BDN columnist Michael Cianchette got my hopes up in a recent column when he wrote that “the achievement gap between the wealthiest communities in our state and the poorest is a significant problem that needs to be addressed.” Well, yeah. I was with him until he lost me in the next sentence: “One solution might be offering students more educational choices.”
I could understand a stab-in-the-dark approach if this goal was uncharted territory. There is, however, a great deal of intelligence on the subject. Finland, in fact, has eliminated this gap for a whole nation. They make sure every child, from before birth, has the basics for optimal development. A similar approach in Maine could not only ensure this equity, but reduce the amount that needs to be spent on special education (one of the biggest line items for most school systems) and help produce the skilled workforce that would draw more companies with good jobs.
So why are we slapping legislative Band-Aids on societal cancer and expecting real results? It seems to be the American way. I am reminded of Bill Clinton’s efforts to end welfare as we know it.
In 1992, Clinton was trying to find a way to connect with voters. The work of David Ellwood gave him his winning edge. Ellwood had realized that the public was very disillusioned with welfare dependency as epitomized by the urban legend welfare queen. The public wanted to help the “deserving” poor rather than bankrolling the lifestyles of welfare recipients who were “trapped” in a too generous system that was seen as discouraging marriage and work. Intergenerational dependence was seen as creating a welfare culture. Ending welfare as we know it became Clinton’s winning election slogan.
In 1996, President Clinton paired the transformation of welfare from entitlement to time-limited assistance with a measure intended to ensure that work would be rewarded. Instead of raising the minimum wage, he expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. In his mind this would “reward the work of millions of working poor Americans.”
In the 2015 book “It’s Not Like I’m Poor: How Working Families Meet Their Needs in a Post-Welfare World,” from which the above quote was taken, a team of researchers explored the premise that the EITC could lift families out of poverty by rewarding work. The research subjects were 115 low-income families in the metropolitan Boston area. Their income and expenditures were examined in great detail, along with work and household data and short- and long-term strategies. The results were decidedly mixed.
The EITC is a yearly windfall received in tandem with tax refunds. The majority of those interviewed said it was better than Christmas. The three months after its receipt were ones of relative economic security. Fairly little (11 percent) was spent on luxuries, usually treats for the children. Seventeen percent went to savings and 21 percent to acquiring assets such as a freezer to allow buying meat in bulk.
However, the largest category of expenditures was paying down debt and catching up on bills. Even though most of the families received government aid (e.g. Medicaid, SNAP, rent subsidies), the other nine months were ones of living week to week in increasingly desperate straits. Toward the end of this period families had to borrow money or put off paying bills such as utilities, especially if emergencies had occurred. Money saved from the EITC was frequently eaten up.
Most of the wage earners interviewed were clustered in the service industry, a segment of the economy plagued by low wages, erratic and unpredictable hours and lack of the most basic benefits. Financial downturns leave EITC recipients in truly precarious straits, losing much or all of this stabilizing benefit in tandem with fewer hours or total job loss.
Is this what you’d want for your family?
To come anywhere near eliminating the achievement gap or solving America’s poverty problems will require tough work in a number of arenas. Very few politicians will be willing to undertake this when slogan-worthy, quick fixes garner votes. Very few politicians can afford to do this when a Hatfield/McCoy two-party system, a “dialogue” based on character assassination, and a public not weaned from sound bites and trivia dooms us to a quick fix/failure hamster wheel of our own devising.
Julia Emily Hathaway is the chair of the Veazie School Committee, a poet and a proud mother of three.