Matt Peters
map006@marietta.edu
The semester’s first Esbenshade series lecture took place on Monday, September 14. In this lecture, entitled “A Blueprint for Ending Poverty… Permanently,” sociologist Dr. David Grusky discussed the issue of poverty in the United States. Grusky is the Barbara Kimball Browning Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality, and coeditor of Stanford’s Studies in Social Inequality book series.
According to Grusky, there are two major “backdrops” perpetuating the issue of poverty in the US: rising income inequality and commodification. The latter, he claims, is where we should focus our attention.
“Rising commodification… That’s what gives rising (income) inequality its teeth,” he said.
Grusky believes that the decline of certain “public goods” such as good schools, valuable contacts, and high-amenity neighborhoods – is the mainspring of economic inequality in the US.
“Opportunity increasingly has to be purchased,” he said.
For instance, as neighborhoods have become increasingly less integrated, public goods have become more and more scarce among the lower class.
“Now the rich people tend to live with the rich people and the poor people tend to live with poor people” Grusky said. … “You’ve got to buy your way into the amenity of a nice school,” Grusky said.
Grusky advocates what he calls the “Decommodification Approach;” a plan that involves “identifying key junctures in which money buys opportunity” and “Delivering the equalizing services directly at those key junctures.”
“The backbone of the plan will be equalizing access to college,” he said.
However, another component of the plan is intervention in the prenatal and postnatal stages through early childhood education in the form of home visits. Grusky believes that information intervention at various stages in a child’s development can have a major impact on their educational success.
“In effect, we’re making access to training opportunities a birthright,” he said… “Every child, no matter how poor or rich their families might be — should have access to opportunities.”
Grusky is proposing an $8.5 billion- per year plan for the state of California that he believes will pass.
Following his lecture, Grusky opened the floor for questions. Many were skeptical of Grusky’s equalization approach, arguing that an increase in college graduates would only create greater competition for skilled labor.
“One of the reasons that a college degree is valuable is its scarcity. So, if the vast majority of the population have one, then aren’t the wages going to go down?” one audience member questioned.
“You’re absolutely right,” Grusky replied. “We’d be driving down the wages, but that’s a good thing. It reduces inequality and makes skilled labor more competitive.”
Markedly, he added, “If you’ve got a college degree, this is not a good plan.”
Others pointed out that Grusky’s approach does not offer any solutions for creating jobs – an important detail considering the high unemployment rate among college graduates.
“It seems to me that part of the problem is we’re educating people for something… we don’t even know that there’s a job out there for… We need to have some sort of industry regrowth that’s going to provide the jobs,” one woman commented.
“ We’re hoping and we’re praying that there’s gonna be that kind of innovation that creates jobs,” Grusky replied.
While he recognizes that the plan has potential risks, Grusky says the risks of doing nothing are far worse.
