Hand-wringing On Behalf of the Poor and Other Useful Activities

From the font of wisdom known as Kevin Horrigan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The big red/blue/green thing we can't avoid:

In amongst the usual Republican bashing we are told:

A second great myth (Rank's word, certainly not mine) about poverty is that it's something that happens to other people. By age 75, nearly six in every 10 Americans will have spent at least one year of their adult lives living below the official poverty line. And get this, fellow Republicans: Rank says it's the fault of the system, not the individual. "We are playing a large-scale version of musical chairs in this country," he says, "where there are 10 players but only eight chairs. With the rising number of low-paying jobs, substantial unemployment, and a lack of affordable housing, the game is structured in a way that ensures a significant percentage of the population is going to lose out, no matter what their characteristics might be."

It is hard to see what Horrigan's specific complaint with Republicans is. There is no indication given that anything is different when Democrats are in power. The Unemployment statistics certainly don't show huge differences. The Unemployment rates during Clinton's first term were: 1993 6.9%, 1994 6.1%, 1995 5.6%, 1996 5.4%. For the first four years of Bush II the number have been: 2001 4.8%, 2002 5.8%, 2003 6.0% and so far in 2004 5.6%. (Unemployment Statistics 1920-2004) Whatever we can learn from these numbers, it isn't that one party "cares" and the other one "wants you dead."

Maybe it's an attack against the "system." Maybe what we need is the Western European model! Yeah that's it! Let's compare Unemployment rates for 1995/1996 when the US rate averaged 5.5% unemployment. At the same time rates in Western Europe were:

Belgium 9.3%
Canada 9.5% (Not Western Europe, but they always get mentioned)
Denmark 7.0%
Finland 17.4%
France 11.6%
Germany 8.8%
Italy 11.1%
Netherlands 7.1%
Norway 4.9%
Spain 22.9%
Sweden 8.0%
U.K. 8.2%
(stats)

So in terms of the "system" we seem to have much less unemployment built into it then in Western Europe. This is puzzling, because people like Jeremy Rifkin have said Europe is Nirvana itself!

It is also hard for me to understand ridiculing the notion that education is the best path out of poverty. It's a simple fact, the more education you have the better off you will be financially. (To this point in my life this hasn't worked for me personally, but I cannot argue with the aggregate statistics.) Re-training for a new line of work is certainly difficult, especially for those with families to support, but if your old line of work isn't around anymore what else are you supposed to do? I'd fault the president for stating the obvious without making it clear how he will help people in the process of re-training. I wouldn't fault the notion that education can help poor people. And once again, it is unclear exactly how the Democrats would offer anything substantially different.

Maybe it's because the Dems will "feel the poor's pain" more fully. Oh, that'll be useful.