I wrote this essay a few years ago, and as you can see, it eventually became the basis for this newsletter. I’m publishing it today, with just a few tweaks, because I’ve been off tending to my ailing dog (you’ll recognize his photo below as my crack research assistant for this newsletter), but also to remind my readers and me why I’m writing Crime and Punishment.
This essay touches on many of the ideas I have already discussed in individual posts and includes a few scenarios from my personal experiences to illustrate how regular, educated people (like me) can get caught in the cycle of debt and poverty.
The Catch-22 of Poverty
There’s something strange about poverty in America today. It is more pervasive than most realize, yet somehow remains elusive — unable to be pinned down, grabbed hold of and tossed away for good. I’m tempted to say “this isn’t your grandparents’ poverty”, although my paternal grandparents and their six children managed to land on the other side of the Great Depression. My Italian immigrant grandfather was an entrepreneur of sorts, and owned a store, a hotel and a large home until the scourge of the depression hit. Their family never fully recovered financially, but help came in the form of federal government programs that provided jobs, our country’s baseline social safety net, and an investment in our collective future with the G.I Bill, without which my father likely would not have been the first in his family to graduate college.
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