Lessons from the US and the UK

Developing Goals for Economic Mobility, Social Inclusion, and Employment

New Mobility Agenda Report:

Public Opinion on Poverty Hasn’t Changed in Twenty Years – What Now?

At an event on October 25 with United Kingdom Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Peter Hain, The Mobility Agenda hosted a discussion about the UK and US approaches to employment and inequality.

Mr. Hain reviewed ten years of experience with the UK model to increase employment opportunities for all and strengthen national prosperity. He offered his views on the current challenges facing the UK and the US. In particular, he noted that while the UK government plan to invest in employment opportunity and benefits currently enjoys broad support, the unfolding debate over "personal responsibility" has the potential to undermine that support.

Dr. Matthew Nisbet outlined his new report about low-wage work in America and the political and communications challenges that are barriers to proposed policy solutions that could address issues of poverty, inequality, and mobility.

The new report, commissioned by The Mobility Agenda, Communicating About Poverty and Low Wage Work: A New Agenda, reviews research and survey work in the U.S. on how messages shape public perspectives.

The report includes a review of previous findings on how the public and the media interpret issues related to poverty and low-wage work – including a review of public opinion surveys in the last two decades and a summary of the enduring core values, stereotypes, and patterns in news coverage that anchor the public’s ambivalence about poverty. More recent research examining the communication dynamics of the 1990s welfare reform debate reveals that despite great optimism about current polling trends, American views about poverty are little different today than they were during the 1980s.

Nisbet also reviews more recent research from early in this decade concluding that it identifies several promising alternatives to the traditional appeals on poverty. Specifically, in place of a sympathy for the poor frame, this research suggests emphasizing “responsible economic planning,” with the central issues defined as jobs, community interdependence, and collective prosperity. These new definitions closely parallel lessons from the United Kingdom’s “social inclusion” campaign and are likely to be more effective in communicating to diverse audiences how structural problems in the economy and society are pulling Americans apart.

Beth Shulman, author of The Betrayal of Work, responded to the two presentations.