John Edwards’s vision of American economic suffering is neatly summed up in this quote, from 2004 campaign:
Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life.
That second America refers to the middle- and working-classes, and particularly the poor. The government’s annual statistical report on household income and poverty—which this year indicated a drop in poverty from 12.6 percent in 2005 to 12.3 percent in 2006 but a net rise of 11.3 percent since 2000—seem on its surface to support Edward’s point of view.
As do the responses of left and centrist liberals. For example, Bernard Wasow of the Century Foundation contends that if poverty is measured properly, not in terms of what it costs to buy things but as the relative income of poor as compared to median households, poverty is worse than ever. Official poverty, notes Wasow, “has fallen from more than 40 percent of median income when it was introduced in 1964 to less than 30 percent of median income today.” In the center, the DLC blog Ideas Primary points out that for the third year in a row, full-time workers experienced a decline in median earnings. “Income went up,” says Katie Campbell, “because Americans must work more hours to make up for their falling wages.”
But economics writer Robert Samuelson says that the conventional wisdom that “poverty is stuck” is only “superficially” true. Samuelson argues that we are, in fact, importing poverty, and that comparisons with past census statistics miss the point. “Only an act of willful denial,” he argues, “can separate immigration and poverty.” Samuelson explains that while white and (even more sharply) black poverty have declined substantially, Hispanic poverty has been growing right along with large-scale immigration. This gives the lie to Edward’s vision of the Two Americas: rising poverty is a problem confined largely to a new immigrant population. Samuelson notes that
[f]rom 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty fell from 16.6 million (poverty rate: 8.8 percent) in 1990 to 16 million (8.2 percent) in 2006. Among blacks, there was a decline from 9.8 million in 1990 (poverty rate: 31.9 percent) to 9 million (24.3 percent) in 2006.
Samuelson is certainly right to argue, as he does later in the piece, that absence of an honest look at demographics makes the current poverty debate largely irrelevant. The Edwards stratagem, after all, makes sense to few Americans because it’s not consistent with what they’ve seen and experienced, and this inconsistency stems from its failure to take demographics into account.
