These are strange times. Technology progresses so quickly that it begins to feel like magic. Artificial intelligence can write basic code in fifteen minutes that would take a decent programmer all day; we can send rockets to space and drop them right back down into a tube upon their return; surgeries that once took weeks of recovery can be done laparoscopically and on an outpatient basis.
The Poverty Problem
So why haven’t we solved poverty? We have an innate sense that we should be able to solve problems like poverty, the loneliness epidemic, and addiction with some ingenious technique, just like all other problems. Sadly, our hubris has blinded us to truths about human nature.
We often treat these deeply human issues as purely mechanistic and external. We assume that if we can land on just the right potion of policies, they would disappear. When they don’t, we blame our political opponents.
Certainly, there are policy questions to address. But every person and family struggling with poverty or homelessness is different, with a different story and different needs. For many of them, even if the perfect policies resulted in the removal of obstacles, the real solution is still missing. What we all need are “thick” networks of people: friends, family, mentors, support groups, and churches.
Consider the problem of employment. The first mistake we often make is assuming that, if someone’s income exceeds the poverty level through transfer payments, we’ve solved their poverty.
The stubborn, intergenerational poverty that most concerns us is not fundamentally about a lack of resources, but rather, a lack of community. The widespread breakdown of family structure weakens families both emotionally and financially. More broadly, our most destabilized neighborhoods are also economically and culturally isolated from their surrounding city. When employment levels are low in the neighborhood, residents lack employment networks altogether.
The Social Network Solution
Consider also your own experience. I got my first job at a roast beef joint because a friend told me they were paying eight dollars an hour. I got my next job through my church and my next one through my brother, who already worked at the mall. I went to college because my parents expected me to do so, and graduate school because a professor told me I should. I chose which graduate school based on her recommendation and got my first academic job at my own alma mater.
These organic connections are as invisible as they are essential. Without those organic connections through which most of us get our foot onto the bottom rung of the economic ladder, our neighbors will miss out on the climb because they couldn’t even get started.
Policy might be able to address certain issues like criminal background, perverse disincentives to work, transportation, or proper educational preparation. But on the ground, we get jobs through our social networks. Much of our preparation for work comes from our families and neighborhood environment. Once the job is underway, reliability, handling interpersonal issues well, and professional development will determine our success. These considerations are matters of social capital.
Social capital isn’t a product that a bureaucracy can deliver to a person. It’s an organic reality of overlapping social networks arising from a person’s engagement in a thick community, and it’s the greatest determinant of social and psychological flourishing in a person’s life.
The Generational Effect
Life without employment, on the other hand, can be one of the most stultifying experiences of a person’s life, even if they have access to an income of some kind. Dependence on a fixed, provided income removes the sense of forward motion toward a goal and encourages a passive acceptance that one’s situation will never change. This, in turn, can easily become the assumed reality of the next generation, and the next.
Don’t assume that those who emphasize the importance of work for effective poverty alleviation are heartless moralists. Work brings real dignity. It honors our giftedness and our power to choose.
When we think about poor people, let’s not just think about poverty. Think about dignity, community, fellowship, and a robust view of human flourishing that encompasses all of it.
God created us with a longing for community, a desire to contribute, and a calling to love one another. Without these networks, we will never bring true human flourishing to these people, whom we are called to love as our neighbors.
Editor’s note: This article was first published in a special report by the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics and The Washington Times entitled, “Faith at Work: Economic Flourishing and Securing Our Future.” Reprinted with permission.
