The Poverty Paradox: why is there still so much economic hardship in the US?
Mark Rank thinks about American poverty like a game of musical chairs.
“What we’ve done so long is focus on who loses out in the game rather than why the game produces losers in the first place,” the social scientist says in a video call from his office at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. “We’re playing a game of musical chairs with 10 players and only eight chairs. We can say, OK, who loses out of that game? Well, it’s people that aren’t as quick or they’re in a bad position when the music stops.
“But given that there are only eight chairs, then two people are going to lose out regardless of what their character is. That’s a very powerful analogy to use and it does capture what’s been happening in the United States. We focus on individual characteristics rather than saying, hey, there’s something wrong when we don’t have enough jobs that pay a decent wage.”
Rank, 67, who has spent decades researching poverty and inequality, is out with a new book, The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity. It brings a much needed sociological method and rigour to an issue too often reduced to political slogans or newspaper snapshots.
The paradox in the title has dogged politicians for generations: why does the wealthiest country in the world also have the highest rate of poverty among industrialised nations?
This is the land of New York and Los Angeles, of skyscrapers and space rockets, of multibillionaires Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Yet one in 10 Americans is officially poor. According to the US Census Bureau, the official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6%, with 37.9 million people in poverty (an example definition being a family of three with income below $21,559).
Rank
Read more on theguardian.com
