displacement of poor black males as breadwinner by the government was the CAUSE of the disintegration of the men in these places - so we want to try it again?!!! No thanks.

My word! Mr. Pinkerton has taken his leave of us unworthy folk, and some (like the blog authors) whom he would not call unworthy (I would agree with the latter). No doubt he has his reasons, but the manner of his leave-taking was - unfortunate.....

I find myself harboring mixed feelings about this departure. Pinkerton could be a worthy adversary but had certain flaws (as we all do). His feelings were extremely sensitive and he professed hurt feelings on numerous occasions. Nevertheless I saw him stick the boot in more than occasionally himself. He was unfairly dealt with on occasion (I am not guiltless in this respect). But what Pinkerton failed to see was that he frequently wrote things (or added his hearty agreement with) statements which were equally hurtful. An example was a reply to one of my posts to the effect that Republicans don't possess enough intellect to belong in the Ivy League.

So while I will miss much of his debate - I won't miss that part of Pinkerton at all. Nor will I miss his apparent belief that people who do not believe as he does cannot have 'empathy' for the poor.

I do have empathy for the 'poor' but believe that social programs can be much like morphine and similar drugs; a life-saver in the short term in some situations but addictive in the long.

In other cases long-term welfare is not necessary at all - effective help in getting a job is what is needed. Giving out welfare benefits in this case is analogous to prescribing morphine (and getting the patient hooked) when ibuprofen will do the trick.

There are some cases in which more is needed, but those probably involve disability of some kind. In any case US welfare law allows for 20% exceptions to the general 'two years and out' policy, and states may of course do what they will with their own funding - and do.

Hi Pinkerton. Nice to have you back! ;)

Welfare has nothing to do with tax cuts. The US is not spending a penny less on the welfare state than it did in 1996. The money is going to do different things. 'Taxing the rich' is nonsense anyway - how much of that Kerry tax proposal would have hit billionaires like Mrs Kerry? Very little because it taxed income, not capital or capital gains.

No, it would have attacked the petty 'rich' instead. Perhaps they can afford it - but so can the billionaires.

The point isn't nobility, the point is that you value what you have to work for. Whether that is material, educational, or spiritual.

The state should help people who hit the ground - but the idea should very much be to help them get on their feet. Temporary benefits should be the policy, and they should not be very generous except in things which help people get into work - like day care for an example.

Too much state aid has the opposite effect to what is intended - it becomes a drug.

"I simply do not believe we can spend the same amount of money relatively as Germany and get the same results."

What results, VinceTN? I don't doubt that Germany spends money and gets some kind of results - but how much knowledge does almost any American have about the German social welfare system? Very little I would guess. How we can intelligently compare the two systems is beyond me.

One more comment: I've been involved in online communities since the mid-80's and it's my observation that performances such as the one we saw yesterday are not caused by anyone apart from the actor. One chooses one's own actions. You did not choose for him or her....

Interesting question, Christian. I doubt if Pinkerton knows the answer any better than you or I do.

The homeless part is actually pretty obvious. It is because voter registration is based upon having an address - which by definition the homeless don't have. There have been efforts in some places to register the 'homeless' when they are in permanent shelters - but that's not quite homeless.

But why the welfare 'poor' don't vote is less obvious. If one sees politics as a purely materialistic pursuit they ought to be marching down to the polls every election to vote for candidates who will give them a 'pay raise' - but they don't.

One reason is that the Democrats don't encourage it even though they would be the nominal beneficiary of such a movement. The reason for that (I think) is that hard experience has taught the Democrats that they will lose more than one working class vote for every welfare voter they gain.

There is some evidence that voter participation has risen in poor neighborhoods in the 2000 and 2004 election. I think it may have soemthing to do with Clinton's much-decried (in certain quarters) welfare reform, which had the effect of converting many welfare poor into working poor (or even members of the middle class).

Marx describes the phenomena when he made a distinction between a politically aware working class and what he called the 'lumpen proletariat'.

Conclusions, Joerg?

One thing I observe is that average per-capita income in Germany is a tad higher than 70% of the US average. That means that if the average person under the US poverty line has 40% of the US per-capita income they are very likely better off than a person at the German poverty line - at least in absolute income terms. Perhaps much better off because prices of many of the basics of life are lower in the US due to lack of the enormous VAT tax.

40% of 37600 = 15400
50% of 26400 = 13200

Joerg, the article you linked did not really mention Sweden....

"Besides, poverty is nearly twice as high in the US."

Possibly - but not necessarily true. One could easily construct a scenario in which a country like the US would have less real poverty but more measured poverty than a country like Sweden or Germany. Assume that per-capita income in the US is 40% higher than in those countries.

If there arec a lot of people falling between 45% and 50% of average per-capita. Further assume that a lot of people in Germany/Sweden fall between the 50 and 55% of per-capita income in those countries. In this case the 'poor' in the US would clearly be better off than the 'non-poor' in Germany and Sweden - at least in monetary terms.

The London Economist has a lead editorial this week about welfare reform in the US, and concludes that 'Tough Love Works': http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7224022

There is a longer story protected by subsription which I'll try to summarise here:

The Good: The welfare caseload in the US fell by 60% between 1996 and 2006 from 5 million to 2 million. Welfare mothers found work, and the largest increase in employment wads among women who had never been married, whose employment rate went from 44% in 1993 to to 66% in 2000. A worker at a Chicago non-profit agency who offers job-search and other services says that she has een many women start with a job ringing a cash register, then moved upward to become nurses, teachers, and social workers.

"As those lives evolve, says Mrs. Davis, she also goes to a lot of weddings".

The raw statistics on the poverty rate are that the poverty rate dropped from 15.1% in 1995 to 11.3% and has since risen to 12.7% I believe. That is still a subtantial fall.

It appears that at least half the long-term drop in the welfare caseload consists of women who never joined the welfare program - whose lives took another path.

Also it appears that on average the net income of these poor women has risen by 25%.

The Bad: According to the Economist, between 10-15% of America's former welfare recipients are now neither woprking nor on welfare according to the Urban Institute.

"Although some of them are able to depend on relatives or other forms of support, this group is clearly doing badly. Moreover, a much higher portion of the remaining welfare caseload is made up of people with mental or physical disabilities or other severe limitations, who cannot support their families by working."

Some of these people are eligible for disability payments, but their problems are a lot more difficult to deal with than the people who have gone before, and simply increasing work requirements will not solve their problems.

The conclusion I'd make from this is that US welfare reform has been a resounding success for the able-bodied and able-minded, but not so much of a success for those with severe problems. There appear to be a group who have dropped out of the system completely. Whether that is due to disability of some kind which the system cannot pick up or which doesn't rise to the threshold definition of disability or them being unwilling to work will be a matter of opinion. It's likely some of both.