Back in the early 1990s, I went to work as a human resource director for an aluminum die cast company. The company had moved to rural North Carolina from the Midwest because of low wages, low taxes and no unions. They hired me because their turnover rate was so high and they thought that maybe there were cultural issues that I could help them solve. I had a thick Southern accent, had been training workers in a textile mill and I had a college degree.
There were certainly cultural issues. Management had little interaction with rank-and-file employees and treated them more like adversaries than partners. On dispute after dispute, I found myself siding with employees rather than management.
I believed in the carpal tunnel syndrome that management denied existed. I thought the guy who got his hand permanently disfigured should continue to get workers’ compensation despite the company’s claim that he had received job training and now should be on his own. And when employees walked out after management insisted on leaving garage sized-doors open despite temperatures in the low 20s, I explained that they were not on a “wildcat strike,” as management contended, but that their mamas had taught them a long time ago to have enough sense to shut the door and come in from the cold.
Needless to say, I didn’t last long. After six months, I quit. In my exit interview, my supervisor, who was gruff but basically a good guy, told me, “You’re just so naive. These people will get away with as much as they can while doing as little work as possible.”
And that, I believe, is a common Republican world view. They think the majority of poor people and working folks aren’t trying to get ahead in life; they are trying to get over on the system.
So they must have thought this morning’s N&O editorial a bit quaint. The paper highlighted a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that found more than 25% of our state’s children live in poverty and we are in the bottom half of the country when it comes to quality of life issues. “North Carolina has long boasted of its progressive climate, of how it is more enlightened and nurturing of its residents than other states of the South…But these numbers show that any boasting has been outrun by reality,” the editors wrote.
Like my former bosses, Republicans are probably thinking “What a bunch of naive liberal bunk.” And that’s the difference in the Democrats who ran the state and the Republicans who control it now.
Nobody ever considered Marc Basnight, Tony Rand or Jim Hunt anti-business. But those Democrats also weren’t anti-poor. They understood that poverty was often caused by circumstances beyond people’s control and they also believed that government had a role in alleviating the impact of hardship on families. Most importantly, though, they believed that children were victims of poverty, not causes of it, and that education and support, from early childhood through college, offered the children of poverty the chance to escape it.
As long as we have leaders who see our poorest citizens as burdens and grifters, we’re doomed to make poverty harsher and ensure a permanent underclass. The free market may be the vehicle to create jobs, but it does little to soften the blow of poverty. To create the type of society I believe in, we need to do both.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Great piece. Hope the NC GOP reads it.
A wonderful column Thomas! Poverty is a very real issue in NC and those in NCGA seem disinterested in addressing it in any serious and meaningful way, other than to attack the poor for their poverty.
It is interesting that “right-to-work” states have high poverty rates. The state guarantees its citizens are low-wage fodder for the profit machines. Nothing really to be proud of, but there’s the GOP mindset for you – grind ’em up and spit ’em out. And brag loudly when people drop out of the work force altogether.
Mick, you are on target. I taught in high school almost 37 years. I saw many students who were stuck in inadequate situations and given little in the way of alternatives. When there is no hope and no expectation that things will improve, progress declines. Even if tuition is paid at a state university, the bulk of the cost is borne by the taxpayers, and the mere existence of the university system is a long-term committment by the state’s representatives of the citizenry. Living with medical care, food and clothing, observing good role models is not a universal experience, unfortunately. A student who has never had an eye exam or dental care is likely to have some other lost opportunities or needs. Just having a book bag is a problem for some kids. What we build together is the foundation for what we will accomplish individually. Sounds a little preachy, but it’s me.
Thoughtful piece.
My family was squarely lower/middle class income-wise when I was growing up, but I was blessed. My parents cared, saved money, fed me well, put me though private K-12 schools, and, with state scholarships helping, paid for my college education. They also embedded in me a work ethic, a desire to excel, and a respect for others and for social institutions.
Now, in retirement, I often find myself looking back, and, in retrospect, only more fully appreciate just how lucky I was. I also see just how unlucky others might have been, or, in today’s world, might be. There seem to be so many successful Americans today who, like me, owe so much to the circumstances into which they were born or raised, but have a skewed world view that tells them that they themselves earned what they have. It sees those who are struggling as people who don’t working hard enough, or are lazy, foolish, greedy, or just trying to con the system. It’s clear to me that these two divergent attitudes delineate a deep divide in the mindset of Americans today—- one that can be empathetic about the bad cards dealt to others (based on “There, but for the grace of god, go I”), and the other that only finds fault within those who have not achieved or have fewer resources.