Reframing American Poverty: An Analysis of Housing Segregation

Introduction: The Fatal Framing in American Society

In 2004, David Shipler published his book The Working Poor: Invisible in America, an in-depth analysis of poverty in America through years of intensive field research.  In his introduction, Shipler states that “as a culture, the United States is not quite sure about the causes of poverty, and is therefore uncertain about the solutions” (Shipler 5). This statement is still true today and can be reinforced by Gene Demby’s NPR video on housing segregation.  The video, released fourteen years after The Working Poor, exposes many of the same themes related to poverty and housing, and proves that Americans are still ambivalent to the issue.

Why are Americans so ambivalent to poverty?  The rhetoric associated with the American Dream is largely at fault.  The American Dream is an ideology commonly held that anyone can become anything by ‘pulling themselves up by the bootstraps’, and places the blame on the individual for any financial/societal shortcomings. The media has adopted this ideology and reinforces it in their portrayal of episodic framing, which in turn becomes the dominant idea held by the public.  Episodic framing is the focus on one organization, one problem, one individual, or one solution.  It is limited and rarely grasps the full picture.  Thematic framing, or a wide-angle lens, captures just that; a wide angle.  It shows systematic rather than individual causes and combats the feeling of fatalism that episodic framing tends to convey.  By portraying the causes of issues, solutions can more easily be discerned.

This analysis will show how both Shipler’s book and Demby’s video in how they portray thematic framing, and why this framing is crucial for the American public to understand.  The analysis of The Working Poor will focus specifically on the framing of housing, and how poverty has a direct correlation to homelessness in America.  The analysis will focus on four sections that were found to be related to the issue: the introduction (Shipler 3-12), chapter five (Shipler 125-126), chapter eight (Shipler 225-230), and chapter nine (Shipler 239).  The Demby video in its entirety will then be analyzed to show the direct correlation to The Working Poor and present times.

https://www.facebook.com/NPR/videos/10156816901251756/

The Effects of Poverty in America

In his introduction, Shipler makes many arguments about the individual's role versus societies role in poverty.  He notes how the American value of hard work coincides with morality and ethics, and how a lack of success relates to a lack in character.  Hard work is perceived to be the ticket into the American Dream, but in reality, a crucial set of skills and requirements are needed, of which include a functional family, good health, and the proper education.  Many in poverty are without these means, yet the American “Myth”, as it should be called, looks to blame the individual by consequence of episodic framing present in public discourse.  The role that the American Myth plays in American ideologies is critical in determining the solutions to issues such as homelessness; if it is believed to be by the fault of a homeless individual, society will believe there is little they can do.  This fosters the idea of fatalism.

Shipler observes the role individuals play in their poverty is a mix of bad luck, bad fortune, and bad decision making.  However, if someone of a low-income status makes one bad decision, the likelihood of it affecting other areas of their life are greater than someone with a financial and/or emotional safety net.  These decision-making strategies also have a higher chance of being repeated by the next generation than they would in an affluent family.  Additionally, bureaucratic regulations and the American culture itself pose roadblocks; federal standards for the poverty line have not been updated since the 1960s, and thus do not address decades of growth.  

American standards of luxury and wealth are extreme, and skills of survival have been lost amongst a culture that relies on consumerism.  Shipler proves that a majority of the poor do work hard, and the production of goods and services we take for granted would not exist without them.  However, the success of the few in a capitalist system depends on the divide between the many.  

Housing and the Workplace

The poor are trapped in minimum wage jobs or less throughout their lives, and often into the next generations.  The common perception in American discourse is that the poor are lazy and unwilling to work.  Shipler explores the reasons for this perception, and his results are laden with psychological effects that can be traced directly to inadequate housing.

  An example from Los Angeles shows how people living in a low-income housing compound were unwilling to leave the compound to look for work, despite the violence and distress within it.   The people who reside in such compounds also reside with low self-esteem which inhibits them from showing the confidence and initiative employers look for.  As a result, unemployment occurs.  In Maryland, a Burger King manager showed how low self-esteem leads to a lack of “soft skills.” These soft skills differ from “hard skills”, such as writing and math.  The soft skills of showing up on time, looking presentable, and relating well to coworkers, are arguably more important than hard skills but are assumed to be common knowledge.  This is not the case.   Shipler shows how it is taken for granted that “the soft skills should have been taught in the family, but in many cases, the family has forfeited that role to the school, and in turn, the school has forfeited the role to the employer” (Shipler 126).

Housing and Health

Inadequate housing can have other reasons besides psychological that contribute to dysfunction within the poor.  Low-income housing often contains allergens and other health hazards such as lead paint, as a consequence of the homes not being updated to modern codes.  Many of these homes are owned by slumlords who cannot be convinced or are not being convinced at all to spend the money on improvements.  In Boston, the infant son of a single mother died of asthma because the landlord would not replace the furnace that was blowing toxic fumes into the house.  A single mother would not have the resources to hire a lawyer to sue the landlord, and if the allergen is the home, the doctors can only do so much.  Another example of the effects poor housing has on poor health would be a family having a cat that their child is allergic to, but the cat kills the mice that are in the home.

Through these examples and others, Shipler shows how poor housing can also lead to poor physical health.  Ultimately, poor housing leads to unlivable conditions that may force someone into homelessness, after their income and family deteriorate first.

Housing and Education

The effects of poor housing do not let emotional and mental health go unscratched.  Unlivable conditions also include overcrowding and/or domestic violence.  The emotional toll this has on someone isn’t reserved for the adults to take into the workforce, but for the children to take with them to school as well, often in place of a good meal.  Emotional discontent and hunger make a child unable to focus in school, and as a result, they will fail academically.  Academic failure correlates to professional failure, and thus another generation will live in poverty.  

Shipler found that insufficient school environments often do not make up for the insufficient home environment many of the children come from.  If there is a lack of food in the house, the children come to school hungry and malnourished, which science has proven to decrease brain development.  If the parents never completed school themselves, or are working odd hours, they cannot help with homework.  A school in Washington D.C exemplifies this factor when a middle school English teacher reported how one of her students was unable to do assignments because of domestic violence in the home that forced the student and her mother to flee.  The teacher says; “they don’t have the basics...if you don’t have a roof over your head, or you don’t know who you’re living with - I wouldn’t care about English either” (Shipler 239).  If a child has grown up with a survival mentality, they will be unable to fathom the concept of long-term investments, such as the value of education.  Therefore, many will drop out in their high school years to start working like their parents, with the American illusion in mind that money solves all problems, or to support the children of their teen pregnancies.

The Causes of Poverty in America

 Overall, Shipler demonstrates thematic framing in how he looks at the issue of poverty from a wide range of views and perspectives.  He transforms the individualistic stories into one that identifies systemic causes and consequences.  His conclusion is that there are many factors that affect poverty, of which not only one can be responsible.  They are all interrelated and form a vicious cycle.

But how did these systemic causes come into existence? And why are they still around today? The same questions are being asked about poverty today that were asked then in 2004, which raises suspicion that thematic analysis has remained obsolete in American discourse and media. Fortunately, modern technology has given us widely accessible means of information and the ability to share news and ideas quickly to a mass audience.  Gene Demby of NPR Code Switch takes advantage of modernity’s resources in an opportune time through his short video.  Demby’s video is timely because it explains the effects of the Fair Housing Act on its 50th anniversary, and how housing is still segregated today.  His conclusions coincide with Shiplers and offer a succinct version compared to a comprehensive one. The video is five minutes in length and begins with background information of housing segregation.  For the purpose of discerning the cause to the effect, the background information is as follows:

The federal government passed the National Housing Act in 1934 as part of FDR’s New Deal.  It was supposed to bring economic relief to the depression by providing mortgages and low-interest rates, but the catch came in deciding how to ensure people didn’t default on their loans.  The Homeowner Loan Corporation initiated what is known as “redlining.” Neighborhoods were sectioned off from each other on the basis of race and religion of its residents.  The redlined neighborhoods became those of low-income African Americans and other people of color.  As affluent white families fled to the new suburbs, property values in redlined neighborhoods fell over the next thirty years until the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.  The Fair Housing Act was then passed on the basis that housing could not discriminate against race.

Demby then explains why, despite the act, America still sees segregation today.  He says that the act did not undo the damage, and was rarely enforced.  Therefore, the systemic effects on schools, health, wealth, and policing are in accordance with the claim of a vicious cycle.  Since property taxes pay for schools, low property values contribute to inadequately funded schools, which result in poor academics, poor professions - and poor housing.  Health problems from the neglected homes result in higher rates of sickness among the poor, and a distrust of the police by spatial profiling in the neighborhoods that have become crime districts.  Demby’s example in the video centered around the ironic MLK Boulevard in Baltimore that had been redlined, but his claim at the end brought home the argument; that this was not a problem unique to Baltimore, but one to the entire nation.

Conclusion: The Solution to Poverty in America

Demby’s thematic framing of housing segregation compliments that of Shipler’s exposure of housing effects on poverty.  It also comes at a perfect time; the 50th anniversary of a failed law and the near 15th of a successful thematic framing of poverty.  The condensation of the message and the effect of visual aids in the video contribute to its impact in an age when time is valuable and attention is limited.  Thematic framing is used less frequently than episodic because episodic can be covered more quickly since it restricts its view.  However, if a solution is to be found, it will be found in the practice of thematic framing.

 By exposing the public to thematic framing of issues, the correlations between them will appear.  In the context of homelessness, if the public understands how the homeless become homeless, the solution could be found in preventative techniques.  The public would understand that homelessness occurs because of unlivable conditions, a lack of education, and systemic consequences out of their control.  This would help to overcome the feeling of fatalism associated with homelessness.  If the public realized that through collective efforts of employers, teachers, landlords, social workers, doctors, lawyers, friends and family, a simple solution could be found to stop the cascading effects that result in being forced onto the streets.  The solution could be as simple as the creation and sharing of videos and/or articles that practice thematic framing.  The public cannot be expected to change their perceptions that have been indoctrinated into them for generations if they are not exposed to the whole picture.