If any would not work, neither should he eat
I wrote a short piece last week about the Farm Bill for Religion Dispatches. Why the Farm Bill? Well, in addition to setting out agricultural policy and giving away billions of dollars to agribusiness, the bill also sets rules for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, a.k.a. food stamps). And a key dispute between two versions of the bill concerns work requirements for SNAP. Many recipients already need to have paying jobs in order to qualify for the program, but the House version of the bill (a version Donald Trump favors and one that passed with zero votes from Democrats) expands those requirements. The idea that people should work to receive societal benefits -- regardless of the quality of the job -- has deep roots in the American psyche. It also has a single, thin root in the New Testament. Paul wrote that "anyone unwilling to work should not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). Republicans quote those words on the floor of legislative chambers. Jesus had a rather different perspective: "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26) * * * The flip side of the American ideology of work embedded in SNAP work requirements is that, supposedly, if you do work, then you won't be poor. But as Matthew Desmond illustrates remarkably well in a New York Times Magazine article published last week, that just isn't true. You can work hard and still be homeless. It's nice that no Democrats voted to expand the Farm Bill's work requirement, but for the most part, their party views poverty very much the same way their Republican counterparts do:
Democrats may scoff at Republicans’ work requirements, but they have yet to challenge the dominant conception of poverty that feeds such meanspirited politics. Instead of offering a counternarrative to America’s moral trope of deservedness, liberals have generally submitted to it, perhaps even embraced it, figuring that the public will not support aid that doesn’t demand that the poor subject themselves to the low-paying jobs now available to them.
Desmond doesn't think universal basic income (which I and many others on both left and right support) or a job guarantee (which likely Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker all support) is a realistic solution to the poverty of workers like Vanessa, whom Desmond follows throughout the piece:
Neither plan has the faintest hope of being actually implemented nationwide anytime soon, which means neither is any good to Vanessa and millions like her. When so much attention is spent on far-off, utopian solutions, we neglect the importance of the poverty fixes we already have. Safety-net programs that help families confront food insecurity, housing unaffordability and unemployment spells lift tens of millions of people above the poverty line each year.
Desmond, a sociology professor at Princeton, is just so good at showing the human face of cruel social policies. He won the Pulitzer Prize last year for his book Evicted. I hope this article is a sign he's working on a book about poverty and work. It's going to be good. * * * People tell me with a shocking frequency that they can't wait to read my book on the American work ethic -- what it's doing to us and how we might reorient our lives around something other than work. In one sense, it's great to hear from people who are enthusiastic about this project I've been working on, in one form or another, for the past seven or eight years. But in another sense, I fear that their hopes will be disappointed. I don't have a book contract, or even a literary agent. Without those, there won't be a book. (There will be a manuscript, a folder on my hard drive filled with files related to this project, but not a book.)
It's up to me to keep writing on this topic and build a reputation for expertise. But if you want to see a book from me some day, you can help make it incrementally more likely that there will be one. Agents and book publishers make their decisions based (in part) on a nonfiction author's proven audience. You, dear reader, are my proven audience. I am incredibly grateful to you. More depends on you than you know.
The bigger my proven audience, the more likely it is an agent will think she can sell my book to a publisher. You can help grow that audience -- i.e., create more people like you -- by doing any of the following:
Share my essays on social media, by email, etc.
Forward this newsletter to people who might like it and encourage them to subscribe.
Follow me on Twitter. (Though, honestly, I'm not very good at Twitter. You're not missing much.)
Invite me to speak at your university / church / company / community group.
On that last point, if you do invite me to speak, it will be great to see you! And I'm pretty good at speaking to groups. I'm even slightly funny in person. I recently led a two-hour faculty development workshop on burnout and the academic vocation. (I can put you in touch with the organizer of that event if you need assurance I didn't totally screw it up.) I also recently led a seminar on theology of work for pastors at a local church. That went well, too. I've given informal talks to audiences in bars. I can also do more academic talks, writing workshops, etc. (I usually don't do this work for free, but I will do it for relatively little.)
Many of you are already doing this, and, again, I'm grateful for your effort to get my message out to more people. I'm grateful to have readers at all.
Thank you,
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