The 1930's It Ain't

Lead News-story Sept. 17th 2010

"The poverty rate in the US has jumped sharply in 2009." I hear constant comparisons between this recession and the 1930s. You are fortunate as you are reading a fellow who actually lived through the thirties. So, here’s how I remember that time. When I was still a very young man under 20 and I applied for Home Relief. (That was the original name of Welfare.) You had to show some evidence that you had looked for work. There was absolutely no jobs available so we did the next best thing. This meant the name address and phone number of the places you sought employment. That was easy as a group of us would pool our job hunting experiences. Finally found eligible you were placed on Home Relief. That meant a monthly check for rent and food.

Next step would be a government run jobs program. My first was the National Youth Administration. I was sent to work as a Detective at the National Desertions Bureau. This was a Jewish philanthropic organization. It’s job was to find husbands who had left their wives and try to reconcile them. My big find was a wrestler, “Sam The Butcher.” But that’s another story. During the LBJ War on Poverty a similar program was the Neighborhood Youth Corps.

My next stop in the thirties depression was the WPA. There I worked on construction projects such as Orchard Beach, Macombs Dam Park, Bronx Zoo, etc. If any of those jobs were completed and there was no further work available you were put back on Home Relief. In other words there was a whole number of safety net programs that would help individuals and their families to survive.

When Michael Harrington wrote, “The Other America, Poverty in the United States” back in 1962 it lead to the creation of the “Anti Poverty Program.” That effort was closer to the government model of the thirties than what is going on now. When I read about whole families being forced to live in homeless shelters I am simply appalled. We had been through all that in past depressions, recessions. We had learned the need for the government to step in and find ways to support families from this terrible spiral of homelessness, alcohol, drugs. In a word, the path to destruction of what we hold as a precious form of social life, the family.

Anybody with an ounce of compassion should be able to see that the tragedy unfolding before us is not the fault of the people suffering. In the simplest terms, the system has failed them. When I hear some of the right wing blow-hards saying the “unemployed are lazy and if they wanted to work they could” and more terrible bullshit like that it makes my blood boil. (I guess you could sense that pretty good without me telling it,) Well, it was no different starting in the great depression. Yes, there were those back then who would make the same claim. “That bunch of unemployed out there are just lazy layabouts who just don’t want to work.”

Unfortunately the Obama team just doesn’t get how serious the recession is for those whose lives are coming apart through no fault of their own. In one sense the White House bunch are elitists who simply are not able to make contact with those who are bearing the brunt of an economic catastrophe. Never forget the victims were not the cause. And yes, “They are mad as hell” for the simple reason that those who created the mess have been handily bailed out while the victims are being told to, “hang in there better times are coming.” The problem is there is nothing to “hang on to” and so they are drowning while the right wingnuts are choraling all that anger into political capital. Obama and company wake up or the election results will give you a severe case of adjuda.