Purple Rain #9

The Wall Street Journal editorial page evoked a firestorm on November 20, 2002, when it ran an op-ed piece lamented the existance of so-called "lucky duckies." Who are these lucky duckies? The people at the very bottom of the economic totem pole, who manage to get by without paying income tax. Granted, these people still pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes. But not paying income taxes! Wow, these guys must be living the easy life, 'eh? Never having to deal with income tax, these people have no idea of the horror those rich people face having to pay over 20% of their income in income taxes. Poor, poor rich people, America has truly wronged you.

Okay, sarcasm aside, it seems that many in the political arena view the poor as largly consisting of the "undeserving" poor. Some politicions contantly use the rhetoric of the other party "trying to take money away from the weathly and give to the undeserving." Yet critizing these politicians counts as "class warfare". Um, and calling an entire socio-economic group "undeserving" isn't?

But on a serious note, is there such a thing as the "undeserving" poor which are truly lucky duckies, if you will, and live off the government without even trying to find work? While one can easily point to individual people that fit the stereotype of the "lazy poor", it is my contention that any attempted distiction between "deserving poor" and "undeserving poor" is completely arbritary and counterproductive to an effective society. First of all, the supply of jobs has pretty much always been less than the demand for jobs. This of course, leads to scarcity. This means that even if everybody worked assiduously and hard, there would be people that are unemployed. And given the rate of job increase has been below the rate that people join the job market, in many areas there is quite a lot of job scarcity. Next, in today's modern economy many jobs are lost due to factors outside the worker's control. The rate of technological change has become exponential over the years, and while this is generally a good thing, it means that many workers in fields that become outdated will lose their job. While it may be conforting to think that all these people who lost their job could instantly find another, scarcity yields this result immpossible. Finally, no entity can competently draw a bright line on what constitutes "deserving" and what constitutes "undeserving". People don't neatly fall into these categories; there is a spectrum from the very lazy to the very hard working. There is no objective standard over where the line ought to be placed. Futhermore, the factors that go into one being poor are immense. Things like children, locality, and educational background would all have to come into play, but no entity can amass that many facts.

Many private charities do wonders for certain members of the poor. All in all though, the fundamential obligation of providing for the poor should be the government. Charities cannot guarantee help to all poor people accross the nation. First, many charities give only to a select group that hope to get something back, be it religious conversion or otherwise. Moreover, many charities are localized at only help those in their particular area. Not everybody is lucky enough to be one of these select groups or be in an area with strong local charities. In addition, only 10% of charitable donations are directly for the poor

Having a social safety net with a guaranteed minimum standard of living is not only required for social justice (people should not stave to death in a nation without food shortages), but for a strong economy as well. Many economists agree that business onwers taking risks is essential for the economy to grow. For a second, let's pretend that the US government did not have a social safety net. Now, as a business owner, would you happily take risks and try new business strategies? If you fail, you'd be unemployed. Without a safety net, unemployment would be a much greater threat, and not many businesses would dare take many risks. Business and consumer confidence is essential to a prospering economy. So in other words, not only the poor, but the rich prosper from a social safety net. With a government safety net in place, these business owners can take many risks, and if they lose their business, the net can help them rebound quickly.

Those lucky duckies.