The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently ran an editorial in which it rightly applauded Mayor Shirley Franklin’s efforts to tackle our city’s homeless problem. It was also correct to note that homelessness is “not exclusively ‘an Atlanta problem’†– far from it. It is an American problem.
The root of homelessness lies in a simple truth: some people’s labor is not worth what it costs for self-support. In view of this fact, one way to greatly reduce the number of homeless would be to put a floor on income for every American. It will inevitably be asked: why should the majority of Americans provide for those who cannot adequately provide for themselves? Here the reader may expect a typical liberal pitch for compassion. But this writer is well aware of the “compassion fatigue†to which the AJC editorial refers. Moreover, those opposing such a proposal counter with appeals to the far stronger emotion of self-interest. Rush Limbaugh says “we are all just here for ourselves.” Thomas Sowell contends that “the producers do not owe anything to the non-producers.”
What these statements fail to recognize is that poverty, especially the extreme poverty represented by homelessness, is not solely a problem of the poor themselves. It imposes costs on all its citizens. The “aggressive panhandling†cited in the AJC opinion is only one of these costs. Others include unsanitary effects and a pervading sense of anxiety and threat.
Anyone mistaking a guaranteed annual income for a socialist or communist proposal should be reminded that it has been supported by staunch free market economist Milton Friedman and Republican President Richard Nixon. An income floor does not imply government control of the economy.
It is important to differentiate between an income floor and the ragged safety nets of welfare and unemployment benefits that are currently in place. Recipients of these programs lose money when they earn and that provides a disincentive to work coupled with a reason to cheat. The laziness and dishonesty so often stereotyped as traits of the poor are in part caused by this perverse combination of incentives. A guaranteed annual income would avoid these pitfalls because it would go to each citizen automatically.
Of course, the idea of an income floor alarms many because a certain number of people, those who are both lazy and non-materialistic, will be satisfied with a minimal level of food, clothing, and shelter. This writer has enough faith in the sort of ambition that has brought our species out of the caves and into the skyscrapers to believe that the number of non-materialistic and lazy people is small. The vast majority of Americans will always want more as seen by the long hours of hard work performed by some of the most affluent.
I should confess that I have special reasons to identify with and be concerned for the homeless. My father was a victim of the 1970s recession. He had worked for the B. F. Goodrich Company for 27 years when the plant shut down. He found himself jobless and employers not eager to invest in training a man entering his fifties. My parents and brothers still living at home dropped from lower middle-class to impoverished, from a two-story, three-bedroom tract home to a tiny trailer where they sometimes went without adequate meals and air conditioning. Other people were even more unfortunate — they ended up on the streets.
I myself suffer from a disability that prevents me from being self-supporting. However, I am not homeless because my ex-husband wanted to provide me with a “guaranteed annual income†in the form of alimony. This leads me to strongly believe that few Americans will collapse into bed, Victorian princess-style, if they have a similar income floor. Despite the fact that I can afford decent food, clothing, and shelter, I like to earn when possible and that fact can be verified by going to websites such as http://www.crimelibrary.com or http://www.crimemagazine.com and inputting “Denise Noe†into the search engine.
