Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing A Right To A Job

3 Our History Shapes Our Thinking

3 Our History Shapes Our Thinking “Unless you start saving your money, you’re going to end up in the poorhouse!” Ever heard someone say that? Where does that saying come from? My students generally do not know that the United States was dotted with government and private poorhouses in the early part of the twentieth century.1 Poorhouses were real, and the fear of landing in the poorhouse was also real. That is where that warning comes from. The fear of ending up in the poorhouse has been handed down orally from generation to generation, even after the poorhouses disappeared. Yet poorhouses continue to shape our consciousness about poverty and behavior. There are plenty of other examples of how our shared history and culture unconsciously shapes our outlook on poverty. To properly analyze poverty and work, we have to consider that we have some preconceived notions already imprinted on our thought process. In the mid-1990s, some politicians declared that they had a new idea—it was time to “get tough” on poor people, time to “force poor people to work.” It was time for welfare reform. It may come as a surprise that their efforts were nothing new, that, in fact, our laws have been trying to “get tough” on the poor for more than 650 years. In 1349 England enacted the first law to get tough on poor people . What the English did to their poor people is important because the United States inherited many of our basic legal principles of how we deal with poverty and poor people from the English. Our American colonies essentially adopted the English laws about poor people, and those colonial poor laws became the basis for many of our state laws.2 In the mid-1300s, the English government was becoming concerned that there were too many poor people wandering around. Too many 29 30 Chapter 3 poor people who appeared to be able to work were choosing to beg. Therefore, England made it illegal to give alms to beggars who were able to work by enacting its first law to classify who among the poor was worthy of help and who was not. This is what the law of 1349 said: Because that many valiant beggars, as long as they may live of begging, do refuse to labour, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and sometimes to theft and other abominations; none, upon the said pain of imprisonment shall, under the colour of pity or alms, give any thing to such, which may labour, or presume to favour them towards their desires, so that thereby they may be compelled to labour for their necessary living.3 Translation? There are too many homeless beggars roaming around who could work if we were only tougher on them. These folks are lazy and probably petty criminals. They will only work if we force them. So, we are now making it illegal to feed them or give them any more help, and that way they will be forced to work. The law was sent to each of the bishops, who were asked to order people in their communities to obey it.4 Sound familiar? It should. It is familiar. This old English law, enacted more than 650 years ago, and some of the ones that the English enacted later, sound quite a bit like the “welfare reforms” enacted by the Congress in the 1990s. Nearly two hundred years later, in the 1530s, England continued to be concerned about the number of poor people, beggars, and vagrants. English law was changed to allow only “the aged poor and the impotent ” (so severely disabled that they were unable to work) to beg for alms or charity. Even then, the aged poor and the disabled were not allowed to beg unless they were given official written permission, and they were limited to certain locations. Everyone else under age sixty who was poor but who could work was prohibited from begging and was forced to work, even children. Those of whatever state or condition who violated the law were whipped. Repeat offenders were subject to having their ears cut off.5 Poor children? The local justice of the peace was given the responsibility of taking poor children, ages five to fourteen, away from their families if the children were found begging and place them as apprentices.6 This was England’s welfare reform of the 1500s. The English thought that helping the poor only encouraged dependence and...