A reflection on, "The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America's Middle Class"

I spent the last hour reading an article from Rolling Stone entitled, "The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America's Middle Class." Written by Jeff Tietz, the story covers the lot of several people in Santa Barbara, California who, having once lived a reasonably comfortable existence, now live almost penniless in their cars.

It is a moving piece, and one I recommend reading. Of the article's many messages, one of the most powerful is perhaps it's indictment of Federal aid services designed to help the destitute:

"Most of the social-service systems in the United States function not to help people like Curtis and Concita Cates get back to where they were, to a point of productive stability, but simply to keep them from starving – or, more often, to merely reduce the chances that they will starve. Millions of middle-class Americans are now receiving unemployment benefits, and many find themselves compelled by the meagerness of the assistance to shun opportunity and forgo productivity in favor of a ceaseless focus on daily survival" (source).

One line in particular--"...many find themselves compelled by the meagerness of the assistance to shun opportunity and forgo productivity in favor of a ceaseless focus on daily survival," struck me as encapsulating a central issue on the matter of aid; namely, how does one help those in need without de-incentiving recipients from engaging in subsequent productive activity?

The Rolling Stone piece suggests that more aid is needed:

"When welfare applicants finally prove that they exist, and show their material worth to be nothing, they usually receive far less than they need to live on. That's what happened to Curtis and Concita Cates. The maximum amount of aid that a single adult is eligible for in Santa Barbara, they learned, is $291 per month – $200 in food stamps, $91 in cash assistance. The waiting time for Section 8 housing, if you have priority status, is six months to a year. If you belong to the vast majority who don't have priority status – if you're not elderly, disabled or a veteran with dependents – the wait is between four and eight years" (source).

At base, the reason seems to be because too little aid doesn't give recipients enough lee-way to make ends meet while they seek more productive pursuits. As quoted earlier, their focus remains on "survival" more than anything else.

Yet give too much assitance--whatever that is--and under certain circumstance remaining on aid may become more profitable than other, perhaps more productive, activities. How does one draw the line on how much to help?

I don't know the answer, but the Rolling Stone piece suggests what can happen when aid is insufficient. People can (and often do) get stuck on mere survival, and barring a major turn in fortune, remain more or less so for a while. As one person in the article remarked, "'Homelessness gets in your bloodstream...and it stays there forever.'"

This issue highlights a point we considered in an earlier post regarding the value of failure, and its role in developing a persistent, resilient character. In the earlier post, a major take-away focused on the important balance between challenge and support in using difficult circumstances to cultivate resilience; you grow as a person when you overcome a difficult circumstance, but some circumstances are simply too much without support. Proportioned just so, sufficient support can potentially do a world of good for a person in need. But there is also the possibility of too much support, for if a person never faces any challenges, they never learn how to bounce back. That was my conclusion anyway, after reading two articles which became the focus of that earlier post; you need challenge to grow, to learn how to fail and come back stronger, but some trials require proportioned assistance to give the experience its full utility. A failure that destroys does not strengthen a person anymore than a workout that kills the organism involved.

On a grand scale, striking that balance seems to be one task of Federal aid services, and it's clearly failing at times. The Rolling Stone piece shows where it comes up short, while various news-stories regarding welfare fraud and the like show where it perhaps goes too far. It's a difficult problem in no mistake, and as I said above I don't know how it can be fixed. The challenges our country (and our world) face today could break us all. Yet they could also be the challenges that bring out the best in us. The right kind of support may just make all the difference.

Happy Wednesday, friends :)