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| Yes | 33% | 4 votes | Total: 12 votes | |
| No | 67% | 8 votes |
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Add to FavoritesFor years, federal policy has rewarded corporations for hiring minority groups; the logic behind this is that those groups start off at a disadvantage and should therefore be given a boost in the competition for jobs and university admissions. However, this theory ignores the root cause of the disadvantages faced by these minority groups and rewards the wrong individuals. It is true that African Americans in the United States begin with a disadvantage. However, the root cause of this disadvantage is not racism; the root cause of this disadvantage is poverty.
According to the US census, one third of African Americans under the age of 18 are living in poverty. However, these are often not the African Americans that benefit from Affirmative Action. The African American children growing up in middle and upper class families are the ones that gaining advantages in the competition for jobs and admissions. This undercuts the entire logic of giving racial preference. The logic should be to give an advantage to those that are provided with fewer resources, regardless of ethnic background. For this reason, our affirmative action structure should be altered to be based on income rather than on historic discrimination.
In order to proceed with this idea, it is important to recognize why poverty provides an inherent disadvantage. First, it is important to recognize the impact that poverty has on education. The dominant means of school funding in the United States is through the use of local property taxes. However, the property taxes in poor communities should obviously be lower than the property taxes in wealthier areas. This leads to an immediate difference in the educational budget of the poor school and the wealthy school. The impact of this is that the poor school cannot draw the same quality of teachers, provide the same teacher to student ratio, or provide the same quality of resources. This immediately leads to the poor school being less competitive. Additionally, many schools are able to raise money for projects and extra-curricular activities by going out into the community. However, the community that is living in poverty cannot raise the same amount of money as the country club communities where the parents own businesses and have a greater amount of disposable income. This serves to reify the structure of inequality in education which in turn expands the inequality of opportunity in education. The student that attends the less competitive school does not develop the same study skills and test taking skills to succeed on standardized tests and the other measures that we use to determine who is capable. However, these students are no less capable of making good decisions and good workers.
Next, it is important to understand the impact that poverty has on the ability to obtain professional employment. The community that is living in poverty is often also lacking the development of what Robert Putnam referred to as social capital. This describes the level of social trust in a community and the level of group involvement. An important impact of this is that it makes networking less successful in the poverty community. For those living in the middle and upper class, it is an accepted idea that networking and using connections is the best way to climb the corporate ladder. However, the person living in poverty does not have the same connections as the other classes. The person living in poverty is surrounded by a community where individuals do not have the same network of individuals that are already working at corporations. This means that current hiring practices further exclude those living in poverty.
If society is going to find a way to break the status quo cycle of poverty in many of our communities, then an incentive must be created for those currently holding the power to share it with the poor. If the best educated and the most connected continue to be favored for corporate jobs, than the poor do not stand a chance. There will continue to be a permanent underclass with no hope of escaping poverty. If, however, corporations were given a good reason to take a chance on someone without the same qualifications, then they may just find that talent is hidden behind the seemingly lesser qualifications of the poor.
One of the leading arguments against this policy would likely be that it would harm American corporations and make the country less productive. However, this policy provides an opportunity to unlock much of the unused talent in the country today. One in eight Americans lives in poverty. That is one-eighth of the nation's talent pool that is untapped. If corporations began to hire those that had the greatest success while living in poverty, there could be a massive return in productivity. Also, this would provide an opportunity to alleviate some of the risk that is currently scaring companies from hiring the disadvantaged in the status quo. By providing an economic incentive, companies are not forced to hire anyone. They are just provided a carrot for taking a worthwhile risk. Inevitably, some companies will ignore this incentive and continue doing business the way that they always have. However, some businesses will take the risk. This will help determine if economic background is truly hiding useful talent. If the workers from poverty fail, then the businesses will move away from these incentives. But, if the workers succeed, then productivity and opportunity will increase, and more businesses will take advantage of these incentives.
There is no guarantee that this plan would succeed. However, it would have an opportunity to succeed while fulfilling the promises of the American social contract to provide equal opportunity to all. The current system is providing an inferior education and inferior opportunities to the poor. The country should take a risk to try to change these circumstances. A business incentive is the perfect way to do this without creating more government programs.
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No
Tax incentives for hiring the poor is yet another sound-good-but-dange rous idea. Why, you ask? Because it is unfair, ignorant, and may cause regrettable consequences. Instead of "patching" by throwing some jobs at those people, we should think up some way to fundamentally remove poverty, and provide real opportunity for everyone.
First, tax incentives for hiring the poor is unfair. Why do some people have advantage over others in seeking jobs? Remember, the government belongs to everyone, thus it must be fair to everyone, and ensure that no one, be that person rich or poor, get any more benefits than any other people. Why, then, should the government enforce a policy that make some people more hirable than others?
Okay, I hear you, because it reduces welfare? Ridiculous. Okay, granted, the government does not pay, but that means nothing, because now a portion of its income (tax reductions) is lost. Imagine you suddenly stop using phone altogether, and you save around $100 USD/month from monthly bill. Now, suddenly, your company throws a wage cut at you, at exactly $100 USD/month. Do you have any more money, at the end? No you don't. Neither does the government if it gives companies incentives for taking people of welfare.
Furthermore, consider this: if these poor are the stereotype poor (lazy, stupid, irresponsible, etc.), then how hirable are they? Plus, if a company hires them, it will have to pay to clean up after their messes. Thus, if the government wants them to be hired, it must give more tax incentives than the money spent on hiring these people. Thus, in the end, tax payers effectively pay for these people, albeit indirectly through some third hands.
Now, this is not the end of the problem. Let's continue with the third hands: do you really think companies will simply demand just enough money to hire these poor people? No, they don't. Why go through all of the hassle, when you can simply hire a perfectly normal people? Plus, if these poor people are that bad, you don't really want to have them around, since they may drag the productivity of other good employees down. Thus, to get companies to hire the poor, we must pay extra. See the problem? How much extra is good enough? That depends on how much companies spend on lobbying, eh?
However, even if we somehow manage to get all of these poor some jobs, that will not solve anything. What kind of jobs do you expect them to have? Obviously, the type of jobs that is so low paid that they must work from early in the morning till late in the night but still cannot pay for their rents. This is not even a new stories. Have you heard stories about mother who was so busy working that her son brought a gun into school and shot his friend? The son was 6 years old, became the youngest school shooting in history. How about a couple with 2 jobs for each spouse, but still cannot make ends meet? These jobs can solve nothing: they will remain poor, they will not get anymore hirable, and they have to spend so much time in overworking that they cannot take care of their family, especially their children.
Dirt paid job cannot solve poverty: it will only keep the employees alive, and create the next generation of poverty. It's the spiral of poverty.
How, then, can we effectively solve poverty, if we cannot get these people jobs? Well, think why they are poor. Are they really poor because they are lazy, stupid, and irresponsible? Or is it just because they don't have education (because their parents are poor), because no one ever shows them a way out? Yeah, I hear your brag about how you work hard, but that's not enough. Consider this: you have no skills, no money whatsoever, and the only type of jobs offered to you cannot cover your monthly expense. Tell me how you get out of that. You cannot save, because your jobs pay too little; you cannot get education, because you cannot save; you cannot get better jobs, because you have no education. Now, throw into that mix the contempt from others, the advertisements demanding that you must spend your last cents, and the whole consumer-centric mentality of our society. Without proper education, how can you get out of poverty?
The weapon to break this spiral is, unsurprisingly, education. Not just formal education, mind you, but social education, too. For adults, we need to show them that they can get out of their slums, have nice houses, raise happy family, and prepare their children to be the next millionaires. We need to give them loans so that they can educate themselves and polish their CVs. This money will be paid back, so the tax payers lose nothing.
For children, we must not leave any child behind, in the right way. We must invest in low-quality schools. This actually benefits all children. Better schools means more competitions, which help more public schools get better. When public schools get better, private schools must improve themselves to justify their tuitions. Thus, all children get some benefits from this investment, so it is fair. And, most important, we give poor children an equal chance to succeed, to acquire skills and to go to top colleges, to prepare for a better future.
Tax incentives for hiring the poor provides none of these. Actually it will only show the poor that the rich can do anything, and they will never ever have an opportunity of success, in any known term. But, wait, some corporates really like these tax incentives, so they restlessly advertise for this policies. The decision is, thus, in your hands, tax payers, to invest your precious tax money at the right place.
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