Even as incomes rose in 2023, the number of Americans living in poverty went up. More and more people are struggling to afford their basic needs. But this is a problem we can actually solve. With a fully mobilized, multidimensional effort, the U.S. can slash the poverty rate — especially since we’ve done it before.
I grew up in poverty, my parents among the working poor. We were a family of seven, including my two parents and my four siblings, living in a rural community in Lowndes County, Ala. That upbringing helped me understand the different degrees of poverty. Our home had an electric pump that provided water from a nearby well — yet no running water inside our home or a working bathroom.
In my work researching environmental health and fighting for climate justice, I have seen a lot of poverty stemming from all kinds of causes, both social constructs and intentional policies. I’ve seen the effects of redlining, which financially devalued Black communities across the country, and of locating a sewage lagoon or toxic waste site next to a Black, brown or poor community, which tanked the value of their homes while increasing the incidence of disease. In urban Los Angeles, with its sky-high housing costs, I have seen the large number of homeless people on the streets and also met people who have lived in their vehicles while working and making money that would put them in the middle class in Alabama. Too many people, from Aspen, Colo., to New York City, work for a salary that doesn’t cover their cost of living.
That poverty in the United States is so multifaceted, whether urban or rural, can make it seem daunting to tackle. But some of the New Deal programs established under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly a century ago provide a template: Offer more bridges out of poverty than a single, often inadequate, safety net.
My great-great-grandparents benefited from one New Deal-era program that enabled them to purchase land. The Federal Housing Administration, established through the New Deal’s National Housing Act of 1934, promoted homeownership by backing loans to guarantee mortgages. Such programs made homeownership and land accessible to my family, including my parents in the rural South. This progress broke through other policies of the time limiting access to resources for Black families, providing a chance to build wealth and financial stability for those who navigated these programs — an especially notable feat just decades after slavery ended in our nation and as the United States was coming out of the Depression.
This type of imagination and action is needed currently. Recent disasters, including the devastating wildfires in California and hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, caused many families to lose their largest investment, their homes. Their experience makes the case for redefining poverty to include those who seem financially stable until they incur great economic losses due to climate events or crises beyond their control.
Looking at the New Deal, the Resettlement Act of 1937 — the forerunner to the Farmers Home Administration — may provide a glimpse into what is possible. The resulting programs provided benefits such as medical care for poor families and collaboration with farmers and their debtors to try to head off foreclosure, which looms over many disaster victims. By one estimate, farmers who participated in these programs raised their incomes by 69%. In this period overall, one study found that the proportion of Americans living in poverty dropped from more than 60% in 1933 to less than 40% by 1945.
Climate change and extreme weather disasters will continually demand that we change our outlook. What if the safety net for Americans could be extended, for example, to include economic security that protects their investment in their homes and allows them to rebuild if necessary? Beyond incorporating New Deal-type government programs with updated policies designed to support homeownership and a living wage for all Americans, what about public-private partnerships such as the one building innovative, resilient and affordable ZenniHome houses for citizens of the Navajo Nation?
Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, predicted during his 1928 campaign that “given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this Nation.” Yet he became a powerful critic of the New Deal programs from his successor, FDR.
Let us end that self-defeating resistance to government-backed progress and transform Hoover’s words about poverty from a vision into reality. The last 12 months have been wrought with disasters, but such radical events also point to an opportunity to eliminate poverty in our nation.
Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founder and chief executive of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, a recipient of the MacArthur award and author of “Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice and Finding Hope.”
