Abstract: Government anti-poverty programs share the flawed assumption that poverty in America is primarily a material problem that can be solved by increased welfare and entitlement spending. Poverty in America is often the result of a relational problem, such as fatherlessness or community breakdown, which government programs cannot adequately address. However, the institutions of civil society—family, churches, and other associations—are well suited to providing the personalized assistance needed to repair these relational problems, enabling people to overcome poverty and lead healthy lives.
Instead of crowding out private efforts with welfare programs, government can best serve the poor by establishing and maintaining social conditions that allow families, churches, and other institutions of civil society the freedom to serve those who are in need.
Is the promotion of limited government compatible with a concern for those in poverty?
Calls for limited government are often mistakenly equated with a disregard for people in need. This flawed line of reasoning assumes that poverty is primarily a material problem and that government bears the primary responsibility for solving it by increasing welfare and entitlement spending.
Yet at its root, poverty is usually more complex than a simple lack of material resources. In America, poverty is often the result of a relational problem, such as fatherlessness or community breakdown. Such relational breakdowns are addressed most effectively through various civil society institutions.
People have many needs that extend beyond simple material possessions—needs that cannot be met by any single institution. Families, churches, businesses, and other forms of association play crucial roles in sustaining liberty and meeting people’s needs. Public policy in general and welfare policy in particular should respect and protect these institutions of civil society.
Thus, limited government is an important piece of a framework that benefits people in need. When government is limited to the tasks it is best-equipped and authorized to perform, it allows more effective poverty-fighting institutions to thrive. Far from being incompatible with a concern for poverty, an appropriately limited government is crucial to maintaining a social order that enables people to escape poverty.
Poverty in America Is Not Primarily Material
In political debate, poverty in America is often discussed as a purely material problem.
This is problematic for several reasons.
First, viewing poverty as just a physical and material problem ignores emotional, spiritual, and interpersonal needs. Failure to meet any of these needs can result in a kind of poverty or suffering. Given this wide range of human needs, approaches that focus solely on material provision, such as government welfare and entitlement programs, are inadequate. Properly structured government welfare programs may address some kinds of needs. However, to address poverty effectively, government programs must leave room for—and not undermine or usurp—other institutions that are better equipped to meet the full range of human needs.
Second, defining poverty as solely material in nature suggests that the solution lies in providing more money or goods.[1] Regrettably, the solution is not that straightforward. If it were, President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty would have generated better results.
Since the beginning of the War on Poverty in 1965, the federal government has spent $16 trillion on welfare. Sadly, this massive spending has failed either to break the cycle of government dependence or to help low-income families to climb the ladder of social mobility. Instead, welfare dependence has grown dramatically. From 1960 until shortly before the welfare reforms of 1996, the total number of welfare recipients more than tripled.[2] The overall poverty rate has not changed much over the past four decades, and today, one in seven Americans lives at or below the official federal poverty line.[3]
Moreover, since the War on Poverty was launched, the rate of births out of wedlock has increased from 7 percent to 41 percent nationally, exceeding 70 percent among the black population.[4] This has devastated the well-being of these single mothers and their children and has sharply limited their prospects of escaping poverty.
Policymakers should reassess why spending nearly $1 trillion annually is failing to reduce poverty. A large part of the problem lies with an underlying assumption about the nature of poverty in America: that it is primarily a material problem. If this assumption is wrong, then the government can never spend enough to overcome it.
The Relational Roots of Poverty
For the most part, poverty in America is not a simple lack of income or assets. Therefore, it cannot be reduced to financial calculations. The causes of poverty tend to be relational in nature, often stemming from “brokenness” in the foundational relationships of life.
The goal of overcoming poverty is not simply to eliminate need, but to enable people to thrive—that is, to empower them to live meaningful lives and contribute to society. Thriving is much more than a full stomach and a place to sleep. People tend to flourish in the context of healthy relationships with their families and communities. Suffering and breakdown often result when those relationships are absent or unhealthy.
Efforts to fight poverty are more effective if they tend to the full range of relationships necessary for thriving. Successful approaches not only heal brokenness where it exists, but also strengthen healthy relationships, which make poverty unlikely in the first place. Preventing a problem is often more effective in the long run than continually treating the symptoms.
Calls for increased welfare spending frequently miss the deeper problem: Poverty in America is often more the result of multiple broken relationships in peoples’ lives than the result of a lack of material resources. Financial trouble is often a symptom of a deeper breakdown. Whether a father abandoning his children, a broken marriage turning a spouse to drugs, or a teenage boy looking for acceptance in a gang, poverty and social breakdown often stem from people relating wrongly to someone or something. These broken lives resulting from broken relationships often lead to material hardship.
Effective responses to poverty address the relational dynamics that lead people to drug addiction, depression, fear, violence, and the inability to keep a job. Yet a large bureaucratic government is ill equipped to address precisely these dynamics and relationships.
Hope, trust, friendship, accountability, discipline, encouragement, and healthy personal relationships are key ingredients of human well-being. When they are missing or ruptured, the result may be poverty, delinquency, or social breakdown. Civil society institutions that foster face-to-face interaction best cultivate these ingredients of human flourishing. Poverty-reduction efforts should therefore strengthen those spheres of society in which healthy relationships grow.
When considering the role of government in alleviating poverty, public policy should acknowledge the relational nature of poverty as well as the vital contributions from local, personal institutions. Government is an important piece of a larger framework that benefits people in need, but government serves best when it protects and safeguards—rather than crowds out—the poverty-fighting institutions of civil society.
Family and Friends
Effective poverty-fighting initiatives begin at ground level in families, close friendships, and mentoring relationships. People often receive the most effective care from those who know and interact with them regularly. Relationships among friends and family members allow people to know each other’s circumstances. This kind of personal knowledge is necessary for tailoring solutions to particular needs. These face-to-face relationships form the foundation of a healthy and prosperous society.
Healthy marriage and family relationships are especially important for people and communities to thrive. Families are able to meet and responsible for meeting a vast array of needs. They provide their members with basic health care, education, food, shelter, economic provision, and spiritual and moral guidance. Families teach basic principles of sharing, patience, forgiveness, honesty, hard work, respect for authorities, unconditional love, and the importance of saving money and avoiding instant gratification. These lessons contribute to success in sustaining good marriages and holding down jobs, which are two of the most significant avenues for economic mobility in America. These are also the values and habits that make freedom and self-government possible.
—Ryan Messmore, D.Phil., is William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
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