OP-ED: Recommitting Ourselves to Ending Poverty in America
By Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott
Fifty years ago this month, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed anti-poverty legislation and declared a War on Poverty. Fifty years later, we are still fighting to eradicate poverty in the United States.
Poverty rates have declined from the 19% that existed in 1964, but we have never seen the rate in single digits and today it is still a troubling 15%. President Johnson said that, "Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children." Those words could not be truer today.
Why have we not yet won the War on Poverty? Part of the reason has been Washington's preference for tax cuts rather than focusing first on the investments which can grow our economy and lift people out of poverty. In 2001, we squandered a $5.6 trillion 10-year projected surplus on tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthiest among us and then racked up an additional $5 trillion in new debt. This left President Obama with an annual federal budget deficit topping $1.2 trillion when he first took office in 2009 and instead of letting the tax cuts expire and investing the restored revenue in jobs and education, we unfortunately permanently extended most of those tax cuts in 2013. Congress is now scrambling to find a way to pay for that extension by slashing many of the programs President Johnson created to fight poverty. Instead of more tax cuts, we must make the tax code more fair to ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair share so that we will have resources necessary to make bold new investments in education, job training, health care, housing, and comprehensive unemployment benefits which would pay huge dividends both for our economy and those living in poverty.
The best strategy to defeat poverty requires investments in education and job training, beginning with early education and continuing through college or vocational education, as well as adult education and job training. A well-educated workforce is more important today than ever before. With the rapid development of the global marketplace, the United States is no longer the single dominant country in the world economy. Our nation's workers are in direct competition with workers from other countries. If we do not prepare our citizens for the jobs of tomorrow, then those jobs will go to workers who are prepared, where ever in the world they may live.
Unfortunately, there is also a trend that makes it hard for even those with a job to stay afloat – rising income inequality. Just 3.2 percent of the income in the nation goes to the bottom 20 percent of households, with only around 26 percent going to the bottom 60 percent. One way to address this inequality is to provide a long overdue increase in the federal minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage not only increases workers’ incomes and reduces turnover, it is also stimulative for our economy. We can choose to require companies to pay their employees a fair, living wage so that they can afford food and housing for their families or we, as taxpayers, can be left picking up the tab through increased public assistance costs when these low-wage workers can't pay their bills. This is one specific action that Washington can take to get serious in addressing poverty. We also need to address pervasive pay disparities. Women and minorities earn significantly less than white men and when they bring home less money each day, it means their families have less for their everyday needs. Legislatively we should help close the wage gap by providing effective remedies to those who are not being paid equal wages for doing equal work.
Fifty years ago, President Johnson recognized that poverty was the biggest drain on our country and our society and one of the biggest concerns of that time. Today, poverty still persists and we need to start making the tough choices necessary to eradicate it. We know what we need to do, but it's up to Washington to get serious. It's my hope that fifty years from today when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of President Johnson's declaration, we can celebrate our victory eradicating poverty.
Congressman Bobby Scott is currently serving his eleventh term representing the Third Congressional District of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
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