I happened to read a bit of a bit of Krugman's most recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. Apparently it took an empirical study to affirm some things that any reasonable person that has any depth of experience should know already instinctively.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

Well, duh.

I am the spawn of a well-educated couple that both received their graduate degrees. I have never personally experienced being 'poor' unless you count living in a travel trailer for a year. However, I was too young and inexperienced then to recognize the experience for what it was. I thought it was sort of an adventure to have to heat up water on the stove to do the dishes because the running water disappeared months ago when the pipes froze.

However, that was also the same year that we moved to a piece of dying post-industrial America that hangs on through its location in the breadbasket. In this small town, those 'in exile' make up a good 15-18% of the population, and among kids my age at the time, well, 27% of those under age 18 are below the poverty line. According to Mr. Krugman's article, 17.4% of those under age 18 nationwide are below the poverty line.

Krugman doesn't know the half of it; 'exile'? This is not the word that I would use. Cut off from the larger society? What Mr. Krugman does not understand is that this segment of the population forms its own parallel society, with its own standards of conduct, rules, and regulations.

brush your teeth

My mother is a school social worker in this small industrial town, and some of my friends have at various points been her 'clients' so to speak. One time we were talking about some of the social issues and so forth, and she brought up a simple act of hygiene that most of us in the middle class take for granted: brushing your teeth.

Frequently, her 'clients' often have trouble with this, and due to their subsequent lack of dental appointments, frequently end up with mouths full of rotten teeth (the occasional crank or crack adddiction doesn't help but that's neither here nor there). She couldn't understand why they couldn't at least take a minute or two every day and just brush their teeth.

Among people in such situations, there's very little conception of the future. Thinking far into the future is not very advantageous when mainly you're just trying to avoid a future indigent quasi-homelessness. Make the rent and hopefully you'll have enough left over for some beer and food that will fill your belly until the next run-round.

Where does brushing your teeth fit in? It doesn't. The value of brushing one's teeth is simply not recognized, and the future negative consequences are ignored in favor of much more pressing issues.

Poverty creates its own culture, one that a person with means will never be able to fully understand. One thing I have noticed though, is that there is a far stronger sense of community among those not-so-well-off that I have never experienced anywhere else. Sharing a ride to who-knows-where, letting someone crash on you or your parent's couch for a few nights before they go find someone else to stay with for a week or so, the mom coming by with a little cash to make sure her son eats more than just Campbell's soup and deli-meat sandwiches because he's too broke to buy anything else.

Poverty doesn't poison the brain any more than wealth does. Our bodies are hard-wired by evolution to survive; any 'poisoning' that occurs is simply our adaptive response adverse conditions. Maybe some of those responses aren't that bad, maybe they're even desirable. Perhaps the 'poisoning of the brain' created by excess wealth is far more detrimental than the adaptive response elicited by poverty. Takes two generations to earn it and ten to spend it right?

However, the detrimental effects of abject poverty are akin to the effects of being born in Poland in 1942. It's good that empirical researchers are finally getting around to documenting that these things have brain-altering effects.

poor people stay poor

Krugman should have already won his Mr. Obvious award, but he continues:

According to one recent estimate, American children born to parents in the bottom fourth of the income distribution have almost a 50 percent chance of staying there — and almost a two-thirds chance of remaining stuck if they’re black.

How does Krugman propose we solve this problem? He doesn't really say. It should 'just be on the future president's plate' so to speak. He mainly seems interested in just throwing money at the problem; predicating their solutions upon governmental money flows.

That's an awfully simplistic answer. What's the role of education in this? Why are those high-scoring kids he mentions not going to school? There are programs out there to help kids like that get into good colleges and graduate. Maybe they need more funding. What about basic shelter needs? Isn't that the first item on the list? Should everyone get a free apartment if they need one? There are programs like that out there. And first of all, does our current welfare system even make sense anymore?

lesson of the day

Don't bother to read Krugman's columns, read his sources. Interpret the data for yourself, in Tim Smeeding’s Poor people in rich countries and the IFS report on Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2007.