What Can The Government Do To Alleviate Poverty?

First of all, let's begin with the term "alleviate."  The government cannot cure poverty, because poverty will continue to exist until Christ's second coming (Deut 15:11; Mt 26:11).  But it can alleviate poverty; in other words, it can lessen the severity of poverty in a state or nation.  But how?

First of all, let's quickly get one thing out of the way.  The government cannot alleviate poverty through the redistribution of wealth.  Taking a person's property is theft, and theft is immoral, even if your motives are compassionate.

Second, the government already helps the poor immeasurably by offering a free, world-class education to everyone from K-12th grade.  Once a person knows basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, they can achieve anything they want.  Unfortunately the very reason that many struggle in poverty is that they squandered this priceless gift.

Third, the government can help the poor by lowering taxes.  Some people say that lowering taxes only benefits the rich, but guess who owns and invests in the businesses that employ poor people?  The rich.  Lowering taxes means more jobs and higher wages and better benefits for the poor.

Fourth, the government can also help the poor by minimizing rules and regulations that businesses have to follow in order to keep their doors open.  There are now around 60 federal regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration.  Do you know how many rules federal agencies have created?  Over 157,000 pages of rules exist in the Code of Federal Regulations.  All of these rules are intended to protect us, but every rule comes with a cost.  According to some studies, regulations cost Americans over $1 trillion a year.  These rules drive up the cost of goods and services, make it more expensive to start and run a business, and decrease the wages and benefits for employees.  All of this hurts the poor most of all.

Fifth, the government can help the poor by getting rid of the minimum wage.  The minimum wage law is a perfect example of good intentions leading to horrible results.  It's meant to help the poor, but that's exactly who it hurts.  When the government sets or raises the minimum wage, businesses are forced to cut hours, stop hiring, lay off employees, and even shut down.  Also, what happens to the poor man who is unskilled and uneducated when businesses aren't willing to pay him $7.25 an hour?  He remains unemployed.  But by removing the minimum wage, business owners and employees can enter into free, mutually beneficial agreements, and then the poor have the opportunity to earn money and develop skills and knowledge on the job that will help them rise out of poverty.

It's not the government's job to alleviate poverty, but the government's actions sure can make the problem better or worse.  While redistributing wealth (socialism) is not the answer, there are many things that the government can do to indirectly aid the poor.  And in most cases, helping the poor simply means the government needs to keep people from harming each other, and then get out of the way so that civil society and the free market can flourish.