The Lower Fifth
KRISTOL, IRVING
THINKING ALOUD The Lower Fifth By Irving Kristol "We shall soon with the help of God be within sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation."—Herbert Hoover, August 11,...
...expand clinics and other health facilities...
...It sounds awfully muckraker-ish to declare that 5 per cent of American families receive 18 per cent of the national income: but this top 5 per cent consists of families with incomes over $14,800 —I suspect that a great many readers of The New Leader will be shocked to learn that they are among the American rich...
...This is so odd a conclusion that no one in fact reaches it...
...As a matter of fact, if the Administration really wanted to, it could win its "unconditional war against poverty" with hardly any campaigns at all...
...It also found that 45 per cent of the families with annual incomes between $2,000 and $3,000 owned their own homes—twothirds of these homes being mortgage-free...
...Our puritan ethos has accommodated itself to the subsidization of farmers merely because they are farmers (whether poor or not...
...counsel troubled families," etc., etc...
...More than three decades have passed since Herbert Hoover made his exit from the political scene, but the problem of poverty seems to have remained with us...
...It adds up to one out of four Americans living in poverty...
...But by this same criterion, one must say that one-half of the American people lived in poverty in the indisputably prosperous year of 1929...
...Will President Johnson's "unconditional war on poverty" be of significant help to these people...
...They are also more than a little puzzling...
...finance work-study programs to reduce school dropouts...
...At this rate, Miller estimates, by 1975 a family income of $7,000 (in 1961 dollars) will be the new "decent minimum...
...And President Johnson, as we all know, has called for "an unconditional war against poverty...
...In any case, there is no question but that there has been a general movement up the income scale, even if some have moved faster than others...
...But the distribution of income in the capitalistic United States today is about the same as in Socialist Sweden, and over there they seem not to get too exercised about this issue...
...What is the explanation of this paradox...
...In 1929, 51 per cent of our family units had incomes under $3,000 (in fixed 1962 dollars...
...All well and good—but, in truth, with more political meaning than economic...
...How is it possible to become increasingly affluent and yet make no impression on the problem of poverty...
...After all, in politics memories are short and gratitude is scarce: and there will always be a lower fifth...
...Indeed, one receives the impression from a great many authorities that it has actually worsened...
...Nothing so drastic, however, is likely to happen...
...And he answers, quite correctly, in the negative: "Our standards will be lifted a little higher, our belts will be opened another notch, and there will still be a large block of families living under new and higher substandard conditions...
...The reigning ideology calls for it to be a war in permanence...
...It's very nice to be able to raise one's standards this way...
...Miller quotes Charles Péguy: "When all men are provided with the necessities, the real necessities, with bread and books, what do we care about the distribution of luxury...
...More modest in its scope, a recent editorial statement in the Nation can stand for a hundred other similar (or even identical) statements: "According to the latest figures, 20 million Americans—one in ten— exist in such 'abject poverty' that they lack even bare necessities...
...For instance: a family income of $3,000 (in fixed, 1962 dollars) is taken by Miller (and by President Johnson) as "the poverty line" in the United States today...
...Herbert Hoover, August 11, 1928...
...According to the New York Times (January 15), this "war"—budgeted at a little more than $1 billion— will consist of the following kinds of campaign operations: "to hire additional teachers...
...For another statistic tells us that the per capita Gross National Product has doubled since Hoover's day...
...Life and Labour of the People, found that one-third of the people of London lived in poverty...
...There is an intense interest in the distribution of luxury in the modern world...
...After all, in the depths of the depression F.D.R...
...Obviously, if one defines the poverty line as that which places one-fifth of the nation below it, then one-fifth of the nation will always be below the poverty line...
...But what do these arithmetic tautologies have to do with poverty in the ordinary sense of that term...
...That is to say, if the Administration forgot about cutting the income tax and handed over that money to the poor—perhaps in the form of a "negative income tax" as advocated by Professor Milton Friedman (a Goldwaterite...
...True, the tendency toward equalization of incomes, so noticeable between 1929-44, seems to have stopped suddenly in that year...
...All subsequent studies, in all countries, come up with a similar finding: a third, or a fourth, or a fifth of the nation is discovered to be below the poverty line...
...The particular fraction is an arbitrary matter, depending as it does on the definition of poverty one started out with...
...Miller points out that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a "modest but adequate living standard" in New York City in 1947 required a family income of $4,000 (in fixed, 1961 dollars...
...found only one-third of our nation "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished," whereas in 1962 Leon Keyserling, head of the Council of Economic Advisers under Truman, published a book called, Poverty and Deprivation in the U.S.—the Plight of Two-Fifths of a Nation...
...This criterion rose to $5,200 (still in 1961 dollars) in 1959 —a 28 per cent increase...
...this particular war against poverty would be won at a single stroke...
...The "war against poverty," in other words, has no reason to decrease in intensity and significance as the American people get richer and richer...
...in 1962, this percentage had decreased to 21 per cent...
...These statistics are (and are meant to be) depressing...
...His own views are incontestably liberal: He, too, has enlisted in President Johnson's "war against poverty...
...It has been calculated that, in order to give every American family at least $3,000 a year, a mere $13 billion a year would be needed for distribution among the lower fifth...
...one always assumes that a President does not declare unconditional war lightly...
...And Miller then goes on to comment: "This point of view went out of style with spats and high-button shoes...
...erect school buildings...
...He is absolutely right...
...And one's personal experience of these past decades certainly confirms the general belief that Americans are more prosperous today than ever before...
...But he is not befuddled by war propaganda and does supply the kind of relevant information that enables one more clearly to understand the nature of the enemy...
...Does this mean that poverty will be virtually eliminated in the next fifteen years...
...Meanwhile, those with incomes over $6,000 (in fixed 1962 dollars) increased from 15 to 48 per cent...
...A reading of Herman Miller's new book, Rich Man, Poor Man (Thomas Y. Crowell, 260 pp., $4.95, is of great help in reaching an explanation of this riddle...
...Miller is with the Census Bureau, and his presentation of the basic facts regarding affluence and poverty in the United States can be taken as authoritative...
...Moreover, this interest is, in its own way, perfectly legitimate...
...This general enrichment has affected everyone, and helps explain some of the peculiar features of the American poor...
...In 1889, a British study...
...Another 26 million live at 'minimum adequacy' levels, adequacy in this context being an elastic term...
...By this criterion, one-fifth of our nation does live in "poverty...
...A simple, substantial increase in old age and widows' pensions would, by themselves, have far greater effect than this complicated and ingenious program...
...No one will—no one can—deny that the entire American population has got considerably wealthier in the past 30 years...
...But is it not worth reminding ourselves that a concern with the distribution of wealth is not exactly the same thing as a concern with poverty...
...Little facts such as these suggest that "the poor" in America are not an oppressed social class but a statistical segment...
...expand the school lunch program to include breakfast...
...But one wonders: what is the point of it all if it makes not the slightest dent in the problem of "poverty...
...Similarly, it is estimated that by 1980 only 10 per cent of the population will earn less than $3,000 (in 1962 dollars...
...In 1960, the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan found that 14 per cent of the families with incomes under $3,000 a year had purchased new cars that year...
...In any society in which income and wealth are unequally distributed, those who receive the least are going to be "the poor...
...Unless we do make this distinction, we shall reason ourselves into all sorts of absurdities...
...there are also fatherless families (they constitute 18 per cent of the lowest fifth), many farmers, many Negroes, the very young (whose poverty is temporary), the sick, and the inhabitants of depressed areas...
...Besides, a permanent, rhetorical war against poverty is worth far more to any Administration than a temporary, substantial victory...
...Miller asks...
...But it has not yet reached the point where it can contemplate outright subsidies to the poor merely because they are poor (and whether they are farmers or not...
...The largest group in this segment is the elderly (they constitute more than 20 per cent of the lowest fifth...
Vol. 47 • February 1964 • No. 4
