Despite its belief that poverty is largely an individual problem, the United States has not entirely neglected its responsibility for the marginalized poor of this society. Many different policies and programs have been implemented as a way to rectify insular poverty (Bessant, Dalton, Smyth, & Watts 70; 76). One of the earliest policies that was adopted was the welfare system, which, despite its good intentions to serve as a means of temporary financial assistance, is largely considered to be terribly ineffective for the insular poor and wasteful for taxpayers. The welfare-to-work program of President Clinton’s administration was intended to redress some of these deficiencies for both stakeholder groups; however, as Ehrenreich points out in her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, poor adults who were suddenly sent to work acquired a mind-boggling and budget-busting set of new expenses that made their new “salary” laughable (170).

Another policy that has been used partially as a remedy for insular poverty is affirmative action which, seeks to bridge the income and wealth gap that isolates African-Americans on the island of insular poverty. The premise of affirmative action is that a policy is needed to address income inequalities based on race because those with power and money are not willingly going to share or concede their wealth or resources that foster economic stability simply because they want to be fair or because they believe that income equality is important. Despite its corrective intentions, affirmative action remains a deeply divisive solution for income inequality. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether affirmative action has actually resulted in decreasing insular poverty to any measurable degree.

As Borjas (1996) indicates, the federal government has a history of exhibiting “sudden and remarkable swings in policy proposals” (72). Such inconsistencies seem to suggest that the federal government is entirely incapacitated when it comes to establishing effective policies and programs to decrease and eventually eliminate insular poverty. Furthermore, the history of the government’s policies and programs demonstrate an insensitivity to the differing needs that characterize the urban poor and distinguish them from the rural poor. The Rural Poverty Research Center contends that “The diversity of needs and capacity in different places makes tailored policies more effective, which argues for community-based policy, yet the limited capacity to fund community-based policy initiatives in many poor communities argues for federal funding, guidelines, and oversight” (3). Any future policies that are crafted and programs that are implemented with the intention of alleviating poverty must take these differences into account. Poor communities, like poor people themselves, are not a uniform group; there is as much difference within the communities as there is between their community and communities that enjoy financial stability. One step that legislators and policymakers should take is to involve the insular poor in the discussion, planning, and implementing phases of programs intended to assist their communities.

Despite the robust U.S. economy and unprecedented levels of personal wealth, there remain communities of people who are described as the insular poor, both in urban and rural areas of the United States. These people are poor not because of some egregious personal deficit, but because of the glaring inadequacy of our nation’s social systems and structure, both with respect to its historical characteristics and its contemporary features. The causes of insular poverty are complex because there are many variables that are interrelated, and the causes are not entirely the same for the insular poor or rural regions and the insular poor living on the margins in metropolitan areas. To date, the strategies that have been proposed, both in policy and in practice, to alleviate the economic and psychological burdens of the insular poor have been ineffective, and marginality exists as it always has, with more people being displaced to the ranks of the insular poor every day. Creative solutions for reducing poverty may exist, but they will only be identified and implemented effectively if the very people they are intended to help are involved in the process of identifying and implementing them.

Other essays and articles in the Main Archives related to this topic include : Race, Class, and Structural Inequality in Post-Katrina New Orleans •  Problems and Weaknesses in the American Educational System •   Compare / Contrast On Rural Versus Urban Living   • Analysis and Summary of “The Classic Slum” by Robert Roberts  •  Eminent Domain: Institutionalized Robbery

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