political inequality
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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POLITICS
Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote?
Even when America's underclass isn't formally stripped of its ballot, a slew of barriers
come between them and full representation and participation.
By Daniel Weeks
JANUARY 10, 2014 SHARE
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Check-cashing stores and dilapidated storefronts dot Route 3 in
Cincinnati. (Daniel Weeks)
CINCINNATI — It's 4 a.m. when the overnight bus from Pittsburgh rolls into
Cincinnati station. With hours to go until daylight and more than a little fatigued, I
join the small crowd of passengers sprawled out on the �oor in one corner of the
station. A pair of infomercials is playing on endless loop on the TVs overhead and I
can only dream of falling asleep. An hour later, I stop trying and make my usual cup
of gruel before setting off on foot through the drizzle into town—the wrong part of
town, as it happens.
Heading out past the casino and north on Gilbert Avenue, I see office parks and
museums give way to blocks of rundown rowhouses with broken windows and
ground �oors boarded up. ere are seedy strip malls, vacant overgrown lots, and
once-proud red-brick factories with faded marble molding and "For Sale" signs on the
door. Trash has gone uncollected for some time, judging by the over�owing bins.
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10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Few storefronts remain in business—a convenience store here, check casher there, and
beauty supplier and furniture store further down. e Speedy Refund tax service
silently awaits another tax season, when eager EITC �lers will pack the place seeking
"Cash Back Fast" (for a fee). Across the street, the Life Skills center promises "Help
with dreams—Enrolling Now!" in the form of a GED. A dilapidated stone church
next door is fenced off with �uorescent "No Trespassing" signs posted all around. At
another former church nearby, all that remains is a crumbling steeple proclaiming the
Father's glory. Strangest of all, on this average weekday morning there is hardly
another soul in sight.
Continuing out along Route 3, I notice the scene begin to change. No longer are the
streets and sidewalks busted up, the homes unoccupied or in disrepair. As I turn into a
leafy lane, I come across a battery of dump trucks and heavy machinery laying down a
new layer of fresh tar. Judging by the amount of men and machines assigned, it looks
as if the job will be complete in time for lunch, leaving ample time to dry before the
residents return from work. Sprawling, manicured lawns and curvaceous drives lead
up to lavish homes with porticos and chimneys all around. One is a castle made of
stone with turrets and lattice windows.
Back in town at midday, I wander into the Lord's Pantry soup kitchen and am offered
the daily fare of "sandwiches, drinks, and prayer" along with a few dozen of the city's
down-and-out. I gratefully accept all three in exchange for a small donation.
Returning to the streets after lunch, I decide to pay a visit to the nearby Contact
Center, a community nonpro�t. Although I don't know a thing about the place, a
�yer in the window headlined "Janitors for Justice" catches my eye by announcing
that 48 percent of Cincinnati children are living in poverty—hardly the thing I was
expecting to �nd in this venerable old city of Proctor & Gamble fame. A subsequent
check with the Census Bureau con�rms the unhappy fact.
Inside the dimply-lit office, I am greeted by Cassandra, a middle-aged black woman
with braids and a melancholy aspect, who manages the Contact Center's outreach to
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10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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families in need. She agrees to my impromptu request for an interview and shows me
to a table piled high with handmade Christmas ornaments—to help pay the bills. "I'll
Be ere" by the Jackson 5 is playing softly in the background.
Cassandra's preparation for running an assistance center in
Cincinnati was her own experience as a "welfare mom." (Daniel
Weeks)
As we take our seats, Cassandra shares her primary credential for the job: She was
once on welfare—a picture-perfect "welfare mom" according to the stereotype, single
with seven children. But the welfare she knew did not meet the hype, she says: ere
was no Cadillac, no name-brand clothes, no fancy meals or other special things. ere
was the bus to get to work and school; thrift-store clothing for the kids twice a year;
food to eat and a roof over their heads, most of the time. "I didn't want to be there,
because the money that you get is not enough to take care of you, pay rent, gas and
electric, telephone," she explains. "At the end of the month the money's gone, you've
got to rely on soup kitchens and stuff like that. You can only stretch the dollar so far."
When welfare reform was passed in
1996, she says she started attending
public meetings where men and women
in suits would talk about how "those
people are lazy, those people won't
work." at's when she realized they
America’s Epidemic of
Unkindness
ANNIE LOWREY
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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were talking about her. She says she
wondered if they had any idea that she
had enrolled in job programs one after
another; had seen her kids through
public schools and into gainful
employment; had applied for more jobs
than she can remember and been turned
away. "I even tried to work in a sandwich
factory," she says. "I make sandwiches all
the time at home, but I couldn't get the
job!"
It didn't take long for her to realize that the politicians knew very little about how she
and her neighbors lived, about the level of opportunity they did and did not enjoy.
Making matters worse, she says, most of them didn't seem to care. "Folks that are on
welfare, the [politicians] look down on us," she says.
It didn't take her long to realize that the politicians knew very little about how she and her neighbors
lived, about the level of opportunity they did and did not enjoy.
True to President Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it," welfare rolls were
slashed in Cincinnati and across the United States—down from 12.3 million in 1996
to around 4 million today, or 1.3 percent of the population. e amount of cash
assistance available to needy families also shrank to a maximum bene�t of $428 per
month for a family of three in the median state, less than half the poverty line. In a
handful of southern states, just one in 10 poor families with children currently
receives welfare and the level of assistance is less than 15 percent of the poverty line.
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Guarantee of a Good Life
ARTHUR C. BROOKS
Dear erapist: My Friends
Stopped Talking to Me After
My Divorce
LORI GOTTLIEB
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Cassandra grants that getting more folks off welfare and into work was a good idea—
if only jobs could be found. After showing steady gains during the economic boom
years of the late 1990s, the share of single mothers in the workforce started to decline
again to 54 percent, for a net gain of just �ve percent between 1995 and 2009.
Meanwhile, around half of those who have found jobs since leaving welfare still
cannot escape the poverty trap, and one in three continues to live in deep poverty
with earnings below $11,500 a year for a family of four. e rise in deep poverty,
especially among children, to 20.5 million people in 2012—the highest rate and
number since record-keeping began in 1975—is considered a consequence by
scholars.
Cassandra says the combination of welfare cuts, insufficient jobs, and a lack of other
in-kind supports for single parents to �nd and keep what low-wage jobs there are has
left a lot of people, like herself, in the lurch. At the beginning of welfare reform, she
says, advocates in Cincinnati tried to convey to state officials what it would take to
move people off the rolls and into gainful employment for the long-term. "We
pointed out what needed to happen: childcare, transportation, education … Without
those things how are we gonna get a decent job to make a decent living?" But, she
says, many of the promised investments still have not come through—leaving food
stamps as the only reliable source of government support for millions of people in
need. Citing the latest round of budget cuts in Washington, she worries that even
food stamps will decline. "ey're taking that safety net away from us."
When I ask Cassandra why she sees problems like these persisting over time, she turns
immediately to politics and the democratic process. Money and social status is how
you make yourself heard, she says, but people below or near the poverty line have
neither. "We're not equal citizens."
"We're not equal citizens."
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Unlike the legal disenfranchisement of immigrants and former felons and residents of
Washington, D.C. and the territories, the concerns Cassandra has in mind do not
involve formal restrictions at all. Most of the impoverished people she knows possess
the right to vote. Instead, when Cassandra talks of "unequal citizenship" for people
like her, she is referring to the inability of low-income people generally to put the
rights they have to good effect. If nothing else, she says, her years of community
organizing at the Contact Center have opened her eyes to the many practical hurdles
that keep poor people from having their voices heard in politics.
For starters, low-income citizens are far less likely to vote. According to the U.S.
Census, 47 percent of eligible adults with family incomes of less than $20,000 a year
voted in 2012 and just one in four voted in the midterm election of 2010. By
contrast, those with annual earnings of $100,000 or more turned out at rates of
around 80 percent and 60 percent, respectively. Similar disparities are seen in voter
registration. When non-citizens and incarcerated persons are included in the count,
the gap in voting and registration across income groups is wider still.
U.S. Citizenship, Registration, and Voter Turnout by Family Income,
2008-2012
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Analysis of survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 Current
Population Survey.
A close examination of the reasons non-voters give for staying home—especially those
lower down the socioeconomic ladder—suggests that a slew of practical barriers
continue to stand in the way of full and equal exercise of the franchise. According to a
Caltech/MIT survey of both registered and unregistered eligible voters who did not
cast a ballot in 2008, disapproval of candidate choices, busyness, illness,
transportation, and registration/ administrative problems were the leading causes of
non-participation, with considerable variation across groups.
While income and education levels were not recorded in the survey, race and age were
major factors in�uencing who made it to the polls on Election Day and what kind of
barriers they faced. Black and Hispanic citizens, for whom the poverty rate is close to
three times that of whites, were three times as likely as whites to not have the requisite
I.D. and to have difficulty �nding the correct polling place. ey were more than
three times as likely as whites to not receive a requested absentee ballots, and roughly
twice as likely to be out of town on Election Day or to have to wait in long lines.
ey were also substantially more likely than whites to report transportation problems
and bad time and location as reasons for not getting to the polls, while white voters
were the most likely to cite disapproval of candidate choices. Taken together, the
surveys suggest that white citizens who abstain from voting do so primarily by choice,
while the majority of minority non-voters face problems along the way.
Reasons for Not Voting by Eligible Citizens, 2008
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Analysis of Caltech/MIT "2008 Survey of the Performance of American
Elections." Chart includes all reasons surveyed except those for
which all group responses were less than 25 percent (bad weather,
forgot); substantially similar reasons are collapsed into a single
category and averaged.
How do these data translate into actual votes? e Caltech/MIT survey estimates that
between 910,000 and 3 million votes were lost due to registration problems in 2008,
a modest improvement over the year 2000, when between 1.5 million and 3 million
votes were lost for the same reason. Another 1.8 million voters experienced equipment
problems at the polls, making the total number of registered voters who were
prevented from voting in 2008 greater than the margin of victory in the national
popular vote in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. What's more, an
estimated 1.5 million voters found their polling place poorly run and 1 million
reported feeling intimidated at the polls—small but not insigni�cant percentages.
African-American and Hispanic voters were considerably more likely than white
voters to be asked to show photo identi�cation at the polls, at rates of 70 percent, 65
percent, and 51 percent, respectively.
en there are the lines. Nearly 40 percent of voters reported waiting in line on
Election Day 2012 and 17 percent reported waits of 30 minutes or more—primarily
people of color in urban areas and the state of Florida. Black and Hispanic voters
waited an average of more than 20 minutes to vote, almost twice as long as whites. In
larger, urban counties with populations exceeding 150,000 voters, the average wait
was almost 20 minutes, more than double the time in counties with 50,000 voters or
less. Young voters also experienced signi�cantly longer wait times, and other Election
Day hurdles, than their older counterparts. Finally, in Florida, voters waited an
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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average of 45 minutes. An estimated 200,000 Florida voters "gave up in frustration"
before they could cast a ballot in 2012. Overall, nearly one in 10 Americans reported
that they or someone they knew tried to vote but was not able to in 2012, and close
to half of eligible Americans who did not cast a ballot cited external administrative
barriers as the major cause.
Election hurdles aside, Cassandra is quick to point out that voting is not the only
form of participation practiced in American politics, and it is arguably not the most
impactful either. Volunteering for political causes and campaigns, contributing money
to candidates, and lobbying the government all have an effect. And here, a mounting
body of social science research examined for this study supports Cassandra's
hypothesis that "low-income people lack funding to effectively advocate" for their
needs and are under-represented as a result.
Political Participation Rates by Socioeconomic Status, 2008
Analysis of 2008 Pew Internet and American Life Survey, reproduced
from Schlozman et al., The Unheavenly Chorus, Princeton University
Press, 2012, p. 124. Socioeconomic status determined by ranking
U.S. population by income and education levels and dividing into
five equal groups.
For example, just two percent of Americans at the bottom of the income and
education ladder attend campaign meetings and rallies or conduct campaign work,
compared to 14 percent of people at the top—a factor of seven to one. When it
comes to selecting candidates and funding their campaigns, two percent of all
Americans give money in presidential elections and less than half of one percent
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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provide the lion's share. In fact, the largest single donor in 2012 personally accounted
for more money than the bottom 98 percent of citizens combined. As Cassandra puts
it, "Whoever can buy the most TV time, whoever talks at them the right way" usually
gets the votes—and the money to fund campaigns isn't coming from people like her.
Finally, of the more than 12,000 interests groups actively lobbying Washington, only
a few dozen—less than 1 percent—advocate directly on behalf of low-income people.
With annual expenditures of around $1 million, they are outspent by business by a
factor of 3,000 to one.
Concentration of Individual Contributors to Federal Elections, 2012
Analysis of 2012 data from the Center for Responsive Politics
(www.opensecrets.org)
As the authors of a recent 700-page study conclude, "Year after year, decade after
decade, and from one generation to the next, the affluent and well educated have
participatory megaphones that amplify their voices in American politics ... [and]
shape what politicians hear about political needs, concerns, and preferences." e
result, according to another academic, is that poor and near-poor citizens exert "no
discernible impact on the behavior of their elected representatives."
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Cassandra has no intention of going unheard. Spending an afternoon with her, it's
hard to imagine anything getting between her and the ballot box. In fact, she even
brings a group of low-income citizens to the state capitol in Columbus once or twice a
year so legislators can "hear what people have to say." But speaking isn't the same
thing as being heard, she concedes. For one thing, many of the people whom she is
trying to empower "feel intimidated by the way the legislators talk to them [or] get
scared off." For another, lobbying government costs money she doesn't have. "Our
biggest problem is getting money to be able to continue doing the work that we do,"
she says.
Ultimately, Cassandra says, "Our communities and families are losing because of
[what's happening] in Washington, D.C."
* * *
is it the conclusion of a week-long series exploring the intersection of poverty and
democracy in America. Read the rest of the series:
Poverty vs. Democracy in America: 50 years after Lyndon Johnson launched
the War on Poverty, tens of millions of second-class Americans are still legally
or effectively disenfranchised.
Should Felons Lose the Right to Vote? e poor and minorities are
disproportionately locked up—and as a result, disproportionately banned
from the polls.
Immigrant Voting: Not a Crazy Idea: Until the 1920s, many states and
territories allowed non-citizens to cast ballots. Given their role in American
society, it's worth reconsidering the practice.
Second-Class Citizens: How D.C. and Puerto Rico Lose Out on
Democracy: Is there a connection between deprivation and a lack of federal
representation? e people in territories without a vote sure think so.
10/27/22, 7:14 PM Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? - The Atlantic
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Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote? Even when
America's underclass isn't formally stripped of its ballot, a slew of barriers
come between them and full representation and participation.