Men Can Be Poor, Too

Ok, so maybe that's obvious. But you wouldn't know it from most government anti-poverty programs and many articles about poverty during this recession. Government aid programs -- even those targeted at "families" -- generally focus disproportionately on women because they are most likely to be raising children, but men -- whether fathers or not -- are experiencing some of the cruelest effects of the economic crisis. The Brookings Institution has been researching the fate of already-poor men over the past year-plus, and the results are discouraging.

More than 15 percent of men with low levels of education are unemployed, and not coincidentally, that same group of people is the most likely to be incarcerated. The number of men in prison has been described as an epidemic, but maybe it's just a symptom of the real epidemic among many men: crippling poverty that has largely gone unaddressed. What's worse, the recession has produced unequal unemployment levels for men and women. A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the Great Recession has led to an 11 percent unemployment rate for men compared to 8.3 percent for women, due in part to a decrease in male-dominated construction jobs (h/t writer Lauren Kelley).

Brookings' advocacy on this issue included a panel discussion last week; it's worth watching the entire hour if you want to hear some surprising facts about poverty's effects on men. All the panelists agreed that negative stereotypes are to blame for much of the rhetoric that unfairly demonizes men and tells them their financial situations are their own fault, especially if they are people of color.

For example, the stereotype of "deadbeat dads" who don't pay child support belies the reality: many dads simply can't afford the high amounts they are ordered to pay. And poor men are less likely to have mandated visitation rights with their children, contributing to the image of them as uncaring and distant. One panelist, Vicky Turetsky, commissioner of the Office of Child Support Enforcement at the Department of Health and Human Services, suggested a fundamental change to her own office's work: instead of always playing the role of the bad cop, she said, shouldn't child support offices be supporting men through employment help and access to their children?

Clearly, women often do carry more of a burden when it comes to their families, but why do we take that fact for granted? Perhaps if men felt as supported by government programs and nonprofit groups as women do, they would feel empowered to take a larger role in family life.

Photo credit: Vadim Lavrusik