People Are Poor Because They Choose To Be?
posted by ihavenobias 02/19/2008 01:37:41 PM EST
How often have you heard a conservative arguing that
poor people *choose* to be poor and that they could easily not be if they had the proper will and work ethic?
I hear that more and more having moved to what is mostly an
upper middle class suburb of Chicago. And when I ask these people if they believe they'd be in the same position had they grown up in poverty and squalor, they usually say "yes" (here and there an honest person says no).
At any rate, some
fascinating new research further debunks the long held, widespread conservative belief that poverty is only about choice.
“Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.
So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.
L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.
But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned..."
