I finished my original talk (and article) on which the last several blogs were based by returning one more time to the ‘Wisconsin Idea.’ Key to that idea is that each generation helps the next, passes the torch so to speak. Each one of you, I told my audience back then, has a responsibility to pass on to the next generation an understanding of and a passion for an issue (poverty) and for a population (the poor). If you do not care, who will?

Ironically, the passage of a national welfare reform bill which many thought would exacerbate poverty and hurt the poor seemed to diminish interest in such issues. Not immediately, but within a decade or so, it struck me that no one was talking about ending poverty anymore. Perhaps the policy world was exhausted by the extended battles over what to do with welfare. Or perhaps everyone just wanted to fight about other stuff (abortion and immigration) after the anticipated post-reform apocalypse failed to materialize. Who knows?

Yet, as I look back, there was a time where serious observers thought we might eliminate poverty in America. It did seem to be within our grasp. Were such people, like Nobel economist James Tobin, delerious? No! While no country has completely eliminated want, some have come quite close, though how it is defined makes a big difference. International comparisons of comparative poverty point out one truth. We in America can do a much better job, at least as well as our peers. It is merely a matter of will.

Many of our peer nations (especially in Northern Europe) have poverty rates that put us to shame. When our child poverty rates neared 1 in 5 in some years, their rates hovered below 1 in 20. There are likely several factors involved in their comparative success but our rather pathetic policy approaches cannot be discounted. And let us face it. Public policy is something we control. Consider this. Over 1 in 3 elderly were poor in 1959, before the war on poverty was enacted. That rate fell to less than 1 in 10 by the 1970s. It wasn’t labor markets that accounted for this difference. It was the set of policies we enacted during the 60s and early 70s.

There is an old truism … the morality of a nation is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens … the young and the old. We decided that the elderly were worth our attention, and we ensured that most of them deserved to be spared from extreme want. Our young were another matter. We can speculate on why, but I sense that we could never forgive the alleged sins of the parents. Thus, our children continue to disproportionately suffer.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can do better. Perhaps the next time poverty works itself to the front burner, we will.