Hard Day’s Work Doesn’t Involve Lotto

In recent years, both liberals and conservatives have been promoting “economic empowerment” as the way to curb poverty in America.

By “empowerment,” conservatives typically mean they want to reduce regulations and taxes in poor neighborhoods to spur entrepreneurship. Many liberals want empowerment through more regulations on banks to boost loans to inner cities.

At the Million Man March, organizer Louis Farrakhan called for empowerment through an Exodus Economic Fund. He wants each African-American man to give “$10 a month to a national economic development fund … to nurture businesses within the black community.”

These ideas all have some good in them. Tax breaks and easier credit could help create jobs in urban neighborhoods. A pool of capital for black businesses would be helpful, too.

But these trendy concepts will never amount to anything unless we also bring back one very old-fashioned word: work. All the credit and capital in the world won’t lead to a successful business if the owner and employees fail to take work seriously.

We have developed a culture that shows almost no respect for honest work. Voters and lawmakers display their disdain for work by promoting gambling as the smart way to create wealth. So now we have lotteries and casinos all over the country.

Big investors on Wall Street pay no attention to the real work performed by companies - they’re too busy betting on the derivatives of securities. TV and movie producers churn out stories that glorify gangsters and con men. Farrakhan offers pie in the sky if only people would first send him their money.

Is it any wonder so many young people think plain old work is for chumps? Aren’t adults telling them that gambling and scheming are the preferred ways to succeed?

The message teenagers should hear constantly is that work matters. In fact, it’s almost the only thing that matters in attacking poverty on a broad scale.

Americans who work full time and pool resources can stay out of poverty, even if they earn very low wages. A couple working 40 hours a week at minimum-wage jobs will earn a combined $17,680 a year. If one of them works a few more hours on the weekend, they can nudge their earnings over $20,000.

Though they won’t have a new car or nice clothes, the couple will have enough money to live a clean, decent life that is free from hunger or frostbite.

But a clean, decent life is the last thing you’ll find depicted in movies or soap operas. Few songs celebrate the simple joy of doing a day’s work well.

Conservative leaders may claim they promote work as the way to end poverty. But in Congress, they show little interest in rewarding work. The Republican agenda calls for cutting the earned-income tax credit for hard-working families. The GOP also wants to cut funding for job training and summer employment programs, and it shows no concern for working parents struggling to find day care for their children.

Meanwhile, many liberals show their disdain for work by never even discussing the idea. Though quick to call for government action, liberal leaders don’t want to admit that all jobs, even at minimum wages, are worth pursuing because they provide honest wages and a sense of self-reliance.

Metro Atlanta is filled with help-wanted signs for low-paying positions, but many youths ignore them. They have heard so many times that these are dead-end jobs, they don’t see the value in learning good work habits or establishing a solid reputation.

Instead of jawboning about empowerment, political leaders should start taking the issue of work more seriously. They should stop pushing to put a casino on every corner and a lottery-ticket machine in every convenience store. Forget about finding more tax breaks for the richest Americans and start looking for incentives to keep low-wage workers in the labor pool.

And it would be helpful if more black leaders would spend less time posing with Farrakhan and start visiting with bricklayers, store clerks and other everyday heroes who make this country work.

Teenagers who are facing important decisions about their futures need to know the truth. Very, very few of them are going to be sports stars. Even fewer are going to win the lottery. Big government isn’t going to come to the rescue.

In the end, the only thing that is going to make this nation more prosperous is a renewal of faith in the value of work.

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