Welfare Liberalism, Social Policy, And Poverty In America

The conservative explanation for the persistence of poverty—that liberal social programs have created with disincentives‐explains very little of the poverty that exists. It has gained acceptance because liberal anti‐poverty efforts have been based on flawed understanding of the problem that insured their failure. Because of the oversupply of young adult workers in the 1970s, there was a proliferation of jobs paying low wages. Liberal programs that assumed that the poor simply needed training and education to lift themselves out of poverty, ignored the shortage of jobs paying above‐poverty‐level wages. Liberals also assumed that with the requisite training and jobs, all Americans have the capacity to gain the skills necessary to obtain those jobs. This neglects data showing that a larger proportion of individuals with low native ability have earnings beneath the poverty line than workers with normal ability, even when controlling for educational attainment. A new anti‐poverty effort must take into account these realities.