Congress has begun paying more attention to counties whose poverty rates persist at 20% or more over a 30-year period. Forty-three of Mississippi’s 82 counties rate among these “persistent poverty counties,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
The 2022 report said up to 15.9% of the nation’s 3,143 counties suffer persistent poverty. But Mississippi’s ratio was triple that at 52.4%.
What is Mississippi’s strategy to address persistent poverty in these counties?
The concept that Mississippi leaders appear to have embraced is that putting people to work will eradicate poverty. So, the state has invested heavily in basic skills and workforce training to prepare poor people with few skills for jobs.
The State Workforce Investment Board, called the SWIB, controls state and federal dollars to fund these programs. Federal dollars go into programs for “out-of-school youth” and adult “dislocated workers” coordinated through regional Workforce Investment Boards and planning and development districts. State dollars mostly go into community college training programs but also into targeted training programs run by other organizations.
However, training programs are not available in all areas, so daily transportation is a problem for many. Lack of money to pay fees is another.
The federally funded Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program managed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services also has a role in placing poor people into jobs.
However, we have seen TANF money corruptly siphoned off and used for other purposes. And in many years, the state somehow was unable to use all its TANF funds despite thousands of unaccepted applications.
Despite all the training that is available, the lack of available jobs in rural, persistently poor counties makes it tough to put people to work in their home areas.
Then there is the hole in the whole – the great big hole in the whole scheme. In Mississippi, putting people to work often does not alleviate poverty. With the lowest average wages in the nation, Mississippi has many hard-working people who earn so little they remain in poverty.
Indeed, many poor people find themselves worse off when they take low-wage jobs. Costs for child care and traveling eat up limited income. Rent subsidies and charitable care in emergency rooms disappear. When they get behind on bills their meager pay can be garnished.
Tough, say the politicians who determine state policies. Taxpayers shouldn’t bear their burdens. Cut back on federally funded subsidies, tighten up access, and make ’em go to work.
Alternatively, places committed to working with poor families have plugged the hole. Using well-coordinated federal, state, and local resources sustained over time, they step many families out of poverty.
In Mississippi the mechanisms are in place but not sustained commitment and coordination. Instead we sustain our persistent poverty, low-wages, world-leading incarceration rate, and nation-lowest workforce participation rate.
“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself” – Romans 2:5.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.
19 comments:
LBJ's "great society" initiative should be kicking in any decade now.
Great book: "Please Stop Helping Us: How liberals make it harder for blacks to succeed." by Jason Riley
These programs are very successful, especially if you are a friend of depty Pheel.
Bill Crawford is one of the last people whose opinions I am going to consider when it comes to solving the problem of poverty in Mississippi. The last person is Bennie Thompson.
Bill...it is not too late to get a job. Personal opine...ya can't live off ur daddy's labor forever.
People are only poor if they are lazy or stupid. Just talk to any poor person. You will hear the dumbest excuses for why they can’t go to work. These people shouldn’t be helped by the government. They will eventually work if they are hungry enough.
Crawford is spot on.
Our legislature is inept at using federal funds other that as a license to siphon funds to their political supporters, many of whom enjoy quite a bit of wealth already and have relied on cheap labor for generations to continue to amass wealth and support incompetent relatives.
It was amusing to watch what happened when "illegal" Mexican labor was embraced. Aside from language problems, the expected work ethic and skill level not only didn't materialize, but some lost the very best of their prior labor force.
And, that no real effort has been put into replacing it and junior colleges accept more students into programs than the job market demands or have fewer students than needed for existing demands.
Such silliness happens when the focus is getting the money, not efficiently spending it where it will actually benefit the State most. And God forbid they should ever use a "blueprint" of success from another State.
The one mayor who did, wouldn't dare admit it and worse then abandoned research on key details after the initial success.
There are just so many people in this state that are not and never will be qualified for anything other than simple manual labor. They are 4th and 5th and 6th generation descendants of people who were likewise unqualified. Before farming became almost completely mechanized there was plenty for them to do. I sometimes think the only solution is government incentivized sterilization of the chronically impoverished. A $10K payment to a young woman to have her tubes tied before she begins reproducing may seem like a lot of money, but it's a substantial bargain compared to what it costs for cradle-to-grave care for the next generation she will produce and that they, in turn, will produce after that. The number of people riding the wagon grows every year and the number of people pulling it shrinks.
It’s easy to point out a problem Bill. What is your solution?
43 counties, MS is predominantly white and 10:31 couldn’t help but make this about race. OAN, I once worked at Walmart and I can say for sure they did not pay a livable wage at that time. 11:13 didn’t read the entire post. The next time your in a grocery store, restaurant etc. pay attention to who is working. Many places here don’t pay a livable wage and people still have to rely on govt assistance. College is expensive. Trades should be encouraged more often.
Mississippi will no doubt get blamed for this but the cold hard fact is the vast (make that VAST) majority of these people would be poor in any state they lived.
Mississippi will no doubt get blamed for this but the cold hard fact is the vast (make that VAST) majority of these people would be poor in any state they lived.
Yet for some reason Mississippi has managed to have so many of them move to Mississippi.
According to " THE JPS DISTRICT" ... this or that school will be closed next week and the young scholars
will attend virtual classes.
However, parents are reminded the cafeterias will remain one for free lunch pick-up between 11:30 AM & 2 PM.
One thing is almost a for sure,
one day soon,
the lazy assed Americans,
that have been coddled and safety netted into not being able to take care of themselves,
after 6 decades,
with 20+ trillion spent on them,
and their family units destroyed,
will be leasing their homes from the hard working immigrants coming to America from Mexico etc.,
that haven't been given anything.
And when this happens,
the lazy assed Americans leasing their homes from the hard working immigrants,
are going to look really stupid.
The government can not buy your way out of poverty, if it could the trillions spent since LBJ would surely have succeeded. Don't say poor wage rates for what are low level, entry position jobs are at fault, those jobs should be stepping stones for improvement, if the individual has incentive to improve their lot in life. Education in science, math, English, and actual history are fundamental, not woke pronouns,CRT, 1619 faux history, and 'equity' of outcomes rather than
the equitable reward for performance. The breakdown of the family unit and fatherless, faithless, street children are at the core of our problems.
Are all those people flooding our borders complaining about wages? Or do they want to escape the failed socialist systems that we are told are the equitable end?
They would not be poor if their TANF benefits had been $94 million like Phil, Brett, and Nancy
ive met a jillion immigrants from mexico and central america, and the carribbevn
both legal and illegal
they all had one thing in common
they all had a job................................
let that sink in
Mississippi needs to lessen the teen pregnancy rate. That will go a long way to repair the poverty issue.
Maybe we should let dying towns and communities die, rather than spend money on them in the vain hope of saving them. Throwing good money after bad is not good fiscal policy. I see Presley and others saying we need to spend money to modernize these communities, fiber and internet and whatnot, so people will have an opportunity. Why do that, wouldn't it be a better use of resources to buy them a one way bus ticket to a community that has those opportunities. Isn't that what the illegals are doing? Buying that ticket to a better tomorrow by moving? Maybe if we didn't make life comfortable for those that sit and do nothing, but have a hand out, our welfare system would have a lot fewer people on it. Yes, I know, I'm a heartless SOB, but people have MOVED for centuries for better opportunities, why make it more profitable to stay in your pile of ...... than to get off your --- and make a better life for yourself.
I agree there are people who in various ways take advantage of state and federal assistance programs, but that is no reason to condemn everyone who does not have a job. There are millions of Americans who cannot work and need assistance. As an aside to the moron who equates assistance programs with socialism, you need to read up on socialism, because you obviously do not understand it. The old Soviet Union was a socialist country. The United States is not.
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