I expect there's different feedback loops that go on. Poverty causes some mental states that encourages behaviour that leads to more poverty, while also causing some mental states that encourages behaviour that leads to less poverty, often within the same person.
The relative strength of those mental states, and how to best retain the mental states that make people responsible while discouraging the mental states that make people irresponsible in the poor, I think are good questions to investigate.
It's always interesting to me how many policy wonks (to the extent that I even believe Yglesias is a wonk) who write about the poor and/or the unemployed have ever spent much time living with the poor and especially the poor who are unemployed.
Anyone want to guess how many such Yglesias knows well personally? I grew up in rural poverty.I lived, off and on among (and made good friends with) the non-working poor.
I return a few times a year tomy "home" area, which remains one of the most poor (low income per household) counties in the US. I still know quite a fewof them besides my own family.
Please, let me offer some free advice: Until you have actually, truly lived among and known the poor without jobs, please just shut your piehole about why they don't have jobs. Thank you.
What's annoying is that on the email that substack sent of this post, the date under Bryan's name at the top says "May 24" - the day it was sent - without showing the year. If I click the link on the email to the page it does show the 2012 date, but it's nowhere on the email itself. It'd be nice if the emails could be disabled for these "rerun" posts - or if not, at least show the backdating correctly on the email message.
I've spent a month unemployed (no longer, thank God) spending time in the shabby business lobbies and gas stations and diners of the lower middle class (to which I belong). This piece-and my own reflections about the almost willful ignorance about poverty among the elites-compelled me to write this:
There's just so much ridiculous abstraction when it comes to policy these days. Prison sentences help prevent crime. Some students are sharper and more energetic than others. Subsidizing behaviors will increase their prevalence, etc.
"“Being poor is a reason to save money, work hard, and control your impulses.” The right lesson to draw, rather, is that social scientists need to search for factors that cause both poverty and irresponsible behavior. "
...soz you can get rich & then you won't have to control your impulses, work hard or save money!
I really feel like it's important you read *Scarcity*, if you haven't, as a well-evidenced case that the direction of causation is from poverty to the various aspects of "irresponsible behavior" you list - thus a vicious cycle.
No. Perhaps sometimes part of it may be luck. Most of the people I've known who escaped poverty, and I've known many who did and many who didn't, did it through a combination of learning (not necessarily academic stuff), a willingness to work hard, an eye toward the future and recognizing chances when they occurred, and control of their impulses. They also mostly got married to someone just like that as well.
And I really don't remember, although I may have missed it, any of those who escaped poverty blaming anyone else or "the system" for their situation. Whether their plight at any given time could be reasonably blamed on anyone else or not, they pretty routinely accepted the blame and went back to working at not being poor.
A comment was deleted, but I wasn't trying to refute anyone. Just talking about my experience. I do think that poverty can be a vicious cycle, but My experience tells me it can be broken, like many cycles, when attacked properly, and that it very largely depends on some individual to do their own heavy lifting.
My best example would probably be a former student who spent most of his HS years couch-surfing and living on the streets of Detroit. He went on to become an Asst US Attorney, the legal counsel for a very big Michigan bank, and reasonably wealthy. Mostly through his own efforts. Most of his family 'leeches' off of him. They haven't really broken the cycle for them.
He now has a small organization to try to help stuudents with similar K-12 experience succeed and leave poverty. He has told me his success rate may be 50%.
Anyway, I think I'm saying it doesn't have to be a vicious cycle, but I'm guessing the cycle is not generally broken by outside forces.
I don't know if it's possible to escape poverty with only effort, but I've known noone who escaped it without effort. Well, if you accept finding a wealthy man and marrying him takes effort, and I believe you should, I've known a couple of women who did that, but they worked hard.
And I know a guy who married and spent a working life laying drainage tile by hand. He put 3 daughters through college, and retired in a nice house with his wife.
Or poverty causes poor mental health which causes unemployment, alcoholism, drug use, single parenthood, etc etc.
I expect there's different feedback loops that go on. Poverty causes some mental states that encourages behaviour that leads to more poverty, while also causing some mental states that encourages behaviour that leads to less poverty, often within the same person.
The relative strength of those mental states, and how to best retain the mental states that make people responsible while discouraging the mental states that make people irresponsible in the poor, I think are good questions to investigate.
It's always interesting to me how many policy wonks (to the extent that I even believe Yglesias is a wonk) who write about the poor and/or the unemployed have ever spent much time living with the poor and especially the poor who are unemployed.
Anyone want to guess how many such Yglesias knows well personally? I grew up in rural poverty.I lived, off and on among (and made good friends with) the non-working poor.
I return a few times a year tomy "home" area, which remains one of the most poor (low income per household) counties in the US. I still know quite a fewof them besides my own family.
Please, let me offer some free advice: Until you have actually, truly lived among and known the poor without jobs, please just shut your piehole about why they don't have jobs. Thank you.
The “blaming the victim” narrative with poverty is a overly skewed approach. What happens when the victim is also the perpetrator?
Double blame?
You say Yglesias said that “last week,” but you’re linking to a 2012 article.
And this post of Bryan's is dated July 25, 2012. I didn't notice that either as I was scratching my head about "unemployment remains high."
What's annoying is that on the email that substack sent of this post, the date under Bryan's name at the top says "May 24" - the day it was sent - without showing the year. If I click the link on the email to the page it does show the 2012 date, but it's nowhere on the email itself. It'd be nice if the emails could be disabled for these "rerun" posts - or if not, at least show the backdating correctly on the email message.
Weird, Substack didn’t even exist in 2012 (it started in 2017). If it’s from 2012, why did Substack email this to me today, in 2024?
Caplan reposts his old blog posts from Econlib to substack.
That would be WHOM to blame, Bryan.
(Not touting for editing/sub-editing work)
I've spent a month unemployed (no longer, thank God) spending time in the shabby business lobbies and gas stations and diners of the lower middle class (to which I belong). This piece-and my own reflections about the almost willful ignorance about poverty among the elites-compelled me to write this:
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/job-search-3?r=1neg52
There's just so much ridiculous abstraction when it comes to policy these days. Prison sentences help prevent crime. Some students are sharper and more energetic than others. Subsidizing behaviors will increase their prevalence, etc.
"“Being poor is a reason to save money, work hard, and control your impulses.” The right lesson to draw, rather, is that social scientists need to search for factors that cause both poverty and irresponsible behavior. "
...soz you can get rich & then you won't have to control your impulses, work hard or save money!
Poverty is a lifestyle choice. I chose a LIFE of being wealthy, but my lifeSTYLE choices supported that choice rather poorly. Wishful choosing.
I really feel like it's important you read *Scarcity*, if you haven't, as a well-evidenced case that the direction of causation is from poverty to the various aspects of "irresponsible behavior" you list - thus a vicious cycle.
So it is just luck when someone escapes poverty?
No. Perhaps sometimes part of it may be luck. Most of the people I've known who escaped poverty, and I've known many who did and many who didn't, did it through a combination of learning (not necessarily academic stuff), a willingness to work hard, an eye toward the future and recognizing chances when they occurred, and control of their impulses. They also mostly got married to someone just like that as well.
And I really don't remember, although I may have missed it, any of those who escaped poverty blaming anyone else or "the system" for their situation. Whether their plight at any given time could be reasonably blamed on anyone else or not, they pretty routinely accepted the blame and went back to working at not being poor.
If it is possible to escape poverty through effort, that complicates the “vicious cycle” idea.
DavesNotHere
A comment was deleted, but I wasn't trying to refute anyone. Just talking about my experience. I do think that poverty can be a vicious cycle, but My experience tells me it can be broken, like many cycles, when attacked properly, and that it very largely depends on some individual to do their own heavy lifting.
My best example would probably be a former student who spent most of his HS years couch-surfing and living on the streets of Detroit. He went on to become an Asst US Attorney, the legal counsel for a very big Michigan bank, and reasonably wealthy. Mostly through his own efforts. Most of his family 'leeches' off of him. They haven't really broken the cycle for them.
He now has a small organization to try to help stuudents with similar K-12 experience succeed and leave poverty. He has told me his success rate may be 50%.
Anyway, I think I'm saying it doesn't have to be a vicious cycle, but I'm guessing the cycle is not generally broken by outside forces.
I deleted a comment that I made because I decided I had misinterpreted what you wrote.
That's fine. I thought it was a reasonable comment. And I'm not always as clear as I'd like to be,.
I don't know if it's possible to escape poverty with only effort, but I've known noone who escaped it without effort. Well, if you accept finding a wealthy man and marrying him takes effort, and I believe you should, I've known a couple of women who did that, but they worked hard.
And I know a guy who married and spent a working life laying drainage tile by hand. He put 3 daughters through college, and retired in a nice house with his wife.