The Conservative View versus the Liberal View Now we’re ready for the Super Bowl of poverty theory debate—the conservatives versus the liberals. Representing the conservative view will be Charles Murray, whose book Losing Ground depicts overly generous public assistance programs as perpetuating a dependent underclass. William Julius Wilson is perhaps the most prominent of Murray’s liberal critics, so he’ll represent their view.9 The conservatives and liberals agree on ends but disagree on means. The conservatives and the liberals agree completely on ends—getting the long-term poor off welfare and into self-supporting employment—but they disagree completely on the appropriate means. Basically, the liberals favor the carrot approach, while the conservatives advocate the stick. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program attempted to lift one-third of all Americans out of poverty. Poverty wasn’t rediscovered until the 1960s,10 and the response was President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program. Did this program and its extension through the 1970s actually help alleviate poverty? Here’s Murray’s response: Did the Great Society program help alleviate poverty? In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled. And, in 1980, the percentage of poor Americans was—13 percent.11 Murray draws this conclusion: By showering so much money on the poor, the government robbed them of their incentive to work. Using the archetypal couple, Harold and Phyllis, showed how in 1960 Harold would have gone out and gotten a minimum-wage job to support Phyllis and their newborn baby. But 10 years later the couple would be better off receiving public assistance and food stamps, living together without getting married, and having Harold work periodically. Why work steadily at an unpleasant, dead-end job, asks Murray, when you can fall back on welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and other government benefit programs? All of this sounds perfectly logical, but Murray’s logic was shot full of holes by his critics. We’ll start with welfare spending. Although payments did increase from 1968 to 1980, when we adjust them for inflation these payments actually decreased between 1972 and 1980. William Julius Wilson really lowers the boom: The evidence does not sustain Murray’s contentions. First, countries with far more generous social welfare programs than the United States—Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, and Great Britain—all have sharply lower rates of teenage births and teenage crime. Second, if welfare benefits figured in the decision to have a baby, more babies would be born in states with relatively high levels of welfare payments. But careful state-by-state comparisons show no evidence that [public assistance] influences childbearing decisions; sex and childbearing among teenagers do ...

1. The Conservative View versus the Liberal View
Now we’re ready for the Super Bowl of poverty theory debate—
the conservatives versus the liberals. Representing the
conservative view will be Charles Murray, whose book Losing
Ground depicts overly generous public assistance programs as
perpetuating a dependent underclass. William Julius Wilson is
perhaps the most prominent of Murray’s liberal critics, so he’ll
represent their view.9
The conservatives and liberals agree on ends but disagree on
means.
The conservatives and the liberals agree completely on ends—
getting the long-term poor off welfare and into self-supporting
employment—but they disagree completely on the appropriate
means. Basically, the liberals favor the carrot approach, while
the conservatives advocate the stick.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt’s
New Deal program attempted to lift one-third of all Americans
out of poverty. Poverty wasn’t rediscovered until the 1960s,10
and the response was President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
program. Did this program and its extension through the 1970s
actually help alleviate poverty? Here’s Murray’s response:
Did the Great Society program help alleviate poverty?
In 1968, as Lyndon Johnson left office, 13 percent of
Americans were poor, using the official definition. Over the
next 12 years, our expenditures on social welfare quadrupled.
And, in 1980, the percentage of poor Americans was—13
percent.11

2. Murray draws this conclusion: By showering so much money on
the poor, the government robbed them of their incentive to
work. Using the archetypal couple, Harold and Phyllis, showed
how in 1960 Harold would have gone out and gotten a
minimum-wage job to support Phyllis and their newborn baby.
But 10 years later the couple would be better off receiving
public assistance and food stamps, living together without
getting married, and having Harold work periodically. Why
work steadily at an unpleasant, dead-end job, asks Murray,
when you can fall back on welfare, food stamps, unemployment
insurance, and other government benefit programs?
All of this sounds perfectly logical, but Murray’s logic was shot
full of holes by his critics. We’ll start with welfare spending.
Although payments did increase from 1968 to 1980, when we
adjust them for inflation these payments actually decreased
between 1972 and 1980. William Julius Wilson really lowers the
boom:
The evidence does not sustain Murray’s contentions. First,
countries with far more generous social welfare programs than
the United States—Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, and
Great Britain—all have sharply lower rates of teenage births
and teenage crime.
Second, if welfare benefits figured in the decision to have a
baby, more babies would be born in states with relatively high
levels of welfare payments. But careful state-by-state
comparisons show no evidence that [public assistance]
influences childbearing decisions; sex and childbearing among
teenagers do not seem to be a product of careful economic
analysis.12
Charles Murray, American economist
Another problem with Murray’s analysis is that the
unemployment rate doubled between 1968 and 1980, yet the

3. poverty rate remained constant. Why? Because of all the social
programs that were in place—unemployment insurance, public
assistance, food stamps, and Medicaid, among others. Although
there was substantial economic growth Page 797throughout
most of the 1970s, this growth was insufficient to absorb all of
the housewives and baby boomers who had entered the labor
market.
Murray blamed the antipoverty programs for increasing poverty.
Liberals would say he really had it backward: These programs
prevented a bad situation from getting worse. During a time of
rising unemployment, particularly among black males, it was
actually a triumph of social policy to keep the poverty rate from
rising.
All of this said, Murray’s thesis should not be dismissed out of
hand. There are plenty of people out there who choose welfare
as the easy way out. Even more to the point, a culture of
poverty has developed during the last four decades. Had he said
that the largesse of the federal government had induced a
sizable minority of the poor to succumb to the joys of living on
the dole, he would have had a valid point. Murray simply
overstated his case.
Decades ago, when I was a case worker for the New York City
Welfare Department, I saw hundreds of thick case folders
documenting the lives of second-, third-, and fourth-generation
welfare families, consisting of scores of people, virtually all of
whom had spent most or all of their lives dependent on public
assistance. Had Murray confined his theory to this group, he
would have had the support of the large majority of those
working directly with the welfare population. Again, there is no
valid general theory of the causes of welfare dependency.
In his landmark work The Truly Disadvantaged, Wilson begins
by describing the black ghettos as they were more than 40 years

4. ago. Sure there was crime, but it was still safe to walk the
streets at night. And sure there was joblessness, but nothing like
what there has been these last 30 years. Then he goes on to
describe other social problems:
Forty years ago the ghettos were a lot kinder and gentler places
to live.
There were single-parent families, but they were a small
minority of all black families and tended to be incorporated
within extended family networks and to be headed not by unwed
teenagers and young adult women but by middle-aged women
who usually were widowed, separated, or divorced. There were
welfare recipients, but only a very small percentage of the
families could be said to be welfare-dependent. In short, unlike
the present period, inner-city communities prior to 1960
exhibited the features of social organization—including a sense
of community, positive neighborhood identification, and
explicit norms and sanctions against aberrant behavior.13
William Julius Wilson, American sociologist
So what happened? What happened was the civil rights
revolution led by Martin Luther King Jr. in the early 1960s and
the subsequent legislation that lowered racial housing and
employment barriers. Until then the big-city ghettos had been
socioeconomically integrated. But this quickly changed by the
late 60s as millions of blacks, who had been penned up in the
ghettos, were finally able to move out. They moved into the
houses and apartments that had been vacated by the whites who
had fled to the suburbs.
How did this outward migration affect those who were left
behind?
The exodus of middle- and working-class families from many
ghetto neighborhoods removes an important “social buffer” that

5. could deflect the full impact of the kind of prolonged and
increasing joblessness that plagued inner-city neighborhoods in
the 1970s and early 1980s. . . . Even if the truly disadvantaged
segments of an inner-city area experience a significant increase
in long-term joblessness, the basic institutions in that area
(churches, schools, stores, recreational facilities, etc.) would
remain viable if much of the base of their support comes from
the more economically stable and secure families. Moreover, the
very presence of these families during such periods provides
mainstream role models that help keep alive the perception that
education is meaningful, that steady employment is a viable
alternative to welfare, and that family stability is the norm, not
the exception.14
The outward migration of middle- and working-class blacks had
a significant impact on those left behind.
Page 798This isolation makes it harder to find a job; few ghetto
dwellers are tied into the job network. And because few
relatives or neighbors have steady work, tardiness and
absenteeism are not considered aberrant behavior.
Consequently, those who do find jobs seldom hold them very
long.
So the key is jobs—or rather, the lack of them. Wilson
attributes both the low black marriage rate and the high
incidence of out-of-wedlock births in female-headed households
to the employment status of black males, seconding the Darity-
Meyers thesis. There is a shrinking pool of “marriageable” and
“economically stable” young black men.15
Lack of jobs is the key.
The migration of black middle- and working-class families from
the ghettos removed the key social constraint against crime.
And the erection of huge, high-rise, low-income public housing

6. projects further destroyed the remaining sense of community.
Place together a large number of female-headed families with a
large number of teenage children (who commit more crime than
any other population group) and you’ve got the recipe for not
only high crime rates but almost complete social breakdown.
Wilson’s thesis is a direct repudiation of Murray’s, which
blames public assistance and other social programs for the
emergence of the permanent black underclass. Wilson finds no
evidence to support that contention. Instead, he blames a whole
range of social and economic forces, including past employment
discrimination.
Question 1
Recently, President Bush called for longer sentences for
corporate fraud and a stronger watchdog agency to fight
accounting scandals that have shaken investor confidence and
threatened to become a political liability.
"My administration will do everything in our power to end the
days of cooking the books, shading the truth and breaking our
laws," Bush said in a speech outlining his corporate crackdown
proposals to about 1,000 Wall Street executives.
Do you think that the accounting profession has made
significant gains in the level of ethical business practices as
envisioned by the President? Discuss your fears and concerns
regarding your ability to stand up for ethical behaviors. What
do you see as your greatest strength? What is your greatest
weakness in consistently operating as an ethical professional?
Bring any personal experiences to the discussion forum that you
feel comfortable sharing.
Question 2
Review the conservative and liberal views of poverty presented
in the text…This is attached
What is your own view on poverty? Do you consider your view
to lean towards the liberal or conservative view of poverty?
Question 3

7. Choose a heroic figure you have read about. Examples might be:
Theseus, Oedipus, Calaf in Turandot, King Arthur, Siddhartha,
Moses, Mohammed, a cowboy hero, or Frodo from The Lord of
the Rings.
Other examples may include people who are/were known for
their humanitarian efforts, or who have led a movement (such as
Mother Teresa or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.).
Or, choose a heroic figure from a book, a film, or a
comic/cartoon series with which you are familiar.
Introduce your chosen hero at the beginning of your response,
and apply at least two of Campbell's characteristics as you
elaborate on the person's life.