The Case for a Black Belt Regional Commission

The Nation’s Greg Kaufmann on his recent article “Appalachia gets special funding. The black rural south deserves it too.” PLUS: We mark Valentine’s Day for millionaires with Social Security Works’s Alex Lawson. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.

This week on Off-Kilter… “Candidates have offered a host of ideas that would have a significant anti-poverty effect, from universal health care to debt-free college, a living wage, housing for all, universal child care, and more. They have also pledged to push for a debate focused exclusively on the issue — a promise they still need to make good on. But one region that hasn’t received the attention it needs in this or previous elections is the rural Black Belt, specifically the persistently poor counties in 11 Southern states that are home to more than half of the nation’s non-metro poor.”

So writes Greg Kaufmann, a journalist-in-residence at the Roosevelt Institute and a contributing writer at The Nation, in a recent piece titled “Appalachia gets special funding. The Black rural south deserves it too.” I should note, Greg is also the founder of TalkPoverty.org where this little radio show got its start. Rebecca talks with him about his reporting on disinvestment in the rural black south, the case for a Black Belt Regional Commission modeled on the Appalachian Regional Commission, how poverty is showing up in the presidential primary debate, and more.

And, later in the show: This week marks Valentine’s Day…. for millionaires. Specifically, February 19, 2020, was the day this year that millionaires stopped paying into Social Security for the rest of the year. So Rebecca welcomes back Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works and founder of We Act Radio, to mark the occasion and catch up on all things Social Security, from a deep dive on the payroll tax cap and why even Reagan thinks the wealthy should contribute more to Social Security than they are today, to Trump’s repeated cuts (and promises of more cuts), to why the fact-checkers keep blowing it, and more.

This week’s guests:

• Greg Kaufmann, journalist-in-residence, Roosevelt Institute and contributing writer, The Nation (@gregkaufmann)
• Alex Lawson, executive director, Social Security Works and founder, We Act Radio (@alaw202)

For more on this week’s topics:

• Read Greg’s piece for The Nation: “Appalachia gets special funding. The Black rural south deserves it too.”
• Read more on how inequality is taking a toll on Social Security in this analysis by Rachel West — and follow the push to update/eliminate the payroll tax cap at #ScrapTheCap.

This week’s transcript:

♪ I work and get paid like minimum wage

sights to hit the class by the end of the day

hot from downtown into the hood where I stay

the only place I can afford ’cause my block ain’t saved

I spend most of my time working…. ♪

REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off-Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m Rebecca Vallas. Happy Valentine’s Day! For millionaires anyway. That’s right. February 19th, 2020 marked the day that millionaires stopped paying into Social Security for the year. So, I figured who better than my good friend Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works and erstwhile corporate pirate, to have back on the show to mark the occasion and catch up on all things Social Security and more. Alex, Happy Valentine’s Day for Millionaires.

ALEX LAWSON: Uh. Yeah, I guess it’s kind of happy for them.

VALLAS: [laughs]

LAWSON: Not for most of the people in this country.

VALLAS: Well, I was going to ask how you were celebrating, but I guess you’re not marking this fine occasion except with me.

LAWSON: Well, we celebrate in a different way by trying to make it a little bit harder for the greedy liars on Wall Street to get away with their wholesale looting of the American public by drawing attention to the fact that if it wasn’t for the fact that so much wealth has accumulated to the super-wealthy above the cap that people pay into on Social Security, there would be no debate about Social Security. If millionaires and billionaires paid the same rate on all of their income, just like the rest of us do, we would not only have Social Security indefinitely, forever, we could expand benefits for the millions of people around the country right now who the only problem with Social Security is that benefits are too low for them to actually live in this economy.

VALLAS: I would just like to note, before we get too deep into this, and we’re going to unpack what Valentine’s Day for Millionaires means exactly, but, Alex, I think you actually just set a new record.

LAWSON: It’s a record. I was going for it.

VALLAS: You were going for it! I was going to ask if that was intentional. Well, you set a new record for number of seconds that we were into this segment before you got in [laughing] “greedy liars on Wall Street.” So, well, I feel like we need a sound effect for when that gets said and when the record gets broken.

LAWSON: It’s a gong. [laughs]

VALLAS: [makes gong sound] All right. So noted. So, back to Social Security and Valentine’s Day. So, Alex, explain Valentine’s Day for Millionaires. What do I mean when I’m saying that Social Security is something that millionaires stop paying into at some point during the year?

LAWSON: So, there’s a amount of, a dollar amount, that everybody pays into Social Security: $137,000 in 2020. And what that means is that for the vast majority of Americans, we pay into Social Security. We make our contributions that we see coming out of our paycheck. It’s our money. It’s our Social Security. And we see it coming out the entire year.

VALLAS: And the amount you just noted, right, just shy of $140,000, that’s the amount for this year. It changes on an annual basis.

LAWSON: It changes, mmhmm.

VALLAS: Sometimes it doesn’t change. Sometimes it does. We can actually explain why that is, because that also gets into another Trump proposal that is worth reminding people of. But that amount, that’s not the amount people are paying in. It’s the limit on their income that they pay in until they hit that limit.

LAWSON: And then above that, they pay in zero. Nothing is paid in after that, which actually makes the financing mechanism incredibly regressive on Social Security. The benefits structure is so progressive that it actually makes up for that revenue. But what we want to do is actually make the revenue side progressive as well, because billionaires and millionaires should just pay in on all of their income just like the rest of us.

You can think of it as the dollar. But like, why is it Valentine’s Day for Millionaires is because you can also think of it as time. Most people pay in every day of the year, right? They pay in the whole year long. Super-rich people might stop paying on January 1st every single year. People who make a million dollars a year stop paying in around February 19th this year. That’s why —

VALLAS: That’s when they hit that income amount, right? So, at this point in the year, put differently, millionaires have already made more money than most people make in the entire year, and they get doubly rewarded by no longer having Social Security taxes come out of their paycheck.

LAWSON: Right. And you know, there are, and I won’t get into the, unless you want to, but there are reasons that were made for the cap. And I’m making hand motions over my shoulder —

VALLAS: To the time of yon.

LAWSON: Yeah.

VALLAS: Which I think is what’s back there.

LAWSON: See, I disagree with them, even back there. I wasn’t around then, but —

VALLAS: No, but you should tell this story, right? For anyone who doesn’t know the history of why the amount is what it is and why we even have the structure that we have. Tell us a little bit about the payroll tax cap.

LAWSON: It’s like a little bit of a boring-ish story, but there’s a bit of a compromise to it. So, the beauty of Social Security is that it’s a social insurance program, right? So, we all pay into it, and then is there for us when we need. It insures against lost wages. And we lose wages for a few things that we insure against. When we retire, when we become old, older and retire, that’s the one that most people are familiar with. If we face a life-changing event and become disabled and can no longer work, that’s the disability insurance. And for the surviving family members, if the breadwinner of a family dies, that’s survivor’s insurance. But it’s an insurance product, right? So, the idea was basically that you didn’t want to have, say, a Michael Bloomberg who’s worth $60 billion — $60-thousand-million dollars, right — that he would be paying in this pretty huge number into Social Security. And then the benefits would, ’cause benefits increase as you pay into it. And so, instead of saying, oh. Well, let’s have millionaires and billionaires pay in on all of their income, and then we’ll just not keep increasing the benefit at the same rate so that there’s no like million dollar a month Social Security check going out. They went the other way, and they said, let’s just cap it. So, there’s a maximum check and a maximum amount in.

VALLAS: And so, that’s kind of the link between contributions and then eventual benefits that get paid out. And so, both are kind of capped.

LAWSON: Right. And now, in the age of inequality that we’re in right now, it makes perfect sense to people that millionaires and billionaires should pay in on all of their income. And then we should just not actually — They’ll make a little bit more. They’ll get a little bit more benefit for all the dollars that they pay in because it is still social insurance. But I’m making all these hand gestures that you can’t see. The formula will flatten at the top. So, for all of the extra dollars that the super-wealthy are paying in, they’re going to get less back. And that is absolutely fair and absolutely within the philosophy of social insurance. So, that’s why I said I would disagree back then. There is basically —

VALLAS: Watching you do all these hand gestures, I feel like there are two issues that you kind of can’t talk about on the radio without realizing that you’re wildly gesticulating in ways that listeners will never actually see or know. And one of them is the Earned Income Tax Credit, right? Because you’ve got the famous trapezoid.

LAWSON: Right! [chuckles]

VALLAS: And so, every guest I’ve ever had sitting in that chair who talks about the EITC becomes a human trapezoid at some point! I’ve got my legs and arms up right now because people can’t see them. And I’m realizing now the other topic is the payroll tax. Yep.

LAWSON: Yeah. Because it’s all, I mean, it is a very beautiful — not the cap, but Social Security. And I’m a super nerd, but I feel like that’s known fact — it’s a beautiful and elegant formula that is created. And it’s like the simplicity of it is what makes it so excellent.

VALLAS: You’re a super nerd and a noted social insurance expert, I think.

LAWSON: I think it’s self-noted, though, if we actually get right down to it. I’ve noted myself. No.

VALLAS: Well, as long as you weren’t misquoted.

BOTH: [laugh]

VALLAS: Anyway. So, OK. So, that’s how we end up with this cap. You’re talking about basically the shift that is at the heart of a lot of proposals for Social Security expansion, right?

LAWSON: Right.

VALLAS: Some people call it “scrap the cap.” And so, you’re basically, as you explain it, you’re inherently also kind of taking on the strawman, right? Some people would say, well, wait a second. Doesn’t that break the link? Doesn’t that make it not social insurance? That’s my voice for people that I think are a strawman. And you’re responding to that by saying, no, it doesn’t break the link. What it does is to modify the program to make it more progressive and to recognize that massive, massive increases in inequality actually put us in a different place now than where we were when the original formula was set.

LAWSON: Yes. And that this is a fact of insurance, right? Like, that’s sort of…. I don’t want to probably go too deep into it, but like the value of fire insurance, right? It’s worth an infinite amount if you need it. But if you don’t use it, your house didn’t catch on fire. So, it’s like it’s got an enormous value, but there’s also other things. Some other factors like wealth and income contribute to whether your house is going to catch on fire or not. So, that’s kind of the idea of why this, as wage insurance, makes perfect sense and is in the philosophy of social insurance. The super-wealthy, they might lose some of their income when they retire, but not all of their income, right? So, they’re not facing the same situation that somebody who is a low-wage worker is facing, where when they retire and they’re paycheck to paycheck, they’re gonna lose all of their income. So, we’re going to have to replace, with social insurance, a much greater proportion of lower-income folks’ income. Sorry, I said “income” like nine times. That’s the philosophy. That’s what wage insurance is doing.

So, in the past, what the argument was, was that we will make up for the regressive revenue side by making the benefits so progressive that it is hugely progressive, and it is. It’s massive. And I think that, you know, I understand where they’re coming from because it was a sort of compromise position, but it was wrong. We should, the whole program should be progressive. Progressive revenue, progressive taxation is an incredibly good human development. The idea that the better that you’re doing, the more you pay in to the systems that help all of us do better. Because no one actually made all of their money themselves. Michael Bloomberg, $60 billion that he made from the terminals. The workers who produce those, right? That’s where the value comes from. And so, I’m just, it is a question that kind of comes up every once in a while, but I think we’ve answered it. I actually think we’ve moved to everyone understands that actually scrapping the cap makes Social Security stronger and fulfills its promise even more than the regressive taxation that it has right now.

VALLAS: And it polls really well. It polls really well across party lines, right? So, just to say, it’s not just you saying this. When you say we, yeah, Social Security works. Yeah, it’s the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. But it’s also actually overwhelming numbers of the American people.

LAWSON: Oh, Republicans, Independents. Yeah.

VALLAS: It’s actually, it’s like the ultimate We, the capital We.

There’s another reason — just takes to get a little bit more into the wonky rabbit hole here, because I feel like that’s what we promise listeners at Off-Kilter every week — there’s another reason that is related to inequality, which we’ve been talking about, that makes a really urgent and compelling case for scrapping the cap or for at least significantly raising it, right? Which is sort of the moderate version of that proposal. And that is that — and I want to give a shout out to my former colleague, Rachel West, who now is over working in the House of Representatives as an economist over there — she did some analysis when she was at the Center for American Progress that really started to take a look at the question of what is the effect of inequality on Social Security itself?

LAWSON: Mmhmm.

VALLAS: And it really opened some eyes when this was released a few years ago. What she found was that if not for the trends that we have seen in inequality — and I’ll explain that in just a second; there’s a couple of contributing factors — Social Security’s trust funds would today have over a trillion dollars more in reserves. That’s the situation we would be seeing, if not for the historic increase in inequality that we’ve seen over roughly the past three decades and change. And a big part of why that is, is because a growing share of rich people’s huge amounts of income is escaping that payroll tax cap, which has over the years — and now I’m going to be a graph just like you were, except I’m a graph going the other direction — you see this sloping line of how much of rich people’s income and how much of people’s income period is being captured by that payroll tax cap. It had been set by President Reagan — and actually a bipartisan compromise is part of the story you were telling — at 90 percent of covered wages back in the ’80s. And over time, it has slipped and slipped and slipped and slipped. And now, so much of rich people’s income is no longer subject to that payroll tax because the cap has slipped in real terms, that now Social Security’s not perceiving it. And the trust funds are getting deprived of the reserves they would otherwise be getting in the form of rich people’s income in fair contributions. So, that, to me, also really layers onto the case that you’re making for why this is not just common sense. It’s actually, frankly, something Reagan himself supported.

LAWSON: I think that’s exactly right. And I mean, the concept of fairness is not an ideological one. And so, the American people just, they love Social Security across, you know, it doesn’t matter party or anything. And we polled it literally every single way that you could, and we never found like a slice, except for folks on Wall Street who just want to steal it all.

VALLAS: Gong.

VALLAS: [chuckles] But people love Social Security because of the fairness of this system, because it works for us, because it’s our system. It’s our Social Security. And actually, what we find when we’ve looked into it, and other people have as well, is most people don’t know that there is a cap. And when they find out that there is a cap, the concept is unfair. They’re like, no, that’s not the way. That’s unfair! That means that rich people are stealing money out of the system! They should be, just like I do, paying into this system that’s there for all of us. That’s the concept of Social Security. So, you know, a trillion dollars more into the trust fund because of the age of inequality that we’re in.

And I know you know this, but I always say pay in on all of their income. And what I’m doing there is I’m saying they also, it’s above the cap, but they also, rich people are getting income in other forms than wages. And so, capital gains, investment income. And so, we think that all of that should be covered as well, because it doesn’t matter. That’s money that, you know, they’re making that money. So, that should be paid in on as well. We cover all of it.

VALLAS: And an active debate going on, certainly on the left, around whether that should be subject to taxes that go to Social Security, other things, right? But definitely lots of agreement that wealth is escaping taxation.

LAWSON: Right.

VALLAS: And those other forms of income are currently escaping taxation, and that’s a big loophole for rich people.

So, Alex, I want to kind of bring us back to the primary. We can’t really talk on this show — you know it disappoints me more than anyone. I will remind listeners that this is for legal reasons. This is not how I would like to do this — but can’t talk about candidates and their policies. What we can do is talk a little bit about how Social Security is showing up in this primary.

LAWSON: Mmhmm.

VALLAS: And I know one of the things that has been incredibly frustrating to me and I think to you as well, is you’ve got sort of this obsession by the fact checkers with going after each individual Democratic candidate and saying, you know, how likely are they to cut Social Security? Have they said in the past that they’re going to cut Social Security? And I’m not going to weigh in, as I said, on individual candidates and my views on that. But one through line of this has been for months now, you keep seeing fact checkers basically say, nah, so-and-so isn’t planning on cutting Social Security and never really supported it. That claim is false. And their sources are all from the same think tank that is trying to cut Social Security!!

LAWSON: Yes.

VALLAS: So, just wanted to note that as a source of shared frustration. Maybe the fact checkers could start talking to people at think tanks that don’t cut Social Security and don’t try to?

VALLAS: I mean, I think, so, yes! Big yes. We’re oftentimes in there, as you know. Oh, well, these people are describing exactly what’s happening. But if you believe these other people with a huge agenda to cut Social Security, then those words don’t mean what they clearly mean to everybody. The thing that I would just sort of disagree on is that the fact checkers could ever get better. They’re terrible. They’re always terrible. They always have been terrible. This is not a new phenomenon. Right, these are the people who said the Republicans literally, literally day one in office start trying to destroy Medicare. That’s like they openly salivate about it. Paul Ryan said, in the keg line in college, he dreamed, he fantasized about ripping Medicare away from people who’ve earned it. They say all this, and the fact checkers are like, “Biggest lie of the year.” You remember that one?

VALLAS: It’s like four Pinocchios or something. Yeah.

LAWSON: And it was the lie of the year that when Democrats were like, oh, Republicans want to take away your Medicare. And the fact checkers were like, no, they don’t! Because they don’t say the exact words, “I want to reach my hand into your pocket and steal the benefits that you’ve earned over a lifetime.” And you’re like, that’s not what a fact checker does! Because —

VALLAS: [laughs] So, you’re as frustrated as I.

LAWSON: They’re not fact checkers is my point. They’re part of an operation to shape a narrative that has been funded, well-funded, over decades to soften up the intellectual turf, in order to accomplish one goal, which is to literally reach — it’s the greedy liars on Wall Street — they’re gonna reach their hands into our pockets, and they’re going to steal our money. And the fact checkers’ job is to be like, that’s not a hand you feel in your pocket stealing your money. It’s something else. That’s what we’re looking at, and it just continues. The brazenness is a little bit surprising.

VALLAS: And so, I want to jump in there. And I feel like this gong is going to get so much use that I’m going to have to put it away to preserve it —

LAWSON: Gong, gong, gong, gong.

VALLAS: [laughs] — for the next time I have you on the show. So, but I bring this up not just to vent, right? And obviously, you and I share this frustration, and we talk about this. But also because it is so important and timely at a moment where we have a White House who has, it seems, learned a lot from the likes of Paul Ryan when it comes to how to rebrand the word “c-u-t,” right? They’ve learned not to say it. They’ve learned not even to say words like “block grant” because that backfires. And so, they’ve started to rebrand everything so that the fact checkers and others can look at the literal words that they have used and say, “But they didn’t say cut,” right? And it’s like it works. It shouldn’t. And this is my plea to fact checkers. Please, please talk to people who aren’t trying to cut the programs to validate whether these claims are —

LAWSON: And then my plea is stop reading the fact checkers. Just get rid of the fact checkers. The fact checkers are bad. They’re bad. They’re just, these, in journalistic terms, are opinion pieces. That’s all they are. They’re not news pieces. They’re opinion pieces by an anonymous byline. The fact checkers like the ones in The Washington Post, just ignore them because it is an ideologically-driven campaign to shape a narrative. And so, we’re just on slightly different sides there. You’re assuming an iota of good faith, and I am assuming that this is all part of a strategy of theirs.

VALLAS: Well, and either way, it ends up providing cover for the cuts, right?

LAWSON: Mmhmm.

VALLAS: That’s the ultimate outcome. And the real conversation that I know you wish we were having, and that I certainly wish we were having, and that we had glimmers of around the release of Trump’s budget last week, but we’ve sort of gone back now to a different, less productive debate is, irrespective of who the Democratic nominee ends up being, one thing is absolutely certain. And that is that if Trump stays in the White House, he’s going to keep trying to cut, and not just trying, succeeding to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, right, breaking all of his signature campaign promises. I mean, if we’ve got time, I don’t know that we will, we can get into prescription drugs, which is another area rife with broken promises for him that’s also really important to voters right now. But again, with the debate that’s out there being so kind of different from the stark terms that I just laid it out in, that I think is what everybody really needs to be thinking about in terms of what the stakes are in November on these issues, it’s like it’s still open to question among many in the mainstream media whether or not he’s cutting Social Security! People are debating whether or not he’s promised to cut Social Security in a second term! And that much is really pretty frickin’ clear from things he’s said, his top advisers have said, things he’s been saying repeatedly, and his budgets, by the way.

LAWSON: His budget!

VALLAS: But he’s also in the process of cutting Social Security right now!!!

LAWSON: Yes.

VALLAS: And he’s not waiting for Congress to do it. And that’s totally getting missed as people talk about what’s at stake in November.

LAWSON: And Medicare and Medicaid, right? So, the budget that he laid out is an immoral document. We always say a budget is a moral document. It’s like where your vision is. His is an immoral document. And it is exactly where his vision is. The president’s budget is not going to be enacted or something like that. That’s not what it was there for. It’s literally a list. It’s a wish list of things that he would do if he could. And also, a note to his allies in Congress and the administration to try to do all of these things: to destroy Medicaid by any means necessary, to destroy the largest provider of long-term care in this country, a trillion dollars-ish in cuts to destroy it. Now, that’s not going to happen in the budget when the Democrats hold the House. But you are seeing rules implemented right now that are destroying Medicaid! And do you think that people care whether the destruction came through the budgetary process or through the rules process? It’s a blueprint for causing misery and chaos that’s being implemented by his goons across this town and across the entire administration.

And it’s clear as day: he promised not to cut Social Security. He promised not to cut Medicare. He promised not to cut Medicaid. He promised to lower prescription drug prices. He has broken all of those promises. He is cutting Social Security. He is cutting Medicare. He is cutting Medicaid. And he has done nothing to address prescription drug prices. He literally put the pharma-est bro of pharma bros, Alex Azar, in charge of HHS! Over all of our healthcare is the dude who is one third of a cartel to keep insulin prices so high that some people die so that everyone else is terrified enough that they will go bankrupt to afford the drugs that they or their family members need. That is the immorality of this administration. And the reason I’m so salty at those fact checkers is that it’s right in front of our faces! It’s happening right now. And I see these, I have a picture of them being, you know, just, no, don’t believe what’s actually happening. It’s not as bad as all of that.

Well, let them go and tell somebody who’s losing their benefits. Let them tell somebody who is terrified of possibly losing their benefits! Because I want to tell you that that, we get so much email, phone calls to Social Security Works of people who are literally terrified that they’re going to lose the benefits that they need to live. They are facing an uncertainty that is terrifying to them. But the only thing that they’re certain of is that someone is trying to steal their benefits! And it’s just like, I can’t stand the elite media trying to convince people that that’s not what’s happening right now.

VALLAS: And also running pieces from say, Seema Verna, right, the director of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, right? The title of which is No, Trump is Not Cutting Medicaid. It’s an opinion piece from a top administration official with a headline that could not be more brazenly false. And yet that’s what runs in The Washington Post, right? And then, yes, lots of people respond, and everyone says, well, actually, he is. And by the way, here all the ways. And by the way, you’re the architect of a lot of that, Ms. Verma And yet, to still run that kind of a piece and with that kind of a headline, which ends up being the tweet and so forth. So, a lot of layers to how many in the mainstream media actually are really kind of allowing this sort of bait and switch to go on.

LAWSON: I just don’t think they’re mainstream anymore is the only quibble I have with that. They’re the corporate media, and it’s no surprise to me that more and more people are turning to truth tellers like yourself. They’re finding people who are actually telling the true story of what’s going on, and they’re ignoring or they’re discounting the corporate media because the bias is so clear. And so, I agree with you. But I also, I have this, I’m an aggressive optimist. Because you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. That is wisdom right there, and we’re right at that point. We are seeing a movement of people across this country who are saying, “Don’t tell me what we can’t do. I’m not interested in people telling me that we can’t address climate change. I am going to address climate change! Also, the people who are telling me we can’t are making billions of dollars destroying the world!” People are waking up. They are awake, and it is very heartening to see. And we’ve been able to form organizations and alliances and just a camaraderie of people standing shoulder to shoulder, raising our voices and telling people absolutely no, you are not going to steal my benefits. I earned these benefits. You greedy liars on Wall Street, get your hands out of my pocket. And in fact, we’re going to have you pay your fair share, and we’re going to expand benefits for everyone around this country.

VALLAS: And Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too, Alex.

LAWSON: [chuckles]

VALLAS: Alex Lawson is the executive director of Social Security Works. He is also one of the, what are you, the director, the owner? Are you one of the owners of We Act Radio, which Off-Kilter is proud to be part of the family of. And hearing you talk every time you do about the gaps that we see in the media, in the fourth estate, I am grateful every single day for We Act Radio and for you guys providing a home for content like Off-Kilter. Look forward to have you back soon. And we’ll make sure the gong is ready to go.

LAWSON: Always a pleasure.

VALLAS: Don’t go away. More Off-Kilter after the break. I’m Rebecca Vallas. [hip hop music break]

“Candidates have offered a host of ideas that would have a significant anti-poverty effect, from universal health care to debt-free college, a living wage, housing for all, universal childcare, and more. They have also pledged to push for a debate focused exclusively on the issue, a promise they still need to make good on. But one region that hasn’t received the attention it needs in this or previous elections is the rural Black Belt, specifically the persistently poor counties in 11 southern states that are home to more than half of the nation’s non-metro poor.” So writes Greg Kaufmann, a journalist in residence at the Roosevelt Institute and a contributing writer at The Nation in a recent piece titled Appalachia Gets Special Funding: The Black Rural South Deserves It Too. I should note Greg is also the founder, of course, of TalkPoverty.org, where this little radio show got its start years ago. And I’m thrilled to have him back on the show for the first time in way, way, way too long.

Greg, how’ve you been? It’s so great to hear your voice.

GREG KAUFMANN: I am doing pretty well, Rebecca, and I’m really happy to talk to you again. It has been a long time. It’s been a long time since you started your little radio show, formerly TalkPoverty Radio, now Off-Kilter.

VALLAS: I know. And I was actually reminded recently because I, Kate Bahn, one of our friends in kind of the economic policy space, she unearthed from the TalkPoverty Radio Archives, an episode we had done for Galentine’s Day like years ago.

KAUFMANN: Oh my gosh.

VALLAS: And I went back and listened. I was like, oh, we were so young!

KAUFMANN: [laughs]

VALLAS: So, Greg, first of all, just kudos on this piece. This piece is just incredibly important journalism. It’ll be on our nerdy syllabus page. Folks should go check it out there and give it a read in The Nation. But just sort of backing up, and we’ll get to Appalachia, we’ll get to the Black Belt and spend most of our time there, but before we kind of zoom in on the thrust of this piece, people in the economic justice space, the poverty space, the circles that you and I move in, have all sort of been talking a lot lately about how poverty has actually made quite an appearance in this primary cycle. And as your piece points out, and I was reading from this in my intro, a wide array of candidates have offered a broad range of bold proposals and have actually spent a good bit of their time on the campaign trail, on the debate stage, lifting up and acknowledging really important and pressing problems facing millions of Americans like the affordable housing crisis, like child care, paid leave, the minimum wage, and even, as we’ve discussed a good deal on this show, intersections that have previously been largely ignored, like the intersection of disability and poverty. So, I’m curious. Before we get into the Black Belt and some of your free advice for candidates — which is sort of how I read this piece — how do you feel that the discussion of poverty has been in the primary debate so far?

KAUFMANN: Well, first, I just want to give you continuing kudos for exploring the intersection between disability and poverty, because honestly, nobody does that like you do. And you’ve been doing it for years, even long before this show. So, I just have to say that. In terms of the current debate, I mean, yeah. I think on the one hand, a lot of these policies, whether you’re talking about universal healthcare and childcare or living wage or housing for all, or at least a massive expansion of affordable housing, any of these policies we know would have a really significant impact on poverty. And while there are a lot of people who focus on, well, people aren’t saying the word “poverty” enough or not focusing specifically on poverty — and I think there’s some merit to the latter — and you and I have talked about this in the past. You don’t have to say the word “poverty” to talk about poverty. I mean, if that makes sense.

So, I actually have been thinking some — and I know 2012 seems like forever ago to some people. But I guess as an older guy, it doesn’t seem that long ago to me — but I’ve been thinking some about, you know, in 2012, Mitt Romney running against Obama, President Obama, he tended to be the person in the debate who would say the word “poverty,” and usually in a way that was rather patronizing to people in poverty. And Obama tended to talk about the middle class and those who aspire to the middle class. He tended to not say “poverty” as much. And yet, he was talking about issues — raising the minimum wage and healthcare and the Affordable Care Act and what we had to do next, Medicaid expansion — that impacted people. So, I think people who are interested in this issue, let’s stay focused on the big issues and how they’re impacting people in poverty. I think that’s the most important thing.

But I also have to say personally, I think, in the Poor People’s Campaign has focused, sorry, has pushed for a poverty-focused debate, a nationally televised poverty-focused debate. In a forum in June, Vice President Biden and Senators Warren and Sanders, they attended that forum. They all pledged to push for such a debate. So far, I’ve seen a tweet from Senator Warren. I haven’t seen anything from any of the other candidates. So, I’ll be interested to see if they take the next step of talking about these good proposals. That’s awesome. But also, OK, let’s have a whole forum where we can educate people about people in poverty and the solutions that exist. Because I think the next president really has to do a good job educating people about poverty so that we overcome some of these myths so we can make the investments we need to make.

VALLAS: Well, and just to put a really fine point on it, when I say that people are excited about hearing these issues come up in the debate. Just to show how sort of low the bar is, right, and what is enough to get people excited, it was a huge deal that, not in the debate this week, but in the most recent debate prior to that, that there was actually a question that got asked that was about poverty.

KAUFMANN: Right.

VALLAS: And the fact that one of the moderators in one of these many, many debates even just asked a question about poverty was itself a huge deal, almost the outgrowth of a tremendous amount of activism.

KAUFMANN: That’s right.

VALLAS: And I want to shout at the folks who have been working on that. And obviously, the Poor People’s Campaign has been behind a lot of it, but so have a bunch of direct service providers and food banks and others, and Joel Berg, who’s repeatedly been on this show talking about SNAP attacks, has been a big part of kind of organizing that work. So, even just to get a question asked is a big deal considering how low the bar has been for so many primary cycles.

KAUFMANN: That’s right. I mean, it’s been at least since, I know as of 2000 through now, there hadn’t been one. So, it could go back even longer than 2000. It’s kind of crazy. It’s kind of not a good thing.

VALLAS: So, as much as people are saying it’s a good thing — and you’re one of those people, I’m one of those people saying it’s a good thing — that we’ve got a lot of the candidates on the Democratic side all talking about these issues, whether or not they use the word “poverty,” and sometimes some do, sometimes some don’t, they are talking about a broad anti-poverty agenda and acknowledging the connections to inequality in ways that we have not usually seen as such a sizable focus of the airtime during a primary cycle. But that being said, and this gets us really into the thrust of your piece, we’re a week out from the South Carolina primary. It’s February 29th. Six more Black Belt state — states in the rural black South — which your piece is focused on are set to vote on Super Tuesday, which follows soon after. Its March 3rd. And this moment in a primary cycle often gets pollsters and pundits all kind of finally talking about black voters. And it also has the effect of evaluating, pushing them really to evaluate, where the candidates are, how they’re doing, what are they saying, how do their policies stack up when it comes to issues that matter to voters of color.

And I want to just put on the table, I know that this is something that frustrates me. I wish it weren’t just in these moments. I know you feel the same way, but we are in one of those moments right now. And it’s sort of leaning into that moment in the primary cycle that your piece, I really kind of read it as a call to the candidates and really to the media and the pundit class to look deeper than just at the polls, you know, how is someone doing among black voters? Look past the stump speeches and evaluate what are we actually hearing from each candidate? Is it empty pandering? Is it vague promises of what they would do for voters of color? Or do the candidates actually have concrete, bold policy proposals to address structural racism? And so, that’s where I was referring to your piece as sort of free advice for the candidates. Because what you’re urging them to embrace is something that you’re describing and others have described as a Black Belt Regional Commission modeled after something called the Appalachia Regional Commission. So, a very, very specific policy idea that’s not new but that you’re kind of seeking to breathe some new life into with this piece. So, before we get into what the Black Belt Regional Commission is, I would love to have you share the story behind the Appalachia Regional Commission, because it actually all starts with a presidential primary.

KAUFMANN: It does. And I want to first, I want to say that the research I did on this is drawn from mostly two sources, Uneven Ground by Ronald Eller, and then a piece that I would think should’ve had a different title because it’s the Appalachian Regional Commission: 25 Years of Government Policy, not very catchy. [chuckles] But that’s by Michael Bradshaw. And they tell this story of, in 1960, with the West Virginia primary coming up. Of course, JFK is trying to get the Democratic nomination, and at the time, Senator Hubert Humphrey was challenging him for it. And Humphrey had the support of organized labor. There’s also a question of whether America, and specifically a Protestant in a poor state, would elect a wealthy Catholic candidate. And so, Kennedy goes to the state, and he visits. For one thing, he visits camps with unemployed coal miners who are hungry. And by all accounts, he was genuinely stunned. He was affected, and it was visible. And he had cameras following him at this time. And so, there’s this sense that the statesman left behind. That infrastructure development has happened around the country, and it’s lacking there. That coal’s been extracted from this community without developing, without the wealth going to the community. And there’s a lack of roads. There’s a lack of bridges. There’s a huge flooding problem because of all the mining and erosion. And so, you really have a sense of an isolated and poor state.

And so, Kennedy, he really needed to win there and establish himself as the clear frontrunner. And he even, he campaigned with FDR’s son, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., to kind of wrap himself in New Deal-style politics. And sort FDR Jr. vouched for him and said, look, he’s going to come through for you. And the day before the primary, he goes on camera and he says, look, if you elect me, within 60 days, I’m going to introduce an aid program for West Virginia. I’ll introduce it to Congress. And he does win. The next day, he wins. He wins with over 60 percent of the vote. And he immediately establishes a presidential commission to come up with this program, not just for West Virginia, but for the region. And it, kind of sadly, it doesn’t get pushed through Congress until after he’s assassinated, and President Johnson establishes the Appalachian Regional Commission. And since then, it’s had $38 billion, adjusted for inflation, $38 billion of investment. So, it’s very significant, and it immediately establishes a highway system to connect some of these communities. And it’s done a lot more investing than that. But yeah, that’s the story. He needed those voters.

And the other thing that’s interesting is JFK had talked about the challenges of poor African-American people in the South. But of course, those votes weren’t as important to him to win the nomination. And white poverty in the media was just, it was just all politically more palatable to invest in the Appalachian region than invest in the South. So, the poverty rates were actually higher in the southern rural, in the Black Belt at that time.

VALLAS: Well, and so, now then to that, that’s sort of the origin story of the Appalachia Regional Commission that, people call it the ARC for short sometimes. And I want to now get into kind of the Black Belt, which a lot of your piece really kind of actually zooms in on it and kind of moves past just some of the facts and figures, but really starts to paint a pretty horrifying picture, considering that we’re talking about 2020. And you’re painting a picture of people living with raw sewage in their yards because of the long-term consequences of just massive, widespread underinvestment. Tell us about the Black Belt. What does poverty look like in the black rural South, and how is that connected to the underinvestment that is so much of the history in that region?

KAUFMANN: Yeah. And I want to say, so, the definition I’m using for the Black Belt — and it varies a little from study to study — but it’s around this. So, Dr. Veronica Womack, who’s excellent, and she’d be a great guest on your show. She’s runs the Rural Studies Institute at Georgia College and State University. And in these 11 southern states, old south states, as she calls them, you’ve got about 300 rural counties. And each of those counties has a population, an African-American population, that’s at least 30 percent, and as high as 80 percent. And if you look at the data, this region’s just consistently at or near the bottom in economic security indicators. So, one of the places I look at is Lowndes County, Alabama. And I was thinking. So, a U.N. official went there and kind of brought this to light, the raw sewage that people are living with in their yards. I think you had him on your show or somebody did.

VALLAS: I did. I did. It was the U.N. special rapporteur on poverty and human rights. And listeners may remember we talked a while back, it was last year, I believe, about a just scathing report that he authored for the U.N. that the U.N. then issued, basically condemning the state of poverty and inequality in the U.S. and end the Trump administration by extension, for its tax law and for further exacerbating those trends. So, that’s the same sort of ground zero that he went to is the county you’re talking about now.

KAUFMANN: Yeah. And he actually said — this is somebody who travels all over the world — he says this is something we don’t see in the developed world. This is third world kind of poverty. And so, with this lack of infrastructure investment in the region, so if you go to Lowndes County, Alabama, and it’s not just Lowndes. There are other communities dealing with this same problem. They don’t have access to sewer lines, and the septic tanks — this gets a little in the weeds — but they don’t work on that clay soil. That’s actually the reason the Black Belt has its name is the dark clay soil that was great for planting and growing cotton. But fast forward to today, the water doesn’t percolate down properly, so the regular septic tanks don’t work. And the ones that the people need cost up to $30,000. And you’re talking about an area with a median income of $28,000 and a poverty rate — I can’t remember how high the poverty rate is, but in essence, they can’t afford it. And then you talk to people on the ground there, and like a half mile away on the other side of the interstate where there are white-owned businesses, they have sewer lines attached. And there’s a professor who I didn’t talk to for this piece, but I hope to follow up with, who says some of these communities, you simply extend the sewer lines, and that would work. But we also could have, if you had like an Appalachian Regional Commission, sorry, a Black Belt Commission, you could do the funding so people could afford these septic tanks.

So, the Congresswoman for that area, her name’s Terri Sewell. And by all accounts, she’s a Democrat from Alabama. And by all accounts, she’s works hard and does what she can do. And she got monies in the farm bill so people could apply and receive up to $15,000. But that’s still not enough for people to get the septic tanks that they need in many cases. And also, navigating grant structures is not an easy thing to do even in cities that have full-time grant writers. So, in these rural areas, often when there are monies that are supposedly supposed to go to them, they don’t access them. So, that’s a big part. They can’t access them. They don’t have the time, and they don’t have the expertise.

VALLAS: It’s also, it’s putting the onus on individuals and families to try to dig out, quite literally, of what is very clearly a structural problem, right?

KAUFMANN: Right.

VALLAS: And so, in lieu of making that structural change and recognizing that it’s something that government should be doing rather than that individuals should be solving for, so that they aren’t living with raw sewage in their homes.

KAUFMANN: And so, yes, exactly. And another facet of this problem is clear, because Lowndes County, Alabama is actually eligible for something called the Delta Regional Authority, which is one of these kinds of commissions that has some Black Belt counties that are eligible for funding. But if you look at the recent press releases on infrastructure spending, they don’t go there. And what was stunning to me is in the last, I think in the last few months, they had a pretty sizable grant to extend a sewer line to serve the largest wood pellet producer in the world. So, you see what I’m saying? I mean, it’s one thing to have the money. It’s another question as to who gets the monies. And the Delta Regional Authority also doesn’t have any African-American people on its board. I mean, there are real concerns on the ground about whose interests do people have in mind and that kind of thing. So, yeah, you really dramatically see the underinvestment in the region when you talk about people living with raw sewage in their yards, and they’re dealing with hookworm. They have these septic tanks that are supposed to work that they’re told to buy that when it rains, the sewage just backs up into their homes, through tubs, through sinks. So, it’s really, it’s pretty stunning.

VALLAS: Well, and one of the other things that I feel like we would be remiss not to mention in this conversation, it really, really jumped out to me as just such an important link that you made in your piece is that the sewage problem, which is just one symptom of this larger underinvestment, this history of underinvestment in this area that’s largely been left behind. But the sewage, very specifically, the sewage problem that families have, poor families, have been living with, that’s causing health issues, that’s causing hookworm, that is causing them to live in third world conditions of poverty, all of what you’re describing, also has this other layer to it, which is that it has contributed further to the criminalization of poverty among these communities!

KAUFMANN: Right. Right.

VALLAS: And that just jumped out to me is such an important piece that you weave into this article and that some of the researchers you talked to actually liken to KKK-era intimidation. I want to quote a little section from your piece here. One of the researchers you spoke with, you say, drew an analogy between the way people are being treated over the waste issue and the KKK’s showing up in their communities. I liken it quote, “To that kind of terror. It leaves people feeling helpless and at the mercy of institutions and power structures in the community. And it’s similar all over Alabama’s Black Belt counties.” What you’re describing in this piece is that there’s actually been a history of people being arrested for having sewage in their yards because they are too poor to be able to address the infrastructure problems plaguing their communities. And some of the people who’ve been arrested are like pastors, right —

KAUFMANN: Yeah.

VALLAS: — who are running churches and trying to keep them safe and clean for their congregations. Talk a little bit about that criminalization of poverty link.

KAUFMANN: Yeah. And I would encourage people, the woman I spoke to about that, her name’s Lenice Emanuel, and she runs an organization called the Alabama Institute for Social Justice. And she’s doing incredible work and worth following. So, yes, imagine that you are poor and told that you don’t have a right to the infrastructure to deal with sewage, and you need to buy a $30,000 septic tank or even a $15,000 septic tank, whatever it is. And you can’t afford it. And so, then you have this problem of sewage backing up. And I should say that some people, when their septic tanks fail, they resort to what’s called straight piping, where you run a pipe away from your home, and the waste discharges somewhere away from your home into the yard, because that’s your only option. So, you have no right to the infrastructure. You can’t afford the system. And then people come and arrest you for violating the state health code, I believe it is. And so, the state says they stopped doing that in 2002.

But there is a case, at a minimum in 2014, of a pastor being arrested. I didn’t go into this fully in the piece, but they just bought the property, and the septic tank failed after they bought the property. And they had this, a neighbor complained about the smell, and he was arrested. And the other thing is, if you went right behind the building, and I believe it was another white-owned property — I can’t say that for sure. I just don’t have the piece in front of me — but there’s the sewer line. So, yes, you have people being arrested. And then and also, as you know from all of your work, even if they’ve stopped arresting people now, you still have people who have a criminal record on their record, making it hard for them to get jobs or even have lost jobs, Miss Emanuel told me. And they stopped arresting, but they hadn’t stopped fining people. So, that’s driving them deeper into poverty. And this is all because we haven’t established water treatment as a right, as a human right in these and other states. So, yeah. And she likens it —

So the other interesting thing she said, in terms of terrorizing a community, is it makes people afraid to organize and to advocate for change because they’re afraid of retribution from the state and from other power structures, as Miss Emanuel put it. So, yeah, it’s a really egregious case of punishing people for being poor.

VALLAS: And then, of course, people end up with criminal records because now they’ve been arrested for being poor, basically. And then it’s gonna be even harder to find a job and everything else.

KAUFMANN: Right.

VALLAS: And I appreciated you pointing that out in the piece, as I knew you would know that I would notice.

KAUFMANN: [laughs]

VALLAS: So, but now that zooming kind of back up right, so you point out in the piece, and you give a lot of credit to a lot of the folks who’ve been pushing over the years, including now in recent months as this idea has sort of started to get refreshed, re-upped, revisited. In fact, Stacey Abrams, who had run for governor in Georgia, one of those people who’s been a sort of vocal spokesperson for this idea. But you talk to scholars who have studied the story behind the Appalachia Regional Commission and who have also been aware of the proposals for this Black Belt Commission idea that have never really taken off in the same way. There’ve been these kind of piecemeal efforts said at funding that you’ve been describing, but nothing quite as concerted as that Appalachia Regional Commission. And these scholars who you spoke to for the piece also really have studied kind of the varying portrayals of the sort of more white working-class face of Appalachia versus the poor black face of the Black Belt.

And I want to quote another one of these researchers who you spoke with for the piece, Spencer Overton, who draws just such an important, I think, connection that is really kind of that larger point that your whole piece really makes. And “Spencer Overton notes that recognizing the unique history,” and you’re basically paraphrasing him in here in the piece, “and consequent struggles in Appalachia, but not in the Black Belt is like saying we’re going to treat the opioid crisis as a health epidemic, but we’re going to use the criminal code to deal with the crack epidemic.” And that comparison just stuck with me so deeply because it’s so much what’s going on with the way that we romanticize the white working class, the types of policy solutions that end up actually getting embraced, as the Appalachian Regional Commission is Exhibit A of, whereas the black working class is just not present in the conversation and not viewed as the deserving poor in quite the same way.

KAUFMANN: Right. And one thing people in the region that I spoke with are really conscious of, and I think it’s kind of along the same lines of what you were talking about, is most of the articles that they read about themselves are just about how poor they are and how they need help and all of this. And there’s very little recognition of kind of the character and the strength and the tenacity, as Dr. Womack put it. She said, making something out of nothing for generations. Whether you talk about the strength of the families, finding jobs or multiple jobs to get by, etc., that people don’t see that strength. Whereas I think there’s a lot of talk about grit in Appalachia and that sort of thing. So, you know, Spencer Overton’s contrast between the way we deal with, the way we view Appalachian poverty versus Southern Black Belt poverty is striking. And where was I? I lost my train of thought a little bit. But he, yeah, just that there are these remarkable strengths that we should be investing in people in the southern region.

VALLAS: And he sort of describes these “parallel histories of exploitation and resource extraction” — those are words I’m reading from your piece — that we see in the histories of Appalachia and in the Black Belt. And as he puts it, “In the Black Belt, it’s been about profiting off of cheap labor, whether that is slavery, Jim Crow, or the factories with low taxes, cheap wages, and no unions.” And that’s that unique history that we need to recognize as we start to think about the way that one region has been favored, and another has been entirely left behind when it comes —

KAUFMANN: Yeah, you just —

VALLAS: — to federal funds.

KAUFMANN: Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to cut you off there. You just reminded me of what I was thinking about, which is that a lot of these folks I spoke with, they’ve been working on this idea since the ’90s. And you can just really empathize with how they must feel like the public knows nothing about the Black Belt. The public knows nothing about really the Appalachian Regional Commission or the idea of investing in a Black Belt. And you can imagine their frustration at people not seeing these parallels in history and how, frankly, racist it is how we view Southern poverty versus how we view Appalachian poverty. So, I just really feel for the folks who’ve been working on this for decades and are trying to get some traction.

Kind of brings me full circle to where we started about. You know, now we are heading into, after Nevada, we head to South Carolina for the primary on Super Tuesday. And this is really something that the candidates should be looking at. There was a great, I thought it was a great quote. I didn’t say it, so I’m not quoting my own writing. The piece ends with a quote from Lenice Emanuel, the woman I mentioned from Alabama. And she says, “We have got to look inward at our own culpability in maintaining these systems of inequity. We have to be real with ourselves about that. That’s where the answer lies.” So, going full circle, I think it’s awesome that the candidates are talking about these policies that would significantly help people in poverty at the same time. We have to look at these explicit racist systems and speak specifically about them to educate people and to talk about what we’re going to do to fix it. And I think there’s a tremendous opportunity coming up in these Black Belt states to do that.

VALLAS: And the media has a real role to play here. It’s part of why your piece, I think, is really making the rounds. And everyone’s been reading it and saying, oh, my God, yes, the story that needs to be told. One of many that you often are one of the few people telling. But just this this ongoing obsession in the media following the 2016 election when it comes to only looking at the white working class and forgetting what a diverse working class we have in this country and wholesale regions that are just totally getting left off the map when it comes to who we think about as far the voters who make up this country.

I’ve been speaking with Greg Kaufmann. He’s a writer in residence at the Roosevelt Institute. He’s also a contributing writer at The Nation and the founder, of course, of TalkPoverty.org. You can find his most recent piece, which we’ve been digging through today called Appalachia Gets Special Funding: The Black Rural South Deserves It Too, calling for a Black Belt Regional Commission on our nerdy syllabus page. And Greg, in that in the last minute or so that I have with you. Are there any other issues that you would really love to see the candidates taking up while they’re, I’m sure, listening to this episode with rapt attention, taking free advice?

KAUFMANN: [laughs] I mean, my free advice is the same advice I’ve been giving for too long [chuckles], which is I do generally think that the public needs to better understand why people are poor so that we are able to overcome a lot of the stigma out there. I think people, I would like to see them calling out people who stigmatize people in poverty. And of course, I mean, there is the matter of our entire safety net being decimated by the current administration, which I think they’re talking about a fair amount, but it’s pretty frightening. But I really would like to see someone embrace the idea of being what I’ve referred to in the past as the Educator in Chief on Poverty, because I haven’t seen somebody really wholeheartedly do that.

VALLAS: And a reminder as well to the candidates as they’re thinking about whether to take this up: Trump himself has actually proposed in multiple of his budgets to eliminate the Appalachia Regional Commission!

KAUFMANN: That is true.

VALLAS: Which would hit his base harder than anyone and really put a target on the back of that forgotten man and forgotten woman. So, something worth keeping in mind here as well. There is no safe member of the working class if we continue to have Trump in the White House.

VALLAS: Greg, thanks so much for taking the time to come back on the show, and thanks again for this fantastic piece.

KAUFMANN: Thanks, Rebecca. It’s great to speak with you.

VALLAS: And that does it for this week’s episode of Off-Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host Rebecca Vallas. The show is produced by Will Urquhart and David Ballard. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @OffKilterShow, and you can find us on the airwaves on the Progressive Voices Network and the We Act Radio Network or anytime as a podcast on iTunes. See you next week.

♪ I want freedom (freedom)

Freedom (freedom)

Now, I don’t know where it’s at

But it’s calling me back

I feel my spirit is revealing,

And now we just trynta get freedom (freedom)

What we talkin’ bout…. ♪