Yesterday, I overheard a conversation at my favorite bar. Several people were trading stories about how people had tried to scam them for money by pretending to be homeless or needing bus fare. Typically, these anecdotes centered on how the teller realized that the person was lying and didn’t get the handout he was looking for. Sometimes, the anecdote ended with the teller saying “Get a job!” Fortunately, at least one story featured a truly hungry person. The teller had exited a sandwich shop with a sub in his hands when a many asked him for money. Instead of money, he gave the man his sub. The man said “Thank you” and proceeded to devour the sub adding that he “hadn’t had any food for three days.”
We all have stories that describe how our sympathies were preyed on by some apparently homeless/hungry person. It’s a shame that this sort of scamming happens . . . but it does. But, there are truly needy people who rely on others’ generosity to survive. The fact that people who aren’t needy sometimes pretend to be causes sympathetic people to be suspicious of beggars and permits any qualms of conscience to be easily pushed aside. “He probably isn’t really homeless. He probably has a nicer place than I do.”
In America, if you’re poor it’s your own fault. You’re unwilling to work, you’re lazy, you’re sponging off the good intentions of the social safety net programs. It’s likely that there are people that exploit the social safety net that aren’t really needy. It’s paradoxical that one of the richest countries in the world has a proliferation of homeless and hungry people. So, the paradox is resolved by imagining that the poor aren’t really poor or, if they are, it’s because they don’t want to work.
Even before this long recession we’re in began, 5% unemployment was considered to be optimal — full employment — by many economists. By having unemployment at that level, upward pressure on wages is lessened and inflation is constrained. Although many people would disagree with this interpretation, I see this as deliberately keeping 5% of the willing workforce out of work for the good of the economy. Assuming that this is right and necessary — that the economy is most robust with that level of unemployment — I think the government has some responsibility for some degree of support for those people who are willing to work but constrained from working.
If it’s possible to make the means testing for social safety programs more perfect we should certainly do it. On the other hand, as long as there is some fraud, it’s easier to push the problem of homelessness, unemployment and hunger aside by assuming that if you’re poor in America, it’s your own damned fault.