The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 WHY SOME ARE POORER 17ways of approaching the problemcan be obtained from the articleon "Poverty" in The Encycloped'iaof Social Reform, published in1897. 1 This refers to a table compiledby a Professor A. G. Warnerin his book, Ameri,can Charities.This table brought together theresults of investigations in 1890to 1892 by the charity organizationsocieties of Baltimore, Buffalo,and New York City, the associatedcharities of Boston and Cincinnati;the studies of CharlesBooth in Stepney and St. Pancrasparishes in London, and the statementsof Bohmert for 76 Germancities published in 1886. Each ofthese studies tried to determinethe "chief cause" of poverty foreach of the paupers or poor familiesit listed. Twenty such "chiefcauses" were listed altogether.Professor Warner converted thenumber of cases listed under eachcause in each study into percentages,whereverthis had not alreadybeen done; then took an unweightedaverage of the resultsobtained in the fifteen studies foreach of these "Causes of Povertyas Determined by Case Counting,"and came up with the followingpercentages. First came six"Causes Indicating Misconduct":Drink 11.0 per cent, Immorality4.7, Laziness 6.2, Inefficiency and1 Ed. by Wm. D. P. Bliss (New York:Funk & Wagnalls).Shiftlessness 7.4, Crime and Dishonesty1.2, and Roving Disposition2.2 - making a total of causesdue to misconduct of32.7 per cent.Professor Warner next itemizedfourteen "Causes IndicatingMisfortune" : Imprisonment ofBread Winner 1.5 per cent, Orphansand Abandoned 1.4, Neglectby Relatives 1.0, No Male Support8.0, Lack of Employment 17.4, InsufficientEmployment 6.7, PoorlyPaid Employment 4.4, Unhealthyor Dangerous Employment 0.4, Ignoranceof English 0.6, Accident3.5, Sickness or Death in Family23.6, Physical Defect 4.1, Insanity1.2, and Old Age 9.6 - makinga total of causes indicating misfortuneof 84.4 per cent.No Objective StandardsLet me say at once that as astatistical exercise this table isclose to worthless, full of moreconfusions and discrepancies thanit seems worth analyzing here.Weighted and unweighted averagesare hopelessly mixed. Andcertainly it seems strange, for example,to list all cases of unemploymentor poorly paid employmentunder "misfortune" and noneunder personal shortcomings.Even Professor Warner pointsout how arbitrary most of thefigures are: "A man has beenshiftless all his life, and is nowold; is the cause of poverty shift-