Why American Poverty Rates Stopped Falling in the '70s, and Why a Better Story Was Not Told About It

Abstract

Against welfare dependence models, this paper argues that in the '70s Americans flooded the labor market, helping to suppress wages and make more people poor. It also argues that capitalist markets normally generate unemployment, which sustains poverty; capitalist nations in Europe with less poverty don't have better free markets but their governments pay needy people more. These facts were invisible in the U.S. because the right framed the poverty debate. Because of the weakness of democratic socialism and because liberalism was not very radical, there was little opposition. American conservatives fixed people's attention on bad poor people and bad government rather than a failing economy and stingy government policies. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: KEYWORDS. 1970s labor glut, liberalism and poverty, minorities and the labor market, Charles Murray, poverty and unemployment Frank Stricker is Professor of History and Coordinator

The Poor and Social Policy

“…These are just a few examples of points in history where great growth in the United States policy development has contributed to current social policies aimed at reducing poverty. Also important in shaping our current system are more conservative periods like the 1980s and 1990s that looked to cut or reduce dependency on government programs (Stricker 2000). A notable example is the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which redesigned the Aid to Families with Dependent Children to the current Temporary Aid to Needy Families in an attempt to reduce dependence on governmental programs (Rossi and Curtis 2013).…”