This week, New York Magazine and ProPublica published a scathing article by Alec MacGillis titled, “Is anyone home at HUD?”. Multiple sources — current and former, career, and political staff — described a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in disarray, with severe lack of direction from a Secretary who has said he believes poverty is a mindset. Here, Richard Rothstein digs into the socio-economic conditions that lead to poverty for many low-income children, which policymakers like Secretary Carson would do well to consider.
Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told an interviewer recently that poverty results from “the wrong mindset:” low-income persons with strong motivation can escape poverty while those with negative attitudes remain poor.
His own life story seems to illustrate this. Poor children with ambition and self-discipline can occasionally climb the socioeconomic ladder. Luck figures, too, but a child must be on the lookout for it to benefit. Children expecting defeat may never seize opportunities within reach.
Yet as a scientist, Dr. Carson should realize that it’s always dangerous to jump from anecdotes about exceptional cases to generalizations about entire groups. Every human condition has variability. Only some children in Flint got lead poisoning, although all drank the same poisoned water. Even native intelligence is distributed: in any demographic group, some have above average I.Q.s, some are below it, and most are average, around 100.
– Economic Policy Institute