Photo: Michael Slager.
Many years ago, I worked at a motel as a groundskeeper. A woman—I’ll call her Anna—lived there with her children. One of her friends would sometimes come to look after the kids when she had to work or run errands. They had several cats who spent most of their time living in the family’s car since the owner would not allow the felines to stay in the room. Both the people and the cats lived there for months.
Anna was one of thousands of Americans who live in motels. Poor credit histories, high rents, and prohibitively steep upfront costs, such as security deposits, compel many to find alternative long-term lodging that at least has some basic amenities: a kitchenette (or just a microwave) and a shower.
Although weekly rates are higher than renting even modestly priced apartments, there is often little choice. The rooms can be cramped, and they are sometimes run down. Safety can be a concern, and privacy is virtually impossible. Yet, people go to work, send their children to school, and make these places temporary homes.
Out of an approximate 755,000 unhoused people in the United States, there are no reliable estimates for the number who live in motels. I have passed by the one in the picture above (I didn’t work at this particular motel) many times; it’s in the neighborhood where I now live, and it sometimes makes me think of Anna and her family. Her kids would be adults by now, yet another generation calls such places home.
What struck me was the sign someone hung on the second-floor railing. It honors 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. It’s a sort of birthday card for the country’s approaching semiquincentennial.
Birthdays are supposed to mark milestones and accomplishments. When it comes to national celebrations, the festivities are meant to be a collective, public recognition of something good we have done. Such commemorations can also demonstrate pride in having survived some national crisis.
However, concerning poverty, we are in a continuing crisis that is far from a source of pride. Growing inequality has created conditions that have generated 36 million people who live under the official poverty line. That is roughly 10 million more than the combined number of residents of the top 10 most populous cities in the United States or just under the population of California.
The sign was displayed in a place where people struggle unnecessarily, where children have to deal with obstacles to their growth and development; it is no secret that poverty takes a toll on young minds and bodies. Food insecurity and homelessness have negative effects on physical development, academic achievement, emotional regulation, and social skills.
Most egregious of all is that this state of affairs has been deliberately chosen, not by those living in it, but by those who inhabit stations in life that few can imagine. Many politicians and pundits often manage to convince somewhat better-off Americans that those who live in poverty are to blame, not the legislators themselves and certainly not the donor class, who enjoy unparalleled advantages and access to lawmakers.
They can afford to celebrate America’s birthday in grand style, safe in the belief that they are the better set of people. However, those who indulge in congratulating themselves and each other on their alleged virtues or ask for plaudits in the form of votes, have elected to make the plight of the most vulnerable in our country even worse.
For example, in 2021, the US Congress expanded eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC). As a result of an extra $300 each month for newly qualified households, child poverty in the United States was nearly halved. Republicans, with the help of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, voted against renewing the expansion. Manchin, a multi-millionaire, falsely claimed that there was no means testing to receive the expanded tax credit and reportedly said that beneficiaries would use the money on drugs. In the end, lawmakers returned millions of children to poverty. It was a direct and unequivocal refusal to use the tools at their disposal to alleviate serious hardships.
The United States Congress has also consistently refused to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour. Although 19 states have passed legislation to create a 15-dollar hourly minimum, a nationwide law would lift millions more people out of poverty. Over 800,000 workers, mostly women who labor in the service industry, still try to live on $7.25 an hour, a rate that has not been raised since 2009. Oxfam estimates that a federal wage hike would mean that a quarter of the US workforce would see significant gains in pay.
Legislators also consistently refuse to address privation in indirect ways. For instance, according to Pentagon estimates from May, the Trump administration’s unprovoked and illegal war on Iran had at that time cost nearly 30 billion dollars. The number is likely to be far higher as we approach the nation’s birthday. Budgets showcase priorities, and windfalls for the defense industry are always at the top of the list.
The money we have collectively wasted on unnecessary military conflicts could have been dedicated to poverty alleviation. The funds for the Iran war, for example, could have provided sustainable housing and continued support for everyone currently living in homeless shelters across the United States. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a non-partisan, non-profit organization, it would cost the US government 9.6 billion to find permanent housing for those living in shelters. That figure is roughly one-third of the Pentagon’s May estimates of the Iran war’s cost.
A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with planners’ decisions about how resources are allocated. For example, a Gallup poll shows that only about 30 percent of Americans approve of how wealth is distributed in the United States. Two-thirds believe that wealthy individuals and corporations do not pay their fair share. Polling data has consistently shown that the majority believe poverty reduction programs are generally beneficial and more should be done to help those in need.
However, many lawmakers have no intention of writing legislation that would seriously address issues of poverty and homelessness. Their priorities have demonstrated that they do not share the sentiments of the population. This is nothing new. James Madison, a Founding Father and fourth President of the United States, would likely have been appalled by twenty-first century capitalism, but he argued that it was the government’s obligation to keep majority sentiment at bay, to guard against “those … who secretly sigh for a more equitable distribution of its [the country’s] blessings” and to fight against the notion of “a levelling spirit,” an idea that he feared had already emerged even then.
Today’s leaders are in accord with the architects of a country whose 250th birthday we will soon observe. They also resist the establishment of a direct, participatory democracy that more equally distributes resources to those like Anna and her children.
