Frank's Musings

Professor Desmond’s article in the 12 March 2023 NYT Magazine makes clear that spending government funds on direct payments to the poor in America often just makes them more attractive targets for exploitation by landlords, payday lenders and even junk food producers.  In the end, instructing that 10-15% of our population on how to avoid being seduced by those who offer seemingly convenient but ultimately harmful life choices would be a wiser use of tax revenues from the middle class and wealthier sectors of our embarrassingly poverty-stricken economy.

President Johnson’s War on Poverty and its successors have underestimated the importance of showing the bottom economic ranks of our society how to take advantage of the liquidity that these programs place in their hands.  Public television offers middle-class viewers a variety of health, money-management, home fix-up and other demonstration shows that help them better manage their lives; however, few of the country’s poor watch or even can watch those shows.  Some public funds would better be devoted to delivering well-crafted, sociologically targeted and even entertaining how-to programs that would help our struggling deprived families contend with the temptations they often receive to choose an easy but usually more expensive way to deal with the challenges of daily living.

The government has a lot to learn from the private sector about reaching those in need of guidance on spending their financial legs-up from anti-poverty programs.  Hiring advertising industry firms to assemble and sculpt multi-layered campaigns to instruct recipients of public assistance on its effective use.  These campaigns could include not only TV and radio shows, block parties or other open-air events, but also other inventive vehicles for attracting needy audiences and slyly disbanding smarter consumers better equipped to manage their limited means.  The expense of using marketing professionals will make welfare funds many times more productive in reducing poverty in America.