WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. We're talking about the deepening class divide in America with Peter Edelman. Back in the 60s when he was an aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy the two went to the Deep South to see extreme poverty firsthand. Fast forward to the 1990s. Edelman became a household name when he resigned from his position in the Clinton administration in protest to the president's welfare reform. Now Edelman is one of the most outspoken anti-poverty advocates around. Today the income level disparity it's wider than it's been since the Great Depression. The average salary for a CEO is in the millions while the median income for some of the poorest households is twice below the official poverty line. In his new book Edelman looks at the forces that are driving this ever growing wealth gap. Up next the land of plenty and plenty of nothing. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the country's watching a

rare election unfold in the battleground state of Wisconsin where voters are deciding today whether to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker. He's being challenged by Democrat Tom Barrett. Wisconsin Public Radio's Shawn Johnson says the stakes are high for both men but also for the unions that drove this midterm vote. Unions begin talk of recalling Walker the same week that he introduced his plan to curb bargaining rights for most public workers. University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Barry Burton says this election will say a lot about whether the unions can restore those rights and what kind of political force they'll be in the future. They were instrumental in organizing the protests in assisting with the recall petition drive itself. And I think they view this as a hugely symbolic election for them in Wisconsin and nationwide. Wisconsin voters will also cast ballots Tuesday in races for lieutenant governor and four state Senate seats. For NPR News I'm Shawn Johnson in Madison.

Jury selection is underway in Jerry Sandusky's child sex abuse trial in Pennsylvania. Judge John Cleveland will not sequester the jurors but he has instructed the 240 members of the jury pool today to avoid news accounts or social media posts about the former Penn State Coach Sandusky faces 52 criminal counts for allegedly abusing 10 boys. Several college presidents and the Obama administration have agreed on a deal that's supposed to take the mystery out of the financial aid packages that schools offer. NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports it is called a shopping sheet. Starting next year colleges will provide more user friendly information about the total cost of school every year. They will also disclose what students monthly payments are likely to be after graduation. It will be easier for families to figure out what they're eligible for in grants scholarships and federal aid so they can compare financial aid packages before choosing a school attend private colleges and university systems that are part of this deal have also agreed to disclose their dropout and default rates. President Obama's been critical of the

pricing of college education and is raising this as an election year issue. But it's not clear if Morningstar to sions will sign on to the agreement. Now the scientists NPR News. The last of the original members of the legendary 1950s group the platters has died. Publicists say Herb Reed passed away yesterday in Boston at the age of 83. As bass singer Reed helped propel the platters to the top of the U.S. charts with several classic hits. Yes there were. The platters were inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. The owners of Suffolk Downs have unveiled their plans for E1 billion dollar casino at the

Boston horse track. The proposal announced today calls for a site covering 163 acres in the East Boston neighborhood architectural renderings show hotel restaurants retail shops entertainment areas and racing. It would be known as the resort at Suffolk Downs. Officials of the track said they would spend millions of dollars to address traffic concerns in the congested urban neighborhood and that they will seek host community agreements with Boston and neighboring Revere Massachusetts officials have released a report detailing the state's efforts and investments in protecting thousands of acres of land during the 2011 fiscal year. The Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs released a report today outlining a program aimed at building and renovating urban parks preserving farms and forests and protecting natural landscapes. State officials say highlights include the creation or retention of more than 200 jobs through the protection of 900000 acres of farm or forest land. Rhode Island would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana under legislation set for a vote in the general assembly. The House and Senate are both scheduled to debate and vote on the measure today. The legislation would replace criminal penalties for

possession of one ounce or less of marijuana with a $150 civil fine. Minors caught with pot would also have to complete a drug awareness program and community service. Current law makes possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor. In sports the fifth game of the Boston Miami NBA Eastern Conference is fine. Final is on tap this evening in Miami the Celtics won the last two games of the series played in Boston to even up the best of seven fare at two and two. And the Orioles are in Boston tonight to play the Red Sox Jon Lester is the starting pitcher for the Sox. We have a coastal flood advisory in effect from 11:00 p.m. this evening until 3:00 a.m. tomorrow today we can expect cloudy skies with scattered showers highs in the upper 50s right now it's 54 degrees in Boston with overcast skies 54 in Wister and in Providence Support for NPR comes from the Wallace J Cameron living trust providing support to NPR and to member station serving the Rio Grande Valley. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. We're looking at the persistence of poverty in America. Today we describe the class divide with the catch all 99 percent vs. the 1

percent. But how deep and extreme is the wealth gap for real and how is poverty not being talked about on the campaign trail. Peter Edelman is here to address these questions and more. He's an anti-poverty activist and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. His new book is so rich so poor why it's so hard to end poverty in America. Peter Edelman welcome. Thank you. Wonderful to be with you. Thank you. Now in your book you talk about a couple of major drivers of poverty and I wonder if you would talk about that recession had a lot to do with it shrinkage of the safety gap just give us a kind of brief contextual setup if you would think certainly got worse with the recession and we can hope that it's not going to last too much longer so many people around the country are hurting so badly. But I think the story of poverty today starts really in the nineteen seventies in the

Principal Group in our society that has been hurt by that of children. In the in the early 70s we changed what we were doing finally about the elderly in terms of indexing Social Security to inflation and the effect of Medicare SSI for that which is a supplementary social insurance. And so now the elderly are the least poor group in the society at the same time. All of those good jobs that we remember in the industrial plants went away either to other countries or to technology and for 40 years we've had just this glut of low wage jobs in wages for people have been stuck at a very low level the entire lower half not just poor people. And that's particularly tough on single moms. Any place where there's only one

parent with kids. So it's just really hard your listeners obviously know this. To make ends meet if you just have one of these low wage jobs so that's a big thing the changes in family structure and particularly the changes in the labor market and then add to that in the last 16 years we've had the new welfare law which President Clinton signed into law in 1996. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families That's called and that's cause the bottom to drop out of the safety net and we now have people who have these incredibly low incomes below half the poverty level nine thousand for a family of three. So that's the story leading into the recession. The recession has been horrible. We had an addition of six more poor million more poor people after President Clinton left office and then 9 million more with the recession and we're still up at 46 million people who are poor.

What does poverty look like in this country would you define it for us I mean because I think various images come to mind among all of us if we think about who is poor. What does it look like today. It looks like all different kinds of people really in cash terms just so we have this in our minds as we're talking the poverty line is eight hundred thousand dollars for a family of three 22000 for a family of four really unrealistically low in terms of any reasonable cost of what it costs to live. But it's people the largest number of people who are poor are white. And then African-American Latino Native-American are disproportionately poor So white people only 10 percent of them are poor but they're still the largest number whereas the minorities that I mentioned 27 percent.

That's a problem a special problem. It includes people who are in inner cities suburbs. Fifty three percent increase in the last decade and people who live in the suburbs in are poor people who have some disabilities. People in rural areas the Mississippi Delta Indian reservations the colonialists and in South Texas still a lot of elderly poor even though they're the least poor group. And of course children so many children are poor. If you were to give a kind of model profile understanding that you've just outlined there are some differences in groups of poor people. You know give me a sense of what you know pick one of the person and say What are they doing every day to survive what is their what is their life look like the most typical would be.

Understanding that there are all those differences the one thing I did not say a minute ago is that most of the poor are getting some of their income from work. I think the general impression that people have is that people who are poorer are what they're doing all day is nothing. It's absolutely not the case in so there is a small number really small now who get cash assistance in that's shrunk down to a little over 4 million people in the whole country less than a percentage less than one and a half percentage points of the people in the country. So 60 percent of the money that's coming in to poor people is from work. And so what the typical If there is such a thing a poor person is doing is actually trying very hard to make ends meet. Finding only specially now only part time jobs are jobs that come and go seasonal. That kind of thing. Or day

labor or something day laborer Yes or people who work for cultural workers. Yes all of that. Now there are also people who don't have an income but even there they're mostly people who are between jobs who their unemployment compensation is run out or they weren't eligible in the first place because in fact our system unemployment compensation is very spotty. So they're people who are in a temporary spell of poverty again the stereotype is this is this is somebody who's the same all the time. And of course there's a racial stereotype that I think if people you asked someone kind of the prototypical person on the street their images of an African-American woman who lives in the inner city the kind of Ron Reagan image of

poverty and of course that's very far from the truth in terms of the numbers of people who are poor and especially the numbers of people who are persistently poor. So let's talk about some of those numbers and I should say that your book is so rich so poor why it's so hard to end poverty in America has many many numbers and there's a lot of stats and some of them I'm going to pull out as we go but I don't want people get to drown in them and I nor do I want us to drown in that conversation around those numbers. But I do think it's important. A couple things you said that just stood out to me. You know I'm accustomed to reading wherever I read it I guess it's a government. Pamphlet or information that says OK this and there are this many people below the poverty line. I have no reason to doubt that that's the number but what you've said is that that number is way off and that there are many many more people in there because the way that the number is factored in does not take into account. And I find this incredulous

increases in utilities and housing and health care in food. You know all the stuff that the rest of us have to take into account in living. That's not taken into account. So some of these numbers they come up with this number and there it clearly cannot be correct if that these factors are not included. That's absolutely true although since we have a little time to go into this but without getting too far into the weeds the traditional poverty measure also doesn't count all of the income doesn't count food stamps it doesn't count the earned income tax credit doesn't count things that are not cash and the earned income tax credit accounts after tax and not before tax so. So. You have to look at both sides of it we have a new measure that's actually takes the number from 46 million to 49 million. When it factors in both the amount of income and what it actually costs to live now it's a very

cautious number and even with the forty nine million. There are lots of people who are having a very very tough time. Who are working as hard as they can. The research shows that the the number to keep in mind not for poverty but for just difficulty making ends meet is about twice the poverty line. So again not wanting to get swamped by the number yes but forty four thousand for a family of four is twice the poverty line or one hundred three million people. A third of the people in our country have these very very low wages. So that's another set to keep in mind are people who are above the poverty line don't write on but right on the line really if they could get pushed over quite easily Well that's true a lot of alright on the line and go in and out but they're having a very very tough time and they don't think of themselves as poor but we sure don't pay enough attention to them and their general feeling is I

got here where I am kind of my own fault I didn't do well enough when in fact the real problem in that area even for many of the poor is the job market is so flawed so many low wage jobs and that's where people who are working we just want to make clear that these are people who are working who are still dangling above that line. Absolutely so 60 percent of the money that comes in to poor people is from work. So as we continue how does that safety net help us and. What is the difference between poverty and extreme poverty we're going to talk about that as we continue our conversation. We're talking about poverty in America and about how we got here about extreme poverty how we got here and what we need to do to get out of this. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You've heard Peter Edelman define poverty in the

21st century. How do you where do you see it. What does it look like. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can write to our Facebook page or send us a tweet at Cali Crosley. My guest is Peter Edelman. We're talking about his new book so rich so poor. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio. Funding for our programs comes from you. And Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates offering complete health care for you and your family with 21 locations across Greater Boston Harvard Vanguard welcomes new patients and accepts most insurance Care Made Easy dot org an affiliate of Atrios health. And scanner auctioneers and appraisers presenting their auction of fine jewelry

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That helps point seven plan better and better clients means fewer fundraisers. And that's why males responsible for this hour of programming coming to you. Fundraiser Craig thinks may yet. We're joined by supporting eighty nine point seven this is Dana online at WGBH dot org. Great question and it's a great question and that's a great question. It's a great question. Rick great question and you'll hear unexpected questions and unexpected answers this afternoon at 2:00. You're on eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about poverty in America about how deep poverty is today and what extreme poverty looks like in the 21st century. My guest is Peter Adelman his new book is so rich so poor why it's so hard to end poverty in America. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89

70. Are you worse off than your parents wore. Do you think of yourself as poor. Can we reverse poverty. And do you think the situation is hopeless. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can write to our Facebook page or send me a tweet at Cali Crosley. Now Peter Adelman one of the things that you emphasize over and over as we talk about the numbers having grown for various factors because of various factors is that the safety net has been crucial in keeping more people from going into poverty so those. Folks that you talked about who are in low wage jobs who are barely making it who are not officially below the poverty line but a good push they'd be over are often being saved by the safety net and one of the biggest ones is food stamps. Can you talk about that. Yes Kelly if I could just back up a little bit about safety net Ronald Reagan once said famously that

we fought a war on poverty and poverty won. That is not true. We have. You mention food stamps. Start with Social Security. That's the biggest piece of the safety net. Of course people have worked for that and earned it through their working life. Also the Earned Income Tax Credit and many many other things. Total keeping 40 million people out of poverty right now who would otherwise be in poverty. So we have 46 million poor we would have 86 million poor. So we have a safety net but. It has a huge hole in it at the bottom. We're not doing as well as we should. To get more income to those struggling people who are working who are barely in poverty or somewhat above it but where we've really fallen down most spectacularly is at the bottom we now have twenty point five million people who have incomes below half the poverty line below nine

thousand for a family of three. And we actually have one more number right now. Six million people whose only income is from food stamps. So your question was about food stamps as part of the safety net it's it's so important because in this recession it really really helped people. All the way to the bottom but all the way up into adding to unemployment compensation for people who had lost their jobs. So we went from 26 million to 46 million people on food stamps. That's a huge increase why. Because there is a legal right to get it. You go to the food stamp office they have to give it to you. And so people who had not been poor came and got help and people who were very poor got help. The problem at the very bottom is what's happened about cash assistance to mothers what we call welfare. The technical name now technical Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

Tana that has practically disappeared in about half the states really more than that in the country but in half the states 25 states. The number of poor children who are getting help and that means their moms and themselves is under 20 percent of the poor children in the state. It's unbelievable and Wyoming takes the cake and wins the prize on it six hundred seventeen people in the entire state four percent of the poor children are receiving cash assistance. So no wonder you have 6 million people who only have food stamps. That's a terrible problem. We don't want people to stay on welfare or we want people to be working we want to help them get jobs but if they can't find a job if they have issues to deal with there really has to be a safety net. All right. Steve from Sudbury Go ahead please you're on the callee Crosley show WGBH eighty nine point seven. I think your guest is right on here. And here's why. You know 69000 jobs created last month. Well what kind of jobs

where they get right down to it where they $8 an hour jobs. You know who's tracking that. And I'll bet they were. You know but your guest would agree with that. There there there's no. Hard to explain you know if you're in construction for instance it's very hard to find work and you know you're working for a lot less than it used to be and you can't pay your bills. Well in fact Stephen that was one of the sectors that the economists noted had been especially hard hit with the release of these that those job figures are 69000 it to which you refer to last Friday. What were you saying. Poverty now because you're calling to agree with Peter Edelman. Well Stan when my friends are losing their houses they're in construction. Came from California. And you know it's a lot worse out there.

One of the real things is the real question is you know what are the real unemployment numbers as people fall off the rolls after 90 days I believe. It is. You know I don't think there is a point numbers are real and I don't think you know what happened shovel ready jobs right. We construction got it you know. Well it need to be fixed. I don't see anything happening. I wonder what your guest would say to that. Well I'm going to ask him right now Steve on your behalf. Thank you so much for the call carefully. All right well thanks Steve that's that's a lot of things. First of all about the low wages. This of course is pervasive even when we don't have the current problems of the recession. The median job in this country Kelly let means half the jobs pay below this is thirty four thousand dollars a year. I mean it's really surprising. And a quarter

of the jobs pay less than the poverty line for a family for 20 less than $22000 So just to underline what Steve said. If you are a home health aide. The average wage for home health aides in the country is below the poverty line for a family of four. If you work with children in child care the average wage is below the poverty line for the family of three. Below 18000 So this is a very very widespread problem. And if you work in construction as Steve does then you're doing kind of project by project if you if there is no work then you're there you are right and I underline what Steve said about the jobs that are coming back or coming back at lower wages than they used to pay that's true. Look at the manufacturing jobs that are coming back. They're almost uniformly coming back at a lower wage than than was true before so the low wage problem is actually I think going forward getting

worse. Can I mention a couple more things let me let me take Steve from Cambridge it was another Steve and then you know add on to it if he if he wants to follow. Sure. Steve from Cambridge Go ahead please on the Kelly Crossley Show eighty nine point seven. Good afternoon Kelly. Peter oh Peter you're Peter not Steve sorry. No no no no you tell you something. Listen I firmly understand that there's a tremendous amount of poverty in this country and that there are many people who are working for jobs who really don't pay enough for people to live at the same time. Being in Cambridge being in an urban environment and I'm happy to say having what I consider to be a large diversity of friends I know women who won't get married because they will stay eligible for benefits without getting married. I know people who are on disability who could work but wouldn't work because

if they did they would lose their benefits. And I don't think they really want to work. So while you say that you do want people to get off welfare and you want these things to be temporary. I do think there is a problem that we do all have to acknowledge that human nature is such that when you make when you give people a lot of benefits people are going to tend to abuse them and they. Going to become saddled with those and it won't work is it. Disincentives. How do you address that problem Peter. I think that's one of the really important questions that we have to talk about honestly. These these stories are somewhat anecdotal. Who is not willing to get married right now so they can keep their welfare benefits. Well you know welfare benefits are time limited and they don't pay very

much and and so it strikes me that that story which we hear a lot is probably true in some cases but the much bigger thing is who's out there who's marriageable and what's the what what's the job situation that's available. A lot of the people who are taking disability now know maybe I'm just talking now and not at the top of prosperity but they're 50 to 60 you're four year old man who can't get another job and they were a police officer or a firefighter or something else where they can get disability and it becomes an income support thing for them. So the stories are those dueling stories. But. What we haven't done successfully particularly with welfare is to draw that line so the safety net works but the incentive is always in the favor that you can do better. If you have a job provided a job is available

and what happened with the 1996 laws we fell off the cliff the other way. We just said all over the country to the states and gave them complete legal power to do so there's no legal right to get welfare anywhere. Just lower those rolls we went from 14 million people. Generally this is women and children we're talking about down to under 4 million people. So that man in state after state it's just it's just not available at all. So we just blew it in the other direction. 14 million was too high because we weren't helping people and pushing people to go to work. There are many many more mothers and children who have need than four million we need to find the middle where we provide the help but we also provide the support the push and the support so women who are on welfare can get a job and keep it have the childcare and all the other things they need to keep it.

You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. We're talking about poverty in America. My guest is Peter Edelman. His new book is so rich so poor why ending poverty in America is so hard. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Or you can write to our Facebook page or send me a tweet at Kelly Crossley. So Steve in Cambridge it raises a point. I mean he's very reasonable. I know some people who I think are scamming. I know other people really also need this. But what you have talked about in your book is poverty becoming the P word in that. Lot of people the overwhelming public perception by many is that it's a big scam and that most people are not doing anything except sitting at home collecting a check. And that is really a hard perception for some people to walk away from. I will say here in Massachusetts a big argument discussion in the legislature that resulted

in or will result in there may be still some concern conversation about it removing the cash assistance part of the cards as the food stamp cards because some people did scam the system it became quite spectacular and people were furious particularly people who are struggling not in poverty per se but a they can't. They're trying to put food on the table themselves and you can understand that but at the same time you know it's a hard thing. Since you know by virtue of having worked in this field and looked at the numbers and seen the people that there really is a need and I'm I'm not quite sure what one says you said something just now but to get people away from the from the persistent perception that there is an overwhelming scam to this. Forty six million people in poverty. And that's probably a little bit low for what who really is 46 million people are scamming. 20 million people who have who are in deep poverty

20 million people are scamming all of the children who are poor and they scamming all of their mothers are scamming. It just doesn't add up it doesn't make sense particularly because what you can get not with the changes that we've made if you have no work and you have no employment compensation or it's run out is only food stamps you can't. The number of people in the whole country who can get cash assistance is one and a half percent of the American people. So what's the scam who's doing the scamming. Sure there are individual cases there are people who are selling food stamp benefits. Why because gosh they only have food stamps and what are they going to do to get a little bit of money to pay for some of the other things that so they can at least barely exist. So what we have to get out there are the actual numbers the amount of fraud that there is. Everything we know. These things are very very low.

Every time you get an example of somebody who was scamming It just messes it up for everybody. So describe what is the difference between poverty and extreme poverty where how is that different. The line that we have just federal statistical line for what we call extreme poverty or deep poverty is at 50 percent of the poverty line so we're talking nine thousand for a family of three hundred eleven thousand for a family of four. And so that's the arithmetical line but that's poverty that's not extreme poverty that is extreme plasmodium very low 9000 over a family of a very 11000 for a family of four. OK. So that's what I was talking about 20 million people now. If we're Since we're going into a little more detail there are some public benefits that help reduce that if somebody has food stamps that takes it down a little if they have if they have some work and they have earned income tax credit takes down will you still

still talking 14 million people. Who are they. Well they're disproportionately in the south. They're disproportionately children. They're disproportionately people of color African-American Latino Native American. They're they tend to be last in cities. I think that was a surprise for me. There are a lot a lot of poverty in the suburbs now. People don't know that. Yeah yeah. Yes that's true 50 percent a 53 percent increase in poverty in the suburbs that's true. But it's somebody who just gets to the point where they got nothing. And the one thing they may have is food stamps and they just struggle you know they they move from somebodies house to somebody else. Some of them almost family almost as up and they take the kids and they couch surf and then they can't stay at that place any longer because it just doesn't work

and so they find another place temper was terrible for the children. And to have seven million of those who are in deep poverty be mothers and children is just tragic because the damage that's being done to the kids is just awful in an industrialized country that's that's what I think is hard for a lot of people to reconcile. Let me take this call Bob from Brookline Go ahead please you're on the Calla Crossley Show eighty nine point seven. Thank you very much. And Peter I I just want to say from the society's perspective you know God forbid a society is not held employers are not held to account. Will you know hiring people you know. Would that everybody thought that employers were held to the same excruciating standard as the individuals who are out of work. You try to find work and you know they've got these software things you write your resume you write it this way you write it that way you could help

from different organizations and then you send in your resume and then some software has filtered you out before anybody taken the trouble to look at your resume and you know what about that fireman the policeman that you mentioned earlier I mean how is it possible you know for these people to have all this experience and then they're not even considered at the top of the list for work. So I mean the idea that people don't want to work that's just stuff that's nonsense. I mean what about the employers they don't want to hire. They want like you know what it's like a game but it's a deadly game and it's costing everybody you know their well-being. Do you see poverty where you are. Yes sometimes. What does it look like. Well you know it's people are unsure you know not. They get unemployment. They don't necessarily you know they run out of benefits and things like. Yeah all right.

But it's just it's just the idea that you know you you lose work for the first time in your life you're stunned you don't know what to do. And then they start herd me around like cattle and make you feel like you like you know you've done some terrible. Think and you know and then you apply for positions and nobody will even call you back. They don't even have to really act. They have a job and they don't even have respect for the job to actually do the job. They go get some software to just filter you out like you don't even count. I hear you. Thank you so much for the call. Thank you. Well Cali Why are they doing this filtering which is certainly not done in some rigorous careful way because there aren't enough jobs. It's as simple as that and so now we're finding all over the country of somebody who has been in jail or prison and we have all people saying well we have to help ex-offenders. They're now filtering out people who have an arrest and weren't

even convicted in that computer program that he's talking about. Secondly people do get wage jobs and this happens particularly to people who are in the country who are not here legally wage theft. Huge huge problem where the employer doesn't pay the minimum wage doesn't pay for overtime doesn't pay at all sometimes billions and billions of dollars and just preying on these people p e r e y. Now one of the Steves talked about the real unemployment numbers they're way higher then then the 8 percent read about the discouraged workers who just aren't even looking anymore. The people who are part time and can't find a job. We're talking about unemployment that's way closer to double the 8 percent than it is to the 8 percent. One of the Steves asked about shovel ready jobs. It's still true that we missed a boat at the beginning of the Obama administration and the

boat is still missing right now about public employment for people who can't find work not as an ongoing thing. But let's help people out of this mess that were in speaking to the unemployment issues that many of the callers have raised. I got this tweet from State Representative Dan Winslow he says I see poverty in the eyes of suburban voters who have been out of work for two plus years and who don't know where to turn so a lot of our comments today are coming from people who recognize at the beginning of the unraveling of financial security and the slide toward poverty begins with this unemployment that goes on forever. The reality is so different from the stereotype. And that comment just totally is one example of how the realty is so much different. So a conversation continues with Peter Adelman because why does a guy who is a professor at Georgetown University care about this so much why is he talking about poverty. And why is nobody else talking about it. I'm talking to Peter Edelman He's a professor of law at Georgetown

University Law Center. We're discussing his book so rich so poor why ending poverty in America is so hard. Join us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Have you been saved by the safety net. Any part of it do you know that you are just one hair's breath above the poverty line because of it. Call us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Are you struggling so much you can't think about somebody else being in poverty give us a call. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio. The. WGBH programs exist because of you and Harvard Extension School offering more than 150 online courses from neurobiology to the Civil War

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trip or two to the Windy City the Aegean Sea Caribbean or to any other JetBlue destination you might even find yourself with tickets to see the New England. Through. The gum. Don't. Be a hometown hero. Support Public Broadcasting and secure a great deal of time. It's easy to do it auctioned on WGBH dot org. The food truck has taken big cities by storm changing what we've come to expect from the food on the go. I'm Christina when I hear how the food truck boom is changing the way we eat. Meanwhile there are Massachusetts towns and cities want to know. Tomorrow on WGBH is MORNING EDITION. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show if you're just tuning in my guest is Peter Edelman He's a longtime anti poverty activist he's seen it all from extreme poverty in the Deep South to how policymakers talk about poverty in the Oval Office. His new book is so rich so poor why it's so hard to end poverty in America. Join us at 8 7

7 3 0 1 8 9 7 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine 70. Peter Adelman I before we went to break out we want to I mentioned your background in this because a lot of people might wonder why you are concentrating on this subject that many people run away from. But you did start out with Robert Kennedy touring the south and seeing the face of poverty up close and personal. Is this why you care so much about it now and why it's become your life's work. In a word yes. I worked for Robert Kennedy the whole time that he was in the Senate and he cared very deeply about issues of poverty and race in our country as well as people who were disenfranchised all over the world. South Africa Latin America and so on and it was I can only say an enormous privilege to go with him the way he learned about things was to go out and listen to people to meet

them to to hear from them and see what their problems were and so I had a learning experience and really tremendously scarring. I should say deeply deeply affecting experience of of seeing what goes on in our in our country especially in Mississippi where I did meet my wife and who's kept me. Marian Wright Edelman who's the head of the Children's Defense Fund who keeps me also on the good path. So you know some sort of inarticulate way I would say when RFK kind of made a commitment to stay at this. And a lot of things happened accidentally along the way that have kept me added And so now by now I'm totally here for the duration. So in 1996 you're working for President Clinton and you felt so strongly about what you

knew or felt would be an underpinning of the safety net if the Welfare Reform Act was signed into law by him that you resigned in protest it was signed into law where years after that. And yet in your book and you say in your book you feel that you know your predictions unfortunately did come true. You're still very much a supporter of public policy as a way to begin. Not everything but a way to begin to address this issue. I'm in favor of everything that we need to do. Public policy is a major part of it we can't do it without public policy. That's everything from public schools that educate our children that's public policy and including priest school early child development so that children grow up to have a chance to have an opportunity. It takes public policy to indorse enforce laws against race discrimination. There's a long list of things that are about giving people a chance and an opportunity but I'm also in favor of

communities taking responsibility civic responsibility people helping on an individual basis to to tutor and to mentor and anything else that people can do individually within poverty communities communities of color wherever they are. Leaders in those communities faith leaders other leaders in those communities taking responsibility for for standing for values of personal responsibility and of making something of one's self so this is this has to be an all out effort that that is public and private that's national and local that gets to every family to take responsibility as well but to be supportive. So people can have a chance as I said you're an anti-poverty activist you're a professor and a lawyer. Today Joseph Stiglitz is arguably one of the world's best known economist came out with his new book called The Price of inequality and he focuses on a

piece of his old book is about something that you very much emphasize in your book and that is the income gap and its detrimental effect on in your case you're looking at it through its impact on poverty. Just to put people in mind of what we're talking about you in your book you say income at the bottom 20 percent grew just 18 percent in the last twenty eight years. And at the top one percent two hundred and seventy five percent. And Joseph Stiglitz this morning on the program Morning Joe made this point. People in the top cannot begin to realize anything unless they understand we're all in the same boat. If we don't invest in education health care and it is he went on to say in their enlightened self-interest for us all to do better and by that he said he did not mean trickle down. It meant that people at various economic stratas had to come up in order for people even at the top to be able to enjoy and be economically secure in their wealth.

And there's a very simple point here Kelly beyond the moral question of having this much distance between the top and the bottom and the functioning of a democracy when there is so much political power that corporations and wealthy individuals have over everything. All of that is is very corrosive but it is in the self-interest of companies that produce goods and services to have consumers who have the ability to buy those products Franklin Roosevelt said that during the New Deal he was right it's of course it's always right and but we've gotten to the point now where and you make it clear that you're not about a class warfare but that somehow is to ask that the wealth gap that's huge as it is is becoming a new norm if you will Class warfare is is a red herring that the people on one side of the political spectrum always throw into it the minute you say

well people at the top ought to pay their fair share in running this country. Oh that's class warfare. Well it isn't. The fact is that people at the top benefit enormously from what this country is giving them that it should give them the infrastructure that allows them to succeed in to amass great resources. And they ought to pay for the chance that they've had to do that so when when we get this Grover Norquist make the government smaller than a bath tub drown drown the government in a bathtub. Just the there's a very simple answer to any proposal that there be more taxes to do the things that we need to do the answer is no we can't go on like this. Ed from Gloucester Go ahead please you're on the callee Crossley Show. Then I have a comment. One of the biggest debts we have is with student college loans. And when I was a Navy officer they had doctors and

nurses serving their country and having basically their costs paid for by the government. I think we do the same with a lot of these college students that can't get jobs allow them to get their loans paid off by the federal government of which they have a loan with and serve and things like graphic Service National Marine Fisheries. The school or other organizations I had thought of serving the sport basically very little. They have housing and food and they're serving the country and I feel as though brother the Republican a Democrat is going to get this together for young students. Now I have that I think you have Mr. Adelman thoughts. Absolutely thanks very much for the call and yeah 100 percent agreed. We've had the National Health Service Corps since 1965 where young people in return for committing themselves to serve in rural areas medically underserved areas get their medical education paid for. We did it briefly for

teachers in the 60s and we stopped doing it. Young people who go into teaching the way we do with Teach For America which is somewhat federally funded. This is a terrific idea and we just need to get these things on the table talk about them. I'm 100 percent for that. You know as as dense as your book is with these somewhat grim statistics in various areas very carefully laid out you at the end surprisingly maybe to say but you're very optimistic that this can be handled we're talking about poverty here so talk to me about why you're optimistic for a couple of reasons. One is that we've had time somewhat parallel to this in the past and we've gotten through them. I think the closest analogy is at the end of the Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century when you had quite a parallel thing with the

captains of industry and the bankers and all of that having enormous power and the country rose up and sensually change public policy to make the much more accountable. So I think that's possible. I think that we I hope that we started moving in that direction with Occupy Occupy itself has somewhat fizzled. But to get out there in a way we haven't for a long time the fact that the 1 percent is in a very different place from the other 99 percent so I think the basic point. Of people finally getting themselves sufficiently concerned about what's happening that they participate politically on a continuing basis and the other is if you look at what we've done over the last 50 years about these issues we've done a lot. It isn't as though nobody cared about poverty or nobody legislated about poverty whether it's Social Security beginning back in the New Deal

or all the food stamps and and there are an income tax credit help with housing help with going to college all of those things that we've done. We have 40 million people who we saved from poverty every year. The problem is that we're not standing up and being clear about what's happened to the economy that's caused so many people at the bottom to be stuck there and with wages that are so low and haven't grown at all in 40 years. So I think that we know that we. I can get things done and I think if we are clear about what the problems are and what the agenda is that we can get people to to participate in making a difference and particularly the people who are those workers who think that it's those low wage workers who think that it's their fault in some way or that nothing can be done. There are things we can do and if they would see that politically and vote in that way it would make a huge difference.

So with seconds to go will we hear the P word among between the presidential candidates this year. Will there be some serious attention paid to poverty issues. I think President Obama's done a lot for low income people and I really do hope that he will differentiate himself from his opponent Governor Romney by saying that what he's talking about about the middle class goes for everybody all the way down to the bottom. All right. Thank you so much Peter Adelman for a rich conversation we've been talking about poverty in America with Peter Edelman. He's a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center his new book is so rich so poor why it's so hard to in poverty in America. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley. You can follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the callee Crossley Show on Facebook. Today Show was engineered by Antonio only are produced by Chelsea Mertz will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka hour in turn is Sloane where our production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.