Discrimination Against the Poor

Over the years, the evidence has been piling up: The U.S. discriminates against the poor. 

The first place where discrimination against the poor is obvious is in our legal system.  Poor people cannot afford lawyers.  The Constitution protects the poor from having to defend themselves in court without representation, but unfortunately, the way our judicial system is setup does a very poor job of enforcing this Constitutional protection.  It is very well known that these court appointed lawyers are terrible.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Public defenders are poorly paid.  This means that they tend to be the least skilled attorneys, because otherwise they would be working for a firm or independently for much higher pay.  (No offense intended to those who choose to be public defenders for ideological reasons.)  Some public defenders work on contract, essentially as a side job.  These ones are very well known for spending as little time as possible on these cases, so that the can spend more time, and thus earn more money, on much better paying privately contracted cases.  The result is that poor people are many times more likely to be convicted of a crime than rich people, and a much larger proportion of innocent poor suspects are convicted than innocent rich suspects.  (In fact, guilty rich people are more likely to go free than innocent poor people.)  The writers of the Sixth Amendment were wise to guarantee criminal defendants legal representation, but our implementations of guaranteeing this right do a terrible job of ensuring justice, and this harms the poor almost exclusively.

Criminal defense is not the only place where our legal system discriminates against the poor.  The Constitutional rights of the poor are also significantly weaker than those of the middle class and rich.  Law enforcement can use threats, intimidation, lies, and even force to convince poor people to cooperate, even though cooperation obtained under such circumstances is a violation of he Fourth Amendment.  Most poor people don't even realize that they are protected from this, and those that are aware cannot afford representation to do anything about it.  This does not fall under criminal defense, because enforcement of Constitutional rights is in the domain of prosecution.  If, for example, a Child Protective Services social worker says they have the legal right to enter the home and take pictures, even without a warrant (this is an incredibly common problem in a lot of states), the legal recourse is to press charges against the social worker, leading to criminal prosecution in court.  This requires a good lawyer (in fact, many lawyers refuse to engage with CPS, because it can look bad and in some states there have been cases of illegal retribution against lawyers that took on clients against CPS).  There is plenty of legal precedent against CPS and other law enforcement supporting this Fourth Amendment right, but CPS primarily targets poor people who cannot afford a lawyer and who have no clue how to represent themselves in court.  Despite significant evidence that CPS and some other law enforcement fabricate cases and investigate them using illegal tactics, no CPS agency has ever been taken to court over it, and a vast majority of individual cases never go to court, because poor people cannot afford representation and they rarely fully understand their own rights.  Middle class and rich people rarely have to worry about this, because law enforcement knows that they can afford representation, so they leave them alone.  In short, poor people are discriminated against when it comes to Constitutional protections, because they cannot afford lawyers, and they cannot even get a court appointed public defender, because assertion of Constitutional rights does not count as defense.

Schooling is another place where the poor are discriminated against.  It is well known that schools attended mostly by poor students do not get an equitably share of the funding.  Public school funding almost always proportionally favors schools attended by middle class and rich students.  By itself, this is extremely obvious discrimination.  It gets worse though.  There have been several attempts at mixed class schools.  Some have deliberately assigned students from different parts of a city to schools to get a mixed demographic.  This failed because rich parents objected, and local governments were too weak willed to push back.  Some have placed school district boundaries to cover multiple regions.  This failed when rich white parents objected to poor black kids in their school, and when local governments refused to back down, regional courts ruled that this mixing was discriminatory and racist.  (I leave the interpretation of what actually happened to the reader.)  More recent strategies are allowing parents flexibility in selecting the schools their children attend, and while local governments are successfully pushing back against upper class attempts to protect their children from exposure to real people, many lower class families are opting to send their students to poor schools anyway.  Unfortunately, in better funded schools that are attended mostly by wealthy children, toxic discrimination against poor people and minorities is strong.  Many poor children that are sent to these schools want out after a very short period of time.  And many parents pro-actively choose not to put their children into this situation in the first place.  Government aid for college does help the situation a bit once poor children graduate from public school but only a little bit.  Federal aid programs generally cover tuition, materials, and partial living expenses.  A significant portion of the poor population cannot afford to make up the remaining living expenses, making Federal aid useless.  Those who can generally only manage because they are working full time while going to school.  While this is looked on with respect in our society, it is also stupid.  It is well known that students who are working and going to school full time get worse grades on average than those who are only going to school or who only work part time.  In other words, while going to school and working full time out of necessity does say something positive about that person's motivation, it results in lower quality graduates, reducing the overall value of the education.  This is only about funding though.  Poor high school graduates generally do significantly worse on aptitude tests and placement exams, which puts a cap on the quality of higher education they are eligible for.  Poor people do not just go to community colleges because they cannot afford anything better.  Many do it because no one else will accept them.  And this is because the quality of their public school education is terrible.  In short, discrimination against the poor is endemic throughout our entire education system.

There is also discrimination against the poor in hiring.  For example, if you cannot afford nice clothing to wear to your interview,  the only place you qualify for is fast food.  This is such a big problem that there are charity agencies that help homeless people get jobs by giving them facilities to shower and loan them a nice suit for the interview.  While showers can be obtained, often at no cost, at laundromats, nice clothing cannot (at least not legally...).  In addition, government hiring restrictions can make hiring poor people risky.  If you don't have an address, there are not many employers willing to hire you.  Again, some of these agencies for homeless people will allow them to use the agency address until they get an apartment of their own, because this is such a widespread problem.  The situation for more typical poor people, who do have homes and maybe one set of nice clothes, is better, but it is still seriously problematic.  It is fairly common for poor people to have a lot of appointments.  WIC, Medicaid, food stamps, and various other charity and welfare require regular office visits.  Some of these (notably food stamps) have improved, but when it comes to having to choose between a job interview and a WIC appointment, WIC wins, because a job interview offers a chance at getting paid, while WIC guarantees money for food.  When employers refuse to be flexible about interview times, poor families suffer the most from it, because they tend to have far more demands on their time than anyone else.  Inflexible hiring practices discriminate against the poor as well.

When it comes to work, there is also discrimination against the poor even after hiring.  A great example is work hours.  When an employer that is paying minimum wage makes a schedule that conflicts with an appointment for Medicaid, that $200 a week worth of medication and $500 a month worth of doctor's visits wins every time.  It might take a month of two to find a new job, but it is better than dying due to lack of proper medical care.  And even if it is not life or death, you are going to lose your job anyway if you stop taking your medication and get too sick to work.  In addition to this, poor people are often mistreated by employers.  Federal law prohibits overtime.  Yes, Federal labor law straight up says overtime is illegal.  It then outlines the legal recourse for working overtime, which is a certain amount of additional compensation for that time.  In essence, Federal law prohibits companies from requiring or routinely scheduling overtime, however, if the employer and employee both consent, an out-of-court settlement may be reached so long as it includes specific additional pay for that time.  Practically, this means that employees can refuse to work overtime, and they are legally protected from retribution for doing so.  This applies to poor people in the same way as Constitutional rights: It does not, because poor people cannot afford a lawyer.  This is not all though.  It is common practice for small businesses to use illegal accounting to avoid paying overtime pay.  Some businesses put their employees on the books as private contractors, because private contractors do not count as employees according to labor law.  This is illegal unless the contractors are licensed businesses (in which case, they can hire their own employees to do the work, which these small businesses would certainly object to).  Some small businesses, upon being called out on this by employees, have even threatened to blame the employees, since working as a private contractor without a business license is what is illegal.  Unfortunately, without a lawyer, these employees do not understand that unless they deliberately represented themselves as private contractors, they are not liable, and even if they did understand this, how would they compete against a business that can afford to hire a lawyer?  This is called wage theft, and it is not even close to the only kind that exists.  This is such a serious problem that states have Labor Boards that people can ask for representation when they have been ripped off or mistreated by employers.  Unfortunately, these state law enforcement organizations are wholly inadequate.  They typically claim to be swamped with work when cases like this are reported.  They prioritize cases involving minors, when minors are the least likely demographic to be supporting a family or having any bills.  They have been known to tell people to get their own lawyers for cases involving overtime, and they tend to ignore complaints about small businesses, which is where a majority of discrimination and abuse of poor people happens.  In short, even once employment has been obtained, poor people are not free from discrimination by employers.

Our welfare system also discriminates against poor people in many different ways.  This is not obvious, because our welfare system only serves poor people.  This makes it impossible to compare its treatment of poor with others.  This discrimination finds its source in our elected representatives, who are incidentally almost exclusively rich people.  This is based on a series of false assumptions about poor people by people who have never lived in poverty.  Our welfare system is designed by people who legitimately believe poor people are poor because they are lazy, stupid, and don't know how to manage their finances.  While this is certainly true in some cases, recent research has shown that it is not true of the majority of poor people.  Despite this, lawmakers think that they need to control exactly how poor people spend welfare money, because if they don't, they think the money will be spent poorly.  The result is a welfare system that covers food and medical needs for the especially poor fairly well but which does not care whether people can pay their rent.  A recent study on how poor people spend their tax refund (which often ranges from $1,000 to as much as $8,000, due to EITC and the Child Tax Credit) has shown that rather than spending it on big ticket luxury items, they tend to spend it on necessities, like major vehicle repairs, repairing, replacing, or purchasing household appliances that help save money, and other things that are generally considered wise purchases.  In short, most poor people know how to spend their money more wisely than lawmakers.  What wealthy lawmakers don't understand is that food is pretty easy to get.  Food is the one thing most people are willing to share.  Family is generally willing to help with food.  Many religious organizations have welfare programs where they provide food.  Many cities have charitable soup kitchens where poor people can get a free meal.  For most poor people, food is not an issue.  If it was, homeless people who don't qualify for welfare due to the lack of a physical address would starve to death in less than a month.  But this is not even the issue.  The issue is that lawmakers discriminate against poor people, by trying to manage their money for them.  Food stamps cannot be used to pay rent or to pay for utilities.  In colder climates, adequate heating can be more important than food.  In addition to treating poor people like they are mentally disabled, our welfare system fails to preserve human dignity for the poor.  The situation has improved, but the SNAP system still requires food stamp recipients to broadcast their status as poor every time they have to pull out that card in front of a cashier.  Many WIC employees treat parents like they are stupid during the monthly visits.  Having to provide Medicaid information to a doctor or pharmacist is actually worse than pulling out that SNAP card.  This is probably actually the worst way in which the poor are discriminated against.  Every government welfare program is filled with constant reminders to the poor and everyone around them that they are poor.  Every time a poor person has to pull out that SNAP card, it is a reminder than society thinks they are too stupid to know how to manage their own finances.  Every WIC appointment is a reminder than the government things they are too stupid to figure out how to take care of their own children.  Every time they have to give a clerk Medicaid information and every time Medicaid refuses to pay for a procedure, that is a reminder that the government thinks they are too stupid to manage their own health care decisions.  Historically, certain minority groups have been widely treated as less intelligent than the rest of the population, but this is the only group that has been treated by the government as seriously mentally disabled.  There is an element of this that is worse than some of the worst racial discrimination we have ever seen in the U.S.

If you thought that was the last one, you are wrong.  There is one that is possibly even worse.  The poor are even discriminated against when it comes to fair representation.  To be more clear: Many poor people are unable to vote.  Yes, there are laws that supposedly require businesses to let employees have enough time off to vote during elections.  We just discussed this though.  What happens if those businesses refuse?  Nothing, because poor people cannot afford lawyers!  Besides that though, taking an hour off to vote is at least $7.25, and for poor people that can be the difference between paying rent and getting kicked out onto the street.  Of course, some consider this to be a good thing, given that the poor are rarely well informed.  But why is it that the poor are not well informed?  Because they don't have the time to be.  This is yet another facet of how the poor are politically discriminated against.

The goal of this article is not to suggest ways to fix all of these problems.  There is no point wasting time trying to convince people to fix problems that they cannot even see.  The point of this article is to make the problems visible.  Sadly, even those interested in social justice don't care about the poor.  Our poor make up around 15% of our population, but those who are interested in social justice care more about gay Americans (3% of the population) or transexuals or any other kind of sexually unusual Americans (about 1% combined).  In other words, we have more than four times as many poor people, and they are generally discriminated against more, than LGBT people, but social justice warriors demand reparations only for that groups that makes up 4% of the population and is only mildly discriminated against.  The biggest minority group facing serious discrimination in the U.S. is poor people!  (Black people make up slightly less than 13% of the population, though there is a lot of overlap in these populations.)  Isn't it time to focus on this group?