October 8, 2010 Poverty and the Impoverished

This blog post explores community perceptions and poverty. To hear more discussion on this topic, please attend a public hearing SDC and Aurora are co-hosting on alcohol and other drug abuse (AODA) and poverty. The hearing will be on Wednesday October 13^th at Sinai Medical Center (950 N 12^th St, Milwaukee) from 4:30-7:00. More information can be found here: AODA Public Hearing Flyer 

SDC recently partnered with UW – Milwaukee’s Center for Urban Initiatives & Research (CUIR) to conduct a comprehensive community needs assessment. For more information on this research project, follow this link: SDC 2010 Community Needs Assessment

One of the more interesting findings of the needs assessment comes from the telephone survey. A telephone survey of 420 Milwaukee County residents was conducted using random digit dialing and had a sampling error of 4.8%. Results for this survey can be found at this link: SDC 2010 Telephone Survey Report.

Respondents were asked three sets of questions: (1) what causes poverty (2) what barriers keep people in poverty and (3) what solutions can reduce poverty. The first and third sets of questions (causes and solutions) asked respondents to reflect on poverty as a general concept. The second set of questions (barriers) asked respondents to think about poverty on an individual level.

When respondents thought about causes and solutions, they looked at large-scale, socio-economic factors—for example, poverty is caused by unemployment, insufficient educational systems, etc. However, when respondents focused on specific individuals in poverty, responses did not center on how socio-economic factors impact the specific individual. In other words, respondents did not think about how structural unemployment or our educational systems affect individuals and their ability to earn a family-supporting wage. Instead respondents identified substance abuse and poor family relationships as the top barriers for getting out of poverty. These results suggest there’s a disconnect in our thinking of poverty in general and poverty on an individual level.

What do you think? Is there a disconnect here, and if so, what are the consequences of that disconnect? Are these issues mutually exclusive or do we need to recognize both societal responsibility and personal responsibility?

Dave Celata

Policy & Research Manager

Social Development Commission

UPDATE (10/12/10): I recently read an interesting study by Michael Norton (Harvard Business School) and Dan Ariely (Duke University) entitled "Building a Better America - One Wealth Quintile at a Time". This study may be of interest in connection to this topic. Here's a link to the study: Norton & Ariely Study 2010. If you’re interested in cutting to the chase, the two graphs on pages 12 and 13 provide a good presentation of the article’s findings.

Essentially, Norton and Ariely found that our perceptions of wealth distribution in the United States does not match the actual distribution of wealth—instead, the actual distribution of wealth is much more unequal and top heavy than we think. These findings were true for all demographics (male or female, low-income or wealthy, conservative or liberal, etc.)

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