The New Poor

In my column for The Week, I discuss what needs to be done to reduce rising poverty levels:

The collapse of the American job market has pushed the poverty rate to the highest level since 1993 — back before welfare reform was even enacted. The poverty rate touched bottom in the year 2000 at 11.3 percent. It has now surpassed 15.1 percent. More than 46 million Americans now count as poor, including more than one in four black Americans and more than one in four Hispanics.

This recessionary surge in poverty is driven by one old-fashioned fact: Joblessness.

These new poor may be less educated, less skilled, less motivated, less who-knows-what than the non-poor. But the fact remains: So long as the U.S. economy functioned more or less normally, they were able to hold their lives together enough to emerge from poverty. When the economy failed, so did they.

You sometimes hear it said that all an American needs to do to avoid poverty is (a) finish high school, (b) refrain from having a child before marriage, and (c) get a job.

That's a valid description, but it's not very useful advice during the worst jobs crisis since World War II. How are they supposed to get that job in the first place?

Click here to read the full column.