Losing Groung – American Social Policy 1950 – 1980
by Charles Murray
United States – Social policy – Evaluation.
Afro-Americans – Social
conditions – Evaluation
ISBN 0-46504231-7 (cloth)
ISBN 0-46504232-5
(paper)
ISBN 0-46504233-3 (second edition paper)
Basic Books, a division
of Harper Collins Publishers, Copyright 1984
When everyone else is doing well and doing better, why do a few fail to work, ignore their education, commit crimes and fail to marry? In Losing Groung – American Social Policy 1950 – 1980 Charles Murray says this is a rational response to the changing governmental policies. During the 1960's radical policy changes in welfare, education, and criminal law brought about changes exactly the opposite of the ones intended by their authors and supporters. The economy was strong; the Civil Rights Act passed; the government declared war on poverty and universal education was becoming a reality. By all reason, Black urban communities should have done exceedingly well. They weren’t simply passed up, their behavior changed and their prospects worsened.
It is important to note that life for the most disadvantaged had been improving in many ways between 1950 and the mid 1960's. The ratio of Black to White unemployment had been steady from the beginning of the century until the mid 1960's. In the early 1960's labor force participation rates for Blacks were actually higher than for Whites. Participation in education had become nearly universal. By 1959-1962 the return on educational investment for Blacks was higher than for Whites. Crime rates for Blacks were steady or improving from 1950 until 1962. Black victims of crime dropped considerably from 1950 to 1964. In 1955 only 1/7th of teenagers giving birth were not married.
But then all that changed. In 1968 latent poverty, the failure to be self sufficient, suddenly reversed its trend and started to climb. Unemployment among Black youths skyrocketed. The quality of an urban education slid downhill. Disadvantaged youths were receiving a very poor education. In the 1960's, crime rates skyrocketed. It was not just the urban riots; the increases were much more widespread and persistent. While almost all other groups and ages were having fewer children, young Black teenagers gave birth to about the same number, but their marital status changed. By 1982 the rate of unmarried teenage moms was 82%.
What is the source of this poverty paradox? Life was getting better for the Black middle class. The economy was growing. Government programs were focused like never before on ending the scourge of poverty. Yet matters were getting worse. What was the cause?
There was a tremendous philosophical and policy change in the early sixties. President Kennedy’s programs still reflected the older ideals that government should provide a "hand up, not a hand out." Even President Johnson as he signed several of the early War on Poverty programs like job training, VISTA and the Domestic Peace Corps in 1964 stated "the days of the dole in this country are numbered." But job training failed miserably. Community action programs accomplished nothing at all. Michael Harrington in his book The Other American said that poverty was the fault of the system; the individuals are victims. As a result of the 1964 urban riots, Blacks blamed Whites and White mea culpa was everywhere. "What emerged in the mid-1960's was an almost unbroken intellectual consensus that the individualist explanation of poverty was altogether outmoded and reactionary. Poverty was not a consequence of indolence or vice. It was not the just deserts of people who didn’t try hard enough. It was produced by conditions that had nothing to do with individual virtue or effort. Poverty was not the fault of the individual but of the system."
Welfare became an enforceable right. More and more money went into the poverty programs. In some Northern states, welfare became a realistic alternative to employment. The worker was a chump. In 1961 the law changed to permit welfare even if the husband but unemployed; in 1966 the government restricted home checks to see if a wage earner was there; in 1968 the Man-in-the-house Rule was struck down by the courts; in 1969 the residency requirements were struck down altogether.
The rules of the game for education changed. Without individual responsibility, schools no longer punished disruption or the failure to maintain academic participation. Good students became the victims of the changing times. The way society punished criminals was transformed, especially for juveniles. They could commit offense after offense without serious consequences. Even if they were punished, the new rules gave them a clean slate when they became adults. It wasn’t their fault.
There comes a time in a young person’s life when he or she must make some very difficult choices that bear incredible costs. They may already be poor and have few advantages. Working even harder to get ahead requires incredible sacrifice and perseverance. This is what new immigrants had experienced for almost 200 years. They worked multiple jobs so that their children would have better lives. If young people are told and believed that they couldn’t succeed because the system was against them, why sacrifice? If the pimp and the pusher appear to do well, with little threat from the police, why should you redouble your efforts? Getting a job or finishing your homework is not high up on the list of worthwhile activities. Welfare can provide a serious alternative to work. It had become easy to believe that the government should and would take care of the mother of your child and your child. As a result of the change in welfare rules, criminal laws and educational environment a small group of Americans worked less, committed more crimes, dropped out of school and failed to marry the mothers of their children.
William Julius Wilson in The Truly Disadvantaged - The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy disagrees with Murray on the cause of poverty and single parentage. He saw a combination of structural unemployment and criminal records as the cause of non-marriage. I see nothing inconsistent between the two ideas. Young black teenage moms do not want to marry the fathers of their children because they are not marriageable but welfare makes their desires more realistic financially. For whatever reason, these young men don’t work. They may be gang bangers. How can an expectant mother take him home to meet the family? What are they going to talk about; drug sales that week? Rather than defy her parents and marry, the she can live on welfare.
Murray is clear about his recommendations to help the poor: "Cut the knot." End the entire Federal welfare system for working aged people. This would include AFDC, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance (maybe), Worker’s Compensation, Subsidized Housing, Disability Insurance and more. The goal is simple. If you want to eat; you work. Going to work should be the rational choice. Failure must have consequences in order to teach great lessons. If the alternatives are grim, a young person will, all of a sudden, discover that he or she is quite capable of accepting the rigors and discipline of the workplace. Of course there are those who would be desperate. Thankfully the longitudinal studies in Years of Poverty – Years of Plenty, show us that, except for a very small group, most of those needs are extremely brief due to short term setbacks. Local authorities, whether public or private charity, would be best equipped to evaluate, experiment and satisfy those needs. We should once again differentiate between the drone and the deserving. Michael Medved, in The 10 Big Lies About America says the Murray’s recommendations were vindicated by the results of the 1995 welfare reforms. The plight of the poor actually improved by offering less welfare benefits. Stealing From Each Other. How The Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit by Edgar K. Browning provides a more recent review of all federal government egalitarian policies. His analysis is rigorous and the conclusions are the same. In order to help the greatest number of people out of extreme poverty, re recommends ending all Federal welfare programs (including social security) because their consequences are exactly the opposite of their purpose.
Murray is also innovative in his educational recommendations. A successful education policy is vital to an anti-poverty program. But to do so you must honor those who put in the greatest effort. Reward those who put in the hard work to succeed. Again failure is good; it teaches life’s lessons. Without saying it, Murray drives a dagger into the heart of those who oppose vouchers by recommending that all schooling be free. If you qualify, you can enroll in anything from pre-school to graduate school. But then armed with a voucher, parents can be involved and decide what and where would be the best education for their children. There will be bad parents now and in the future. But for their children and all children, success is the order of the day. If you pass the entrance exam, you get in the class. If you are willing to work at success, you stay, if not, you leave. Success is not guaranteed but rewarded.
I was disappointed by the absence of any recommendation from Murray concerning crime. Obviously he would say that punishment should be both swift and certain. But as I read all the poverty, crime, marriage, and work statistics, I kept wondering about the impact of the drug prohibition laws. This is just my own thought exercise. Many of our cultural trends begin in the Black community; not all, but many. Certainly many soldiers returning from Vietnam were exposed to lots of drugs and I wonder whether the drug culture started in the Ghettos of American. (I have seen very little literature on this subject.) We know that 1968 started the full fledged War on Drugs by the federal government but I also assume that it was a response to the increasing drug use. Drug prohibition can help explain the amazing change in behavior in the 1960's. The profits or at least the dream of profits from the drug deals made a minimum wage job seem stupid. Joining the gang to get your piece of the pie meant that you were "cool," but your girl friend was unlikely to take you home to her parents. Plus her parents would be appalled at the thought of their daughter marring a gang banger. Legalization of drugs is not something Charles Murray ever discussed in Losing Ground, but I would love to hear his response.
The poverty paradox is important to study and understand. The 1960's and 1970's saw tremendous changes in public policy from the War on Poverty. But for a small group of people, life got worse, much worse. The good intentions of government policy makers had very significant and very negative consequences for the people they were trying to help. The lesson from Losing Ground is not that welfare is some kind of infectious disease that once touched causes crime, nonwork, and failure to marry the mother of your child, but that setting policy based upon the assumption that life is not your own responsibility is a design to promote disaster.