The young man – African American, 23 years old – sat at a picnic table behind a Germantown assisted living facility with his head in his hands.
He was exhausted and lost. He is working two jobs to support his new baby, and his schedule and the pressures of a growing family were catching up with him. He wanted to see a time when things would be better, a time when he could find one job that would support his young family.
There are tens of thousands of young African-Americans like him in Memphis, doing the best that they can under difficult circumstances to do what is right and play by the rules. All they want is the opportunity to have the money to provide their families with the basics and hope that if given a chance, they can move to the middle class.
He believes that with hard work, he can find a way for a better life for his baby. But it is getting harder and harder to convince himself that there is a way. As this young man fought with the reality that he might have limited options for the future, it was painful to talk with him about his hopes for a better time.
That’s because we now know that the research shows that at only 23 years old, his future is likely written. The odds are stacked against him, because the majority of people born into the bottom stay there. The coincidence of their births limits their options and throws up formidable barriers. It means that even when they show heroic determination, they are climbing a steep hill where the top is persistently out of reach.
The Forgotten Memphians
It’s a hard thing. To look into the eyes of a young man looking for some hopeful words that will encourage him he’s dealing with a temporary hardship, it was impossible to deliver up bromides about the American Dream and that anyone can get ahead with hard work and an fierce work ethic. All that was possible was for me to express my admiration to him for his courage in fighting hard to provide for his family.
It’s one of the hardest parts of living in Memphis, facing young men and women aching for something better and knowing that the structural problems facing this community place it out of reach for most of them. All the motivational speeches, inspirational speakers, and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” rhetoric are mere distractions, essentially overlaying middle class attitudes on lives in poverty and increasing the disconnect between who we say we are and who we want to be while spending too little time making sure that everyone can be part of the journey.
Memphians like the young man working at the assisted living facility are largely forgotten and ignored. Many of them are like him, working two jobs and still not earning a living wage for the basics of life. They don’t make it into the headlines. They are merely the faces of the inequality that defines and divides Memphians into the haves and the have-nots, those with options for the future and those trapped into lives centered on picking the best option from a list of bad ones.
The assault by some teenagers of three people at the Kroger at Poplar Plaza continues to dominate the headlines, particularly as television news broadcasts enflame their viewers with stories notable for playing to stereotypes, oversimplifications, and overstatements.
No one condones the attack by one person on another, but the emotional barrage connected to the outrage about the assault continues to the point that there is no opportunity to pivot to a constructive conversation that might serve the better interests of the entire city.
Coincidences of Birth
But, talking to the young man outside the Germantown assisted living facility, it was impossible to wonder where the outrage is for lives like his, journeys largely defined by dead-ends and blind alleys. Where is the outrage for 150,000 people who live in concentrated poverty without the means to provide the basics for their families? Where is the outrage for the 65,000 children whose birthright is abject poverty? Where is the outrage about policy decisions that regularly choose to pay $30,000 a year for a jail cell rather than $2,500 for a family intervention that has been proven to turn around the lives of children?
It all speaks to one of the most uncomfortable facts of life in Memphis: where someone is born largely sets out their options for the futures.
That so many people who have the good fortune to be born into middle class families in middle class neighborhoods credit their success solely to their own ingenuity rather than to the head start in life that they received at birth is one of the most disingenuous attitudes expressed in public debate.
The fact that it is often espoused by people who also see no reason for programs to fight poverty, to fund proven interventions, or to pay for the meager safety net programs that are the threads holding together the fabric of so many of our people’s lives. There is no duplicity more obvious than when the attacks on the poor are wrapped in the flag of faith and patriotism.
It’s The System
Why there should be any moral or personal superiority associated with a coincidence of birth is a mystery to us, but suffice it to say that every system is perfectly designed to achieve exactly the results it achieves.
The Memphis system is designed to create low incomes, perpetual poverty, and deep inequality. Here’s the thing: The Memphis metro economy is the 42nd largest in the U.S. at $68 billion and the per capita slice of that GDP is $49,604 for every person in the region. And yet, 20 percent of Memphians subsist on less than $13,000 a year.
There is a point at which the low incomes and the families in poverty can no longer be explained away as a coincidence. It is the result of economic policies built on cheap labor and on political policies based on low investments in the triggers for change. It is after all what the system is perfectly designed to achieve.
While we have all the data we need to frame up today’s problems and challenges for tomorrow, it’s the human face of it all that should shame us into action.
Discussions About Discussions
Memphis seems to have numerous discussions about the need for candid discussions – on the link between race and poverty, family distress, early childhood interventions, declining neighborhoods, urban education, minority-owned businesses, roots of crime, low graduation rates, and low birth weight babies.
But the truth is they are all the same discussion. The bigger truth is that we know what works.
Many of the answers are already underway, but most are underfunded and largely unknown to mainstream Memphis. Most of them need opportunities to plug into a larger plan in which connections between initiatives can yield greater returns. Some of them are producing impressive results, but need to be brought to scale so they touch more of the families who need them, particularly those that have been shown to increase the high school graduation rate for youth.
We have said before that Memphis has no margin for error, and that is because too many of its people have no margin for error. That’s why it is in the enlightened self-interest of every person in this metro to insist on an agenda of opportunity that attacks poverty and increases opportunity for every citizen of Memphis, and that is the rich promise of the Blueprint for Prosperity.
Preparing for 2019
When concentrated poverty is amplified by challenges like economic segregation, sprawl, and a languishing economy, there is no city in America with greater motivation than Memphis to create a culture of opportunity for every citizen.
Memphis is five years away from celebrating the bicentennial of its founding. The unanswered question is what kind of community will Memphis be as it enters its third century – one where we are still talking about the problems or one where we have begun to take dramatic action to change the city’s trajectory…and its narrative…and its future.
There’s no argument that the choice is ours. Sixty-five thousand children living in poverty await the answer.
“…rather than $2,500 for a family intervention that has been proven to turn around the lives of children?”
I would like to see the evaluation data on this program. The article makes a lot of claims about “successful programs” that already exist without providing any supporting evidence of those assertions. While I agree with the thrust of the article, until we deal with labor market issues (e.g., minimum wage, temporary, part-time jobs) then social service programs are dealing with a revolving door of *underemployed* residents who are going to keep living below the poverty line. Let’s say that an organization successfully partners with an individual to find a job in Memphis. 9.5 times out of 10 that job is either in a warehouse (temporary and difficult to arrive on time given our dismal transportation network to these jobs) or in the service sector (minimum wage and part-time). Either way ($12 per hour for a few week/months of work or $8 hour for part-time hours throughout the year), the person’s annual earnings will fall below the national poverty line. In fact, most people who are living in poverty in Memphis, do work in the formal labor market–often not consistently or full-time, but these are failures of the labor market versus failures of the individuals. I do believe that there are good social service programs in Memphis, but I haven’t seen any reliable data on the IMPACT they are making on our overall poverty problem.
I hope I am missing compelling evaluation data on this topic– and if so, I would love to see it!
It sounds like the thinking behind this post is consistent with your points. We didn’t list the projects underway that are bearing fruit, because we have written often about them before. This was more about the mandate for Memphis and the people being left behind because of economic programs and government policies. We have written twice in recent weeks about the need for a living wage, and in our minds, the minimum wage debate falls short. It should be a living wage debate. The minimum wage just gives the working poor an incremental benefit while the greater need for enough money to pay for the basics of life remains.
The programs we are advocating – and we’ve written about them before – are the family-focused, home-based interventions that pay big dividends like the Nurse-Family Partnership. Then too Big Brothers and Big Sisters is able to achieve 90% high school graduation rates for children in its programs. But, the problem is that these and other programs are only touching a small part of our children and they need to be brought to scale.
[we now know that the research shows that at only 23 years old, his future is likely written. … even when they show heroic determination … the structural problems facing this community place it out of reach for most of them.]
There is simply no credible support for this. What “structural problems” are you talking about? Collapsed family formation and poor public schools failing to train children with the human capital they need to function? Related high rates of crime that cause so many to flee? An obscenely high corporate tax code pushing manufacturing jobs overseas?
[All the motivational speeches, inspirational speakers, and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” rhetoric are mere distractions, essentially overlaying middle class attitudes on lives in poverty and increasing the disconnect]
Absolutely false. If we want to help people reach the middle class, then it is critical to teach them middle class values. Conversely, it is harmful to teach them to blame the “system,” whatever that is.
[The assault … at the Kroger … news broadcasts enflame their viewers with stories notable for playing to stereotypes, oversimplifications, and overstatements.]
Most discussions have been about failure of family formation and the need for strong, involved Dads. A stereotype strongly rooted in fact when 84% of AA children in Memphis are born out of wedlock. That you disparage those concerns as “oversimplifications, and overstatements” shows that you may be “looking” but not “seeing” due to ideological blinders.
[the emotional barrage connected to the outrage about the assault continues to the point that there is no opportunity to pivot to a constructive conversation that might serve the better interests of the entire city. … Where is the outrage for the 65,000 children whose birthright is abject poverty?]
Again with the ideological blinders. That’s just false. You just don’t want to hear it because it doesn’t conform to you ideological worldview.
[That so many people who have the good fortune to be born into middle class families in middle class neighborhoods credit their success solely to their own ingenuity rather than to the head start in life that they received at birth is one of the most disingenuous attitudes expressed in public debate.]
Straw man argument. The very heart of the conservative viewpoint is the head-start received by those born into an intact family and with access to safe, quality schools.
[The fact that it is often espoused by people who also see no reason for programs to fight poverty, to fund proven interventions, or to pay for the meager safety net programs that are the threads holding together the fabric of so many of our people’s lives.]
Straw man. Simply false. What is your definition of fighting poverty?
[There is no duplicity more obvious than when the attacks on the poor are wrapped in the flag of faith and patriotism.]
Ridiculous cheap shot.
[Why there should be any moral or personal superiority associated with a coincidence of birth is a mystery to us]
LOOK AT THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE CONCERNING THE STARK ADVANTAGES OF STRONG FAMILY FORMATION. IT’S THERE. IT’S REAL. PLEASE READ IT.
[The Memphis system is designed to create low incomes, perpetual poverty, and deep inequality.]
No, it’s not. That is simply the market responding to the abject failure of citizens to obtain the human capital adequate to demand higher incomes.
[Many of the answers are already underway, but most are underfunded and largely unknown to mainstream Memphis. … Some of them are producing impressive results, but need to be brought to scale]
Really? Great. Why aren’t we talking about them?
Great post.All the previous comments seem to be things you’ve written about in the past and are just juvenile.
As a follow up, I always appreciate reading your posts (and I have assigned several to my students). I must have missed the ones about specific programs. I will attempt to find the posts you mention and investigate further into relevant evaluation results.
For the record, I completely agree with the emphasis of your post. Memphis, as a city of political actors and everyday citizens, makes policy and fiscal decisions that reproduce the social conditions that institutionalize poverty (along racial lines). I am not convinced, however, that we really do “know what works” or that substantial improvements can be forged via the program level, regardless of attempts to up-scale efforts. Of course, I am not suggesting that we should gut programs, as they certainly offer a level of dignity and opportunity to families that battle the impossible demands of poverty every day. Programs provide a necessary “safety net” and should be adequately funded. In my observation, many organizations in Memphis are too understaffed and underfunded to achieve more than a few anecdotal successes that are not representative of their caseloads (thus my request for data related to the above-mentioned successes). Our dollars are certainly better spent supporting these organizations (e.g., helping them build organizational capacity, measure effectiveness, and hire an adequate number of well-paid professionals) than footing the outrageous bill for our botched criminal justice system.
Based on the whole of your posts, I think ultimately we agree that institutional level changes are necessary within education, transportation, housing, criminal justice and the labor market. I look forward to reading about programs that are having a sustained impact despite these larger conditions that make their work so very challenging.
Excellent statement of the structural issues that create and keep people in poverty. One should note that the criticism of the article is from an “anonymous.” Unless one has the personal integrity to make public one’s claims, then such claims are not worth listening to.
Heather: Thanks for the elaboration. We love your sentence: “Memphis, as a city of political actors and everyday citizens, makes policy and fiscal decisions that reproduce the social conditions that institutionalize poverty (along racial lines).” We wish we had said it that well. And we completely subscribe to your point about the botched criminal justice system. If you ever want to write about these issues, we’d be delighted to post it.
Anonymous: The structural problems are not what you described. Your list are the symptoms and results of our structural problems – poverty, low-performing economy, commodities approach to economic development, regressive tax structure, etc. The point about middle class values is typical middle class thinking. You can teach kids in failing schools all the middle class values you want but it won’t change the outcomes because they don’t live in a middle class world. This talk about middle class values just deludes us into thinking we’re really doing something. We wrote about the importance of parents last week so we’ll not get into that again. It is worth noting that teenage pregnancy is down 25% and could go down even more if we were serious about birth control. And since institutional racism and direct policies of the federal government denied African-American families access to the same wealth as white families, it’s worth keeping things in context. If the conservative view is what you say it is, it is more than confusing that the same movement denies supports for the families that it professes to love so much. There is just so much pablum from many conservatives while they support policies that do everything to protect corporations and nothing to protect the poor. And the fact that they wrap it in the flag and Christianity does nothing to make it logical or consistent with the American and religious values we claim for this country. We know all about strong family formation, but it’s easy to take such high moral ground when we aren’t coping with the poverty that grips so many of our fellow citizens. Where is our Christian and American responsibility to them – just to say to them they should have stronger families? As the old saying goes, you can tell what is important to someone by where they spent their money – where’s the money advocated by conservatives to support the interventions to keep families together, to tailor programs that open up opportunities, and to give children better odds of graduating from high schools. This is our failure as a community and it’s too convenient to simply blame the victims. The market is not “responding to the abject failure of citizens to obtain the human capital adequate to demand higher incomes”. We’re way past the lift yourselves up by your bootstraps rhetoric and it painfully ignores the origins and perpetuation of low-wage, low-skill workers to benefit certain people and segments of the economy. Finally, we have written about some of these programs – as recently as last week.
I am a product of poverty. I can only speak to my own experiences. I’ve always worked hard. At times working three jobs. Went to school on my own dime and even competed an MBA while working. All these things never advanced me as much as people in the community believing in me, mentoring me, and pushing me in the right direction.
I am over forty years of age and have just come to the realization that what has been holding me back is a poverty mentality. It is a curse upon ones mind. When someone does not know what it is like to live well and comfortable, they continue to believe in what he or she knows.
These matters need well thought out programs but require our time. The individuals require our time. It is one of the most dear and costly resources we possess. The old adage of pulling one self up by their own boot straps falls short for folks living in poverty. There are always shining examples of those who have come out of the low income life and have done very well. We often point to those few cases and forget that there is large group that will not make it without personal help. Local help.
Thanks, Perry, for your important contribution to this discussion your personal experience to enlighten it.
Perry what you said is about “individuals requiring our time” I think is so critical and spot on. What we all need but what we are all are short of these day is time. Time for developing long-term relationship, to develop relation-ship based safety nets rather in addition to program safety nets. As you with you, I am where I am at because I had a number of people that believed in me and poured into me my sense of self-worth. It all comes down to the people in our lives and us carving out a little time to pour worth into someone else’s life.
Spot-on post. As far as “not wanting to hear something because it doesn’t conform to your ideology,” anonymous poster, look in the mirror. The facts are that there really isn’t much social and economic mobility between classes in Memphis or America (oh, I know those of a certain ideological bent don’t want to even admit that there even IS a class system of any kind in this country, but yes, there is).