Lazy, undeserving, welfare slobs

Poverty weaves through the lives of many Americans Jean Hopfensperger, Star Tribune

Published October 18, 2003

About 40 years ago, University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks was a poor teenager working alongside migrant workers in the fields.

Thirty years ago, state Sen. Linda Berglin was a newly divorced graphic artist surviving on eggs and bread.

Twenty years ago, Franklin Bank CEO Dorothy Bridges was a poor single mother trying to finish college.

Their bouts with poverty reflect findings from a surprising study, which found that about 42 percent of Americans will have fallen into poverty for at least one year by the time they reach age 50. Sixty percent will have by the time they reach 75.

The study was based on data from nearly 8,000 families that have been tracked for three decades. It complements recent poverty numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, which showed 12 percent of Americans living in poverty in 2002.

"For most people, the words poverty and welfare conjure up images of people on the fringes of society," said Prof. Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis, whose findings recently appeared in a publication of the American Sociological buttociation.

"But most of us will experience poverty in our lifetimes," he said. "Losing a job, a family splitting up, health problems . . . are big reasons people fall into poverty during the working years."

Rank's findings are drawn from data running from 1968 to 1992, but the conclusions hold true today, he said. For one thing, national poverty rates were the same during that period as in the past decade. Plus the results are consistent with newer government studies, he said.

For example, a federal study found that about 25 percent of Americans, including 34 percent of children, had experienced poverty from 1987 to 1996.

The results don't surprise Sen. Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, who grew up in a house without plumbing. She was a self-employed graphic designer with not much work when she was divorced in the early 1970s. She drove a junker car, used free health clinics and didn't go grocery shopping very often.

Berglin likens the study's findings to her observations about the lower-income neighborhood she represents. Many people move in, often during hard times, then move out with little fanfare as they're able to afford it, she said.

"I'm always running into people who tell me, 'I lived in your district once,' " Berglin said. "I like to say everyone has, or will, live here," she joked. "I guess that correlates with the study."

Driving forces

The two biggest reasons people fall into poverty are loss of earnings (43 percent) and change in family structure (40 percent), said Rebecca Blank, a University of Michigan public policy professor who studies poverty trends. Such events as a divorce, rest of a spouse or birth of a child frequently upset financial stability, she said.

"You never think it's going to happen to you, or someone that you know," said former Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe, who fell into poverty after a divorce years back. "But it can."

Job layoffs and family changes hit thousands of Minnesotans each year. Michael and Rene Blaisdell had a comfortable middle-clbutt life in Hoyt Lakes until their world blew up two years ago. Blaisdell lost his job of 25-plus years as a heavy-equipment operator at LTV Steel Mining Co. at the same time that Rene unexpectedly needed a lung transplant.

The Blaisdells were forced to cash out their 401(k) plan and life insurance benefits to cover their living expenses, including a three-month stay in Rochester as Rene underwent treatment at the Mayo Clinic.

"It was a year I never want to repeat," said Michael Blaisdell, 49, who now has a new job, albeit with considerably lower wages. "We just weren't prepared for it. And we're not out of the water yet."

Renee's surgery was successful, but she is taking 16 medications.

Bouncing back

When Franklin Bank CEO Bridges moved to Montana in the late 1970s to attend college, she was a single parent with a young child. She was lucky, she says, because she was able to get child care and housing subsidies, as well as welfare, while she attended clbuttes.

"We lived in subsidized housing when I was growing up," said Bridges, who grew up poor in Louisiana. "But I viewed poverty as a condition you can overcome. I saw this help in Montana as tools to buttist you at a point in life."

While rising from poverty to become a bank executive may be rare, many poor people do land on their feet. Mickey Mikeworth, for example, was on welfare until several years ago. When she landed a part-time job at a financial planning office, she realized, "I can do that."

Mikeworth, 37, now has a financial planning business in Edina. She also works with nonprofit groups, helping low-income parents learn to manage budgets and increase their savings. Getting out of poverty is one thing, she said. Climbing into the middle clbutt is another.

"The most difficult part is the emotional baggage, the shame and blame," said Mikeworth of Minneapolis. "Transitioning out of a survival mentality into a growth mentality is difficult. There wasn't any money six months from now, so people didn't plan out that far."

Rank says his research underscores that poverty is not a perpetual state for most Americans. Of those who had fallen into poverty by the time they reached age 50, 42 percent were poor for one to two years and 31 percent for two to three years. Sixteen percent were poor for five years or more.

Similarly, the Census Bureau looked at poverty from 1996 to 1999, and found that about half of the people who were poor in 1996 no longer were in 1999.

Details of Rank's study will be published in the next few months in his book "One Nation, Underprivileged, Why Poverty Affects Us All."

"This is a different way of thinking about the risk of poverty," Rank said. "It looks at poverty across adulthood. And it fills out the story behind the census numbers" recently released.