The Collegian

Issue date: 3/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of www.ciis.edu Former Saint Mary's professor Scott Myers-Lipton currently teaches sociology at San Jose State University. He visited campus last week to talk to students about his new book Social Solutions to Poverty: America's Struggle to Build a Just Society.

On Thursday, March 8, Professor Scott Myers-Lipton from San Jose State University spoke about his book, "Social Solutions to Poverty: America's Struggle to Build a Just Society" in the Soda Center.

Myers-Lipton's presentation focused on the poverty that is present in America today. "[Poverty and racism] have been integral to our development as a nation, and frustratingly so," he said. He stated that the United States has the highest child poverty, infant mortality and overall poverty rates. The 2005 statistic Myers-Lipton shared said there are 37 million Americans in poverty.

Myers-Lipton also said that he has been teaching his students about the problems of poverty, but he does not know enough about solutions. "Let's talk about how to solve it; that's what I'm interested in," he said.

In his book, Myers-Lipton presents ideas that others have had for ending poverty over the past few centuries. "Every solution that's been tried in America is in there," he said. He included diverse perspectives, ranging from Native American perspectives from centuries ago to President Bush's beliefs. Some of the ideas he discussed were public works projects and individual development accounts, which are funds that each citizen would receive upon reaching adulthood. He also spoke of more radical ideas, such as Huey Long's plan for redistribution of wealth.

Additionally, Myers-Lipton spoke of the four major reasons that he believes have contributed to the increase in the poverty rate over the past few decades. The first reason is that manufacturing jobs have been increasingly outsourcing their labor to developing nations, which takes jobs away from Americans.

Next he cited a change in the make-up of cities, with white people living in suburbs while minorities populate the urban areas. He quoted Cornel West as saying that there are, "chocolate cities and vanilla suburbs." This leads to problems within the cities. "The cities don't have a tax base then to fund the programs they need to fund," he said.

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