NYT: Bloomberg's Plan Isn't Creative, It's Conservative
New York city Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his unfortunate plan for combating poverty this week. The city administration went to some pain to redefine poverty as a problem of opportunity, not effort, by calling his task force the “Commission on Economic Opportunity”. But, the New York Times reporting on this issue makes it clear that a successful communications strategy requires more than mere renaming.
While some people describe the plan as “different” and the mayor’s own press release called it “nationally unique”, it is in most critical ways very traditional and consistent with conservative aims.
First, the mayor calls into the question the role of government in addressing poverty by creating a new office that will administer initiatives funded with private resources (a self-defined “novel funding strategy”), under the leadership of a director plucked from the private sector. While there is a fair amount of public investment envisioned for the new office—including a worthwhile effort to test the idea of providing a tax credit for child care costs—the press focus has been on the private fundraising for “new ideas” to empower the poor.
The paper of record perfectly illustrates the mayor’s unfortunate and traditionally conservative approach with this headline: “Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York’s Poor”.
Moreover, the narrative focuses on the problematic dominant frame for poverty that is implicitly endorsed by the mayor’s initiatives: there’s something wrong with people who are poor—they got that way by making bad choices and we are going to try to “fix them” by making sure they stay in school, get medical care, and save money. As the reporter notes, "The administration’s efforts would place an emphasis on rewarding good behavior and promoting self-sufficiency.”
Even the implied criticism of predatory lenders in the press release fails to focus on corporate irresponsibility and suggests the solution is educating the poor about how to save.
Seriously, I’ve got nothing at all against financial literacy training. But is this a novel idea? Nope—not a bit.
And Individual Development Accounts (savings accounts matched with private funds—another hallmark of the Mayor’s plan) were a new idea back when Bill Clinton was running for President. Plus, at least as currently implemented, they seem to be a bad bet for investors.
Instead, it would be nice if we could focus on the immoral system of opportunity lending to low-wage workers.
Why should it be permissible for lenders to take advantage of people stuck in a bad economy? Congress just capped some lending to military personnel at a 36 percent interest rate. THIRTY SIX PERCENT? And why just for military personnel? They only fill a small percentage of the 30 million low-wage jobs in this country. Nearly a third of all jobs pay less than $10 an hour. If the public had a chance to vote on a reasonable interest rate for lenders to charge to cover risk and profit, do you think voters would acquiesce to 36 percent? Not likely.
As reported in the Times, it seems the mayor believes that government does not have solutions for millions of low-wage workers, and charity should focus (again) on individual responsibility (or, as implied, irresponsibility). Apparently, Horatio Alger lives another day.
Whatever positive elements there may be in the Mayor’s plan – and there probably is some equity in testing the idea of child care tax credits – these were lost in the reporting on the issue. The New York Times story simply reinforces existing perceptions: the government cannot solve problems in the economy and poverty is a problem of personal irresponsibility.
It’s a bad day for our economy when major media reports fail to address the fact that our leaders are too dependent upon and forgiving of employers that create low-wage jobs (while corporate leaders get unimaginable year-end bonuses), and are seemingly unwilling to re-regulate a lending industry that is taking unfair advantage of workers at all income levels.
I canvassed for Bloomberg's opponent in 2001 and was pretty distraught when he won that year. Four years later, I enthusiastically voted for him, and at this point I'd seriously consider supporting him for president, depending on whom the Democrats nominate. The reason why is the same reason I received the specifics of the CEO plan with more enthusiasm than the particulars might seem to warrant: above all else, the guy demands performance.
I would rather see the administration start small, make it work, institutionalize the progress and then scale up, than declare a supremely ambitious anti-poverty agenda that might quicken the hearts of policy thinkers who live this stuff, but would be all but guaranteed to fall short of lofty goals and likely come under fire from all corners of the political map for its grandiosity as well as its failures. Had Freddy Ferrer won the 2005 mayoral election, I'm sure he would have come up with something much more palatable to the advocacy community (though also larded with handouts to his backers and goodies for the various borough-based Democratic machines); I'm also sure it wouldn't have worked. What Bloomberg has done here might not seem as appealing, but I also think it's much more likely to yield results. As well, don't overlook the importance of Richard Parsons' credibility being tied to an antipoverty campaign: whether or not he runs for mayor in 2009, neither he nor any other city Republican will be able to slam this thing.
All that said, Margy's criticisms of the NYT coverage is spot-on. Sadly, Diane Cardwell just isn't all that good a reporter; she's been covering these issues for years, but still shows little understanding not just of the policy landscape but even the scope of the need. That line about "pockets of poverty hidden among NYC's vast wealth" (I'm paraphrasing) might almost lead one not to think that the city's officially defined poor, considered just as a separate group, would constitute one of the biggest cities in America. Disgraceful.