Social Justice, Part II

by Michael Scott Newkirk

Mr. Newkirk is a member of the Elmwood Clubhouse. He wrote Social Justice (Part 1) for Mental Health World

For the last twenty years or so, we have witnessed, as well as fallen victim to, the decline of social welfare while major corporations have enjoyed the benefits of the government. Many corporations enjoy handouts in the form of tax breaks and in some cases outright subsidies. This has been justified by the belief that any help given to “Corporate America” would be passed along to the public in the form of increased employment as well as better wages. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, we have often seen more jobs created, but they are most likely part time jobs paying minimum wage and offering virtually no benefits to those who have become desperate enough to take them. Meanwhile the elderly, working poor and those with disabilities are forced to accept substandard care that greatly diminishes the quality of their lives as well as in all probability shortening them.

As more and more tax dollars are funneled into the pockets of CEOs and stockholders who are already wealthy, less and less tax money is going to those who are unable to work or are only able to work on a limited basis. For example, those who become disabled are often forced onto the welfare rolls as they await Social Security Income or Social Security Disability payments. In 1989, the monthly allotment of food stamps for a single person was $124, an amount that then was enough to feed a person a well balanced diet for a month. Fourteen years later the basic allotment is $139, an increase of about 13%. In the same period, food costs have (by conservative estimates) doubled, forcing many into soup lines and to rely on handouts from already overburdened food pantries.

The problem seems to be that of manipulated perception. Every year as taxes rise and services are cut, politicians are quick to blame those who rely on social services to get by as the cause. They will do anything to keep the focus off the relationship between themselves and those who donated to their campaigns to keep them in office. One has to admit that it seems as though they have a valid case. After all, there are those who sell their food stamps and spend their checks on alcohol and drugs within moments of receiving their grants. These people are the most visible as well, by bothering people for spare change, being drunk or high in public and generally being a nuisance. It seems as though there is always someone that politicians can point to as an example and cite as the rule. In all fairness, it is a minority that engages in such behavior and unfortunately, the majority who are most in need suffer the consequences.

In recent years, the government has attempted to do away with such abuses. The introduction of Electronic Banking Transaction Cards now makes it difficult for food stamp recipients to sell their food stamps. Photographing and fingerprinting has gone a long way to impede welfare fraud. But those measures only address the tip of the iceberg and do nothing to address the pressing problems created by budget cuts to various organizations that provide other much needed services. There are many agencies that assist those with physical as well as mental health issues. These programs are woefully under funded and depend on staff who are overworked, underpaid and living with the constant fear that they too, will soon join the ranks of the unemployed when the next wave of budget cuts takes effect.

It seems as though there are no quick and easy fixes for these problems and merely throwing money at them will not make them go away, but similarly, filling corporate coffers does not seem like much of a solution either. Perhaps if we were to hold our politicians to the same standards as we do all other citizens, then we will have the basis that is needed to truly effect positive social change.

One thing that is clearly evident is that, in order to be the enlightened society that we claim to be, we must place the well-being, safety and dignity of individual citizens above that of corporations interested only in the bottom line. The trend to aid big business at the expense of citizens who are truly in need is not only socially irresponsible but, it is also not economically sustainable in the long run. It takes far less money to provide adequate education and training to bring people back into the workforce, than it does to support corporations that are bent on turning out legions of part time, slave wage employees, who have nothing to look forward to but a future of hardship and despair.

Corporate welfare may sound like a good thing for the country and if it truly worked in the manner that the spin-doctors tell us it should, it might very well be. As it stands, however, none of the promised benefits have materialized and virtually nothing has trickled down.