When an assessment of a long-term economic operating procedure and theory becomes a key element of debate during a presidential election, then the practice in question, and its rationale, has reached a level of weighty significance. Such is the ongoing case of a possible post-neoliberal corporate economy. Neoliberalism, a commonly used term by economists referring to the late 20th century style of free market fundamentalism, is facing its biggest challenge to date. 

Going back to the mid-century writings of Milton Friedman, which focused on monetary policy, taxation, deregulation, and privatization, there has been widespread acceptance of his economic philosophy of unfettered free markets as the best way to support both a free society and national economic wellbeing. The economic low tax, low regulation, and small government principles of the Republican Party continue to be driven by the Chicago school of economics, of which Friedman was a principal contributor. 

A current widely held view, particularly by the political left, and increasingly the center, is that this neoliberal style of capitalism has led to well documented wealth inequality being blamed for much of our economic and political angst today. It is argued that despite the claim of free markets as best providing economic expansion, the benefit of such growth is limited to a small and wealthy segmented slice of the population and therefore is an inadequate model for the greater good. 

To a large degree, the public debate emerging in the presidential election race is a referendum on whether free market economic conservatism first preached by Barry Goldwater, a Republican presidential candidate in 1964, is relevant any longer when so many Americans are struggling to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. 

Shared prosperity is the new buzz term. It suggests that a system, including government and private business, should together have a more inclusive outlook about how generated wealth should be diffused across the country and citizenry. This contention goes on to state that wealth inequality is not just unfair, but contrary to robust economic growth, because most of the people who would spend broadly for goods and services are unable to do so if capital is sequestered to the richest top strata. In other words, there is a call for both social responsibility and economic invigoration. 

To take this thinking to the employment level, especially among corporations, it is enlightening to look at the production and governance paradigm used by many large businesses. Friedman advanced the notion of shareholder primacy. Shareholders assume the greatest risk through their investments and therefore should receive the largest reward. Employees and management exist to create wealth for shareholders. Plain, simple, and very hierarchical. 

It turns out however, there are other stakeholders within or close to a corporation who also have a vested interest. They include employees, management, and the ancillary businesses relying on corporate success in their communities. Marginalizing these other stakeholder groups can minimize the financial gain they receive. 

Milton Friedman once said, “Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundation of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility…” (Adam Smith Institute). Extrapolating from this belief to the practice of shareholder primacy is not hard to do. Could exceptionally high executive compensation also stem from this persuasion? 

And what of your career? I hypothesize not many employees are content with simply serving shareholders. True, shareholders make possible their very jobs, but would not productivity, innovation, and morale be enhanced if there was an ethic of shared gain in corporations’ achievements? Perhaps, a more intentional perspective of collective advantage could boost profits for all involved. 

The election appears poised to devolve into a silly, “Which is better, Socialism or Capitalism?” debate. Let’s not get caught up in that bumper sticker. This is a time for a serious and measured examination by all of us to decide for whom an economy is supposed to work. 

It does not matter what career field you are in, anything from finance to fashion is being and will increasingly be impacted by Artificial Intelligence or AI. Whether you believe AI will create lives of no-work luxury for us all or will end civilization as we know it, our challenge in the 21st century is to understand and participate in shaping AI’s repercussions. Therefore, when pondering your career long-game a critical planning component is to consider the impact AI will have on what you do for a living. 

So, what is AI? I like Kathryn Hume’s working definition (Director, Product & Business Development Product for Borealis AI), which is that AI is whatever computers cannot do until they can. This implies that AI is a moving target, compiling and sorting vast amounts of data one year to leveraging machine learning that promotes employment obsolescence the next. 

What once passed for AI is now integrated into standard operating procedures across many industries. Currently, we are wondering about and bracing for unexpected consequences derived from ever more sophisticated machines “thinking” like superhumans. 

AI certainly engenders anxiety. Sam Daly (Builtin.com) reports on a 2018 survey in which 72% of respondents conveyed concern for human jobs being subsumed by technology. Even Elon Musk of electric car and SpaceX fame refers to AI as more dangerous than nukes. And of course, the current US Presidential campaign includes a candidate, Andrew Yang, who showcases a universal basic income for all Americans to help offset the workforce changes and employment displacement being caused by increased automation or AI. 

Given this AI anguish, what is a career planner to do? To begin, it may help to view AI as something old-school, as in business development processes which require change management procedures aimed toward adoption of innovations which lead to competitive advantages. In other words, AI may be no more threatening than any other big change. In this case, the adjustment is in the area of human-machine collaboration. (But we did that once during the Industrial Revolution, right?) 

Also, let us not think of AI as Alien Intelligence. There is nothing otherworldly going on here despite how opaque AI may seem to the layman. AI is constructed by the design and application of algorithms, which are sets of executable instructions leading to an output. Algorithms can be written to consist of one or many criteria or inputs, ranging from if…then… statements to text, images, videos, voice, and more. As the algorithms become more complex it can be unclear which criterion establishes dominance, but this does not diminish the validity and importance of the outputs. 

The quality of the inputs determines the caliber of the results. For example, if data sets that “train” algorithms are too narrowly selected, i.e., too old or demographically skewed, then that limits the scope of the output. We can think of such algorithms as biased. When relying on AI to plan market capture strategies, for instance, this can matter a lot. 

“Decisions” made by computers can also be fickle, as in different from one day to the next, requiring retrospective pattern analysis. In short, algorithms now are good at processing relatively restricted tasks, but far from totally taking over the universe of human capabilities. 

Many professional job descriptions will change due to AI. To prepare, develop a nimble and adaptable perspective to change. Do not wait to have your job transformation be forced onto you. Get out in front of the inevitable and think, for example about how AI can be used to eliminate mundane parts of your job to free you up for more innovative endeavors.  

Influence the way AI can improve your performance and the service you provide. By thinking critically about what AI can and cannot do you have a better chance of determining your professional relevance moving forward. 

I observed some tree service experts helping me to steward a 200-year-old white oak on my property recently. This involved bringing into a tight spot, which was occupied by my home, a fence, and accompanying power lines, a huge crane and bucket loader. As I watched them perform dangerous work skillfully and carefully to remove and lower many hundreds of pounds of wood that was suspended over my house the thought struck me that this is not work for stoners. 

Given the proliferation of states moving toward liberalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes employers are faced with a new reality that many of their employees, if they aren’t already, may very well become users of cannabis, raising questions about what that will mean for workplace safety and productivity.  

Despite the federal designation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning a substance with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, the states in their role of democracy laboratories are rapidly adopting legalization of pot and with it a predicament for employers in these states regarding an appropriate response. 

To be clear, I get the reasons for the termination of the cannabis prohibition. The number of incarcerations, money spent dubiously on the war on drugs, lost employment, and lives ruined resulting from over-punitive measures for use of a relatively inoffensive intoxicant has finally caught up with outmoded cannabis laws. Citizens are increasingly being given a choice, as they have been with alcohol and tobacco, to indulge free of legal encroachment. Seen from a libertarian perspective, this is progress. 

However, there is a growing sentiment that with cannabis deregulation comes a belief that the drug must not be so bad after all. In other words, there is a declining perception of risk with marijuana. This sense itself carries a hazard. Alcohol and tobacco, despite their legal status, are still dangerous substances that can endanger lives and negatively impact places of work. Cannabis usage as well involves potential jeopardy, and its legalization should not imply its consumption is merely a docile activity. Despite expanded social acceptance of cannabis its downside should not be marginalized. 

In the context of employment, management is clearly justified in seeking to maintain a safe and productive work environment. Problems associated with cannabis in the workplace include increased accidents, injuries, absenteeism, worker compensation claims, and staff turnover with a corresponding decrease in productivity according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Maintaining a sober workforce enhances professionalism and efficiency. An erosion of this standard should not result from greater cannabis availability. 

Drug screenings have been around a long time and the drug most often detected is cannabis, leading to non-hires and terminations. Fairness questions arise though when employees are legally entitled to use cannabis either medically or for leisure.  

If intoxication from alcohol is evident on the job, then dismissal becomes straightforward. Cannabis on the other hand can stay in the user’s system for up to two days and up to a month for chronic users. Should employees be disciplined for indulging legally during their off hours even if residuals can be discovered long after the event via employers’ drug tests? Balancing clearly defined usage parameters in the workplace with employees’ legal rights is becoming trickier in this new age. 

Nevertheless, employees who work in positions requiring focus, concentration, and astuteness should feel obligated to self-monitor their cannabis usage free of external guidance. If you want to fly a plane, operate precision machinery, or lower 1800 lb. tree limbs over a residence, then you are choosing to sustain an alert and highly functioning mind without the desire to get stoned. The desire to master jobs of these sorts and to be counted on as a go-to expert in your field should hopefully provide enough incentive to self-regulate and maintain high standards of workplace conduct. Safety and effectiveness should be a shared concern among stakeholders across any workforce. 

We want our careers to be fulfilling, sustainable, and enriching in several ways. Beyond obtaining desirable compensation other paths involve intrinsic satisfaction with an important one being a belief we are contributing to making the world a better place. When reflecting on how effectively our careers are performing toward achieving such a lofty but worthwhile goal it may be beneficial to determine if value is being created as a result of all the hard work we do. 

A way to begin this career assessment is by asking ourselves if our professional pursuits add prosperity to society as a whole or detract from it. Simply put, we are either creating wealth or we are just transferring it from one party to another. By wealth I am not restricting myself to capital alone but refer more broadly to a wide range of functional and emotional life improving gains. Creating value powerfully addresses the needs of many consumers and by extension the greater society, whereas orchestrated wealth shifts benefit a relatively small segment of society. 

Economists identify rent seeking as a concept pertaining to the practice of acquiring shares of wealth created by others. Visualize the ubiquitous economic pie. Value creators are best at growing the pie’s size. Rent seekers in contrast are adept in figuring out ways to grab more slices of the existing pie. Rent seeking is expressed in various forms, for example corporate monopolization, opaque government subsidies, reduction of competitiveness, and exclusive resource ownership. 

In short ask yourself, does my career serve the greater population by expanding the pie or is it designed to assist relatively few, generally wealthy people, by shifting more slices their way? 

Diving more deeply into defining value creation we can look at the elements that comprise value. A few years ago, several marketing strategists from Bain & Company, the management consultancy, comprehensively identified four kinds of consumer needs that can be met with combinations of thirty different “elements of value”. They arrange these four domains and corresponding elements into a pyramid for easy comprehension. Their rationale is that by appealing to the right amount and configuration of consumer needs business will grow and customers will be retained. 

I suggest applying the same model to our careers. If we can assert that our work enhances people’s lives by producing value elements, we should be able to feel confident we are creating value. 

To summarize this model, recall another pyramid, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You may have run across this visual in one college class or another. That pyramid is structured to display a progressive arrangement of psychological needs ranging from base requirements such as food, water, and warmth to an optimal state of self-actualization. 

The Elements of Value Pyramid, on the other hand, presents the four fundamental clusters of consumer needs: Functional, Emotional, Life Changing, and Social Impact. Within each category are the elements that describe the nuanced values of products and services as perceived by the consumer. For example, Functional needs include value elements such as reduced effort, time saving, improved organization, and cost reduction. Emotional needs include items like anxiety reduction, therapeutic value, attractiveness, and fun. Life Changing needs contain motivation, providing hope, and affiliation. The Social Impact need is solely comprised by self-transcendence, which means a paradigm shift in vastly improved personal growth. 

We do not have to match in scale the impact realized by such power value creators like Steve Jobs, or Kia Silverbrook, inventor of high-speed color printing technology, or Sally Fox who developed a means of mitigating pollution found to be inherent in the bleaching and dying of cotton. Rather we can distinguish those discreet and profound ways we do make lives better every day by adding beneficial features to people’s lives like enhanced speed, quality, convenience, customer service, etc. 

Careers that create value are what make this a better world. 

Trying to recruit and retain talented workers who can assist in producing and delivering high quality products and services, leading to business growth and enhanced profits, has always been a formidable challenge. Typically, hiring teams seek individuals who not only most closely match the letter of the job description, but who also are predicted to be a good fit for the organization. In other words, companies want employees who can execute at what has been determined over time to be an optimal level that is consistent with the firm’s performance culture. 

Let us set aside for the purpose of this piece an admittedly huge hiring consideration, talent and ability, and ask might there be an inherent and unforeseen flaw in settling for only those candidates who appear during the hiring process to be consistent with traditional workforce practices and operational structures? By limiting a hiring search to simply those foreshadowed to be team players, could organizations be potentially restricting their chances of introducing and benefiting from innovative thinkers and value-added achievers? An increasing number of talent managers and human resource departments say this conventional thinking may indeed be a liability. 

There is a largely untapped element in the general candidate pool that may deserve a closer look. This cohort is becoming known as the neurodiverse. Neurodiversity refers to those workers possessing conditions frequently labeled as disorders, including autism, dyslexia, attention deficit, and social anxiety. You might be inclined to think that these types of job candidates should be weeded out of the search process due to their disruptive potential, but others are taking a chance at reframing the common perceptions of the neurodiverse and noticing positive traits where others see possible burdens. 

So, what might be favorable attributes of co-workers who may be seen by many as idiosyncratic, standoffish, ambiguous, or just plain different? Consider for a moment an organization comprised of workers who think largely in terms of doing things the way they have always been done. Change is minimal because it is seen as disorderly and therefore unnecessary. Risk aversion and homogeneity are commonplace. Company culture and individual behaviors are driven by such values and will perform accordingly. 

Sounds like a possible recipe for competitive disaster given current market requirements for innovation and agility. Neurodiverse employees could bring fresh perspectives and abilities not typically present to the work site. 

Neurodiverse skill sets can include high levels of intelligence, pattern recognition, systemic approaches to problem solving, exacting attention, comfort with repetition, deep-dive analysis, and even customer facing. Numerous industries can use resources with these skills, particularly technical and data-oriented ones. 

Another advantage can come from workers who are not motivated by office politics and the phrasing of opinions and conclusions in a group-think manner. As hard as it may be to hear, sometimes the straightforward truth is the best information to be communicated to colleagues and management. Neurodiverse employees may be best at delivering such news. 

Of course, recruiting and positioning neurodiverse talent can present difficulties, perhaps novel ones, for human resources and other department managers. Rather than using traditional interviewing it may be useful to set up teamwork simulations, case studies, or actual problem-solving sessions to see how productively all candidates function.  

Strategically integrating personnel who may provide unique services, but also potential breaches of protocol, could require careful planning, diplomacy, and tact. Flexibility and nimbleness, characteristics in short supply in many established organizations, may need to be adopted by company culture. 

We have reached a historic point where differences among people are more accepted than in the past. In fact, this seems to be a desirable attribute of the millennial generation. Developing such an ethic could aid businesses while also fostering more humane treatment of all people. 

As has been frequently reported, the nature of work is undergoing profound changes due largely to automation, technology, artificial intelligence, and globalization. This exacerbates fears among students and workers of how to succeed in an ever-transformative economy and contributes to the current and expanding situation of a workforce not possessing the skills required by modern and future-oriented employers. 

To keep up with groundbreaking changes in employment requires an educational approach to training and learning that is flexible, relevant, and targeted to the capricious and volatile state of the economy. At present, traditional education institutions of high school and customary higher ed bachelor’s degrees appear to be lagging behind innovative industry methodologies like short-term credentialing and user-responsive professional development. Businesses recognize the value in foresight and pliable learning strategies necessary to uphold a workforce prepared for unpredictability. 

Education systems are not known for their elasticity and capacity to adjust to change. Take a typical public high school curriculum, the stage through which most American workers first pass on their way to employability. Has there been much reorganization in the basic course load or method of earning a diploma since the mid-twentieth century? I think not. This is an area where increased pressure to innovate is warranted. 

Beside a reassessment of curriculum relevance, another key concept we can hope for from high schools is that the message is getting through loud and clear to students that education does not stop with a diploma. The modern world is one in which continuous learning needs to be embraced if there is any hope for enjoying the fruits of professional mastery and robust compensation. Linking the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of learning is a valuable lifelong lesson. 

To this end, workers will benefit from a more accommodating and welcoming world of pathways designed to prepare entry-level professionals, upskill existing workers, and assist career changers in a manner consistent with the metamorphosing economy of work. In addition to an acceptance of the importance of career-long learning is to realize credentials matter. 

From a college degree to a professional license to an industry-specific certification, possessing evidence from a reputable instructional source, in which a worker can demonstrate training and education within an area of expertise is critical to advancing one’s career. The challenge becomes how to best earn pertinent credentials in a time effective and affordable manner. 

Career, employment specialists, and economists are suggesting several practices to ease credential acquisition. Kelsey Berkowitz is a Policy Advisor for Third Way’s Economic Program and has looked closely into this issue. Among the suggestions she makes is to: 

• Increase the amount of credential stacking that is available. In other words, design short-term credential modules that can be combined into larger certifications or degrees. This could provide highly relevant on-demand training while also providing a means for adult workers to achieve higher education goals in more easily managed steps. 
• Develop more apprenticeship programs. Evidence exists, particularly in Europe, of the effectiveness of industry-based programs that onboard entry-level workers and within a year or two produce trained and credentialed employees committed to the profession. 
• Recognize prior experiences related to work by offering credit. It is not unusual for individuals to gain skills and insights applicable to their current jobs from events that occurred before being hired. Examples include acquired knowledge from the military, school programs, previous jobs, or other situations where pertinent learning took place. 
• Streamline onerous licensing mobility. Twenty-five percent of all workers today are in fields requiring a professional license. However, in too many instances licenses are not reciprocal across state lines, creating burdens to reacquire licenses for those pros relocating to a new state. 

The need for instructional and training flexibility will become increasingly necessary in order to keep a nimble and ready workforce. Let us reform learning to better address this imperative. 

Rebecca Bryant, the president and CEO of Lakes Region Community Services, a New Hampshire social services organization, penned an impressive opinion piece in the March 1-14 issue of the New Hampshire Business Review that concretely highlighted the plight of direct support professionals, those who care for the elderly and disabled. To this cohort I would also add childcare workers. 

As a whole, this segment of the New Hampshire workforce is underpaid, under-appreciated, disrespected, and lacking in the placement of esteem they deserve as employees tasked with providing key services to needy populations. 

Why is this? Unfortunately, social services have historically been viewed as somehow less urgent or worthwhile than economic pursuits resulting in manufactured goods and services supporting commercial viability. The money has not flowed to caregivers. Since money appears to be a solid metric of worth and value the unmistakable conclusion drawn is that giving care to young children, old citizens, and the disabled just does not carry that much weight. 

Interesting. Economics is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to improve lives. How is it that the life improving work of caregivers is different? 

Many would say that the individuals who make up the direct care workforce are generally under-educated with many also coming from low income backgrounds. Thus, the thinking goes they are not meritorious or qualified enough to receive living wage compensation. The time has come for us to stop assuming there is a causal relationship between low valued work and low paid workers in the direct care context. 

We are faced with a contrarian situation of low paid workers toiling through high valued work. Even though low paid direct care services continue to attract, albeit at inadequate levels, those willing to work for low pay in order to do something they like and are good at doing is no reason to continue the practice. It is time right a wrong. 

Let us first look at the root of the problem. Direct care services are historically performed by women. Presumably, they have been drawn to this work, because of the longstanding social and cultural expectations for women to nurture others. It is fair to say that women have performed laudably with direct care services for many years. The benefit to society is immeasurable. 

However, as we know, compensatory equity has been and continues to be elusive for women. “Women’s work” has rarely if ever received reparation on par with what men make. Let’s be honest. Traditional views regarding remuneration says that an occupation primarily composed of women will not be seen as worth paying much for. 

It took men becoming teachers and nurses to spur the evolution of living wages in those fields. Regardless, it should not take a replay of that model to boost the earnings of competent and hardworking direct care service providers, whether female or male. 

There are two reasons for a balancing of resources to occur. Firstly, we should recognize that high quality care directed to those among us who are not or can no longer be high producers is virtuous and enriches lives. This alone should diminish any resistance to fair pay. That said, there is another factor to consider: unequivocal changes already underway to reshape the nature of employment are ushering in a reevaluation of what it means to “work”. 

Many jobs will be refashioned and eliminated as automation and artificial intelligence increasingly impact the economy. Labor directed to personal care may emerge as progressively appreciated employment. A paradigm shift recognition of the value added to society by direct care givers may finally remediate this excessive pay disparity. This transformation in attitude is needed. 

In a state ranked third for the percentage of the population growing old you would think New Hampshire would be intentionally reaching out to strengthen its direct care workforce. We have a chance now to show the country how fair pay for our direct care providers can be accomplished. 

Entrepreneurism has a strong and positive brand…and it should. Its contribution to the growth of the economy and by extension to the betterment of lives is immeasurable. Counting the total costs of national goods and services only begins to calculate the value of entrepreneurial activity. 

A harder metric to identify, but no less important, is the qualitative significance of longer, healthier, and happier lives we collectively enjoy due to the innovation, risk taking, and intelligence of successful entrepreneurs. 

It could be said that the popular image of the entrepreneur is the self-confident driven performer productively balancing inspiration and perspiration, flawlessly timing the market, persevering with a laser-like focus, and venturing forward willingly into uncertainty, all leading to the realization of sweet success and generous profits as a just reward. We value that illustration. It is reassuring. It goes a long way to shaping our national and cultural identity. 

It is known too that start-ups with an eye toward growth furnish boosts in hiring, strengthened competition, and improved productivity by injecting fresh products, services, and business designs into new markets. 

Given the near universal gains we receive from entrepreneurism what possible improvements can be expected from the practice? Well, I can suggest one. A quarter in which we desperately need entrepreneurs’ creative problem solving is in the promotion of shared prosperity. The time is right for an entrepreneurism that cares less about concentrated wealth and more about dispersing capital, particularly to key stakeholders such as employees and citizens of communities in which businesses operate. 

We do not need corporate social responsibility manifestos to get there, just energetic, aware, and engaged business owners who choose to direct their talents toward providing a greater degree of distributed benefits over the more common asset consolidation we more typically associate with entrepreneurs. An alternative form of enthusiasm and sense of reward can be derived from constructing enterprises that intentionally advance expanded economic growth and strong job creation among the greatest number possible. 

The political pressure to confront wealth inequality is growing and looks to be a key issue in the upcoming election season. If the current trajectory of wealth amassing does not change, then the call for government intervention will only increase. Some or most governmental intercessions will undoubtedly be seen as interference and obstruction among many in business. Encouraging executives both young and old to integrate into a shared prosperity ethic may mitigate policy making coercion. 

It is not as if entrepreneurs and business leaders have not practiced this approach before. It has been widely reported that the period from the end of World War II until the 1970s was more economically stable due largely in part to the relative lack of discrepancy between management and rank & file. Granted this was a time of strong unions and more widespread political endorsement of income flattening approaches by government. However, one cannot help but wonder if the shared sacrifice evident during the war spurred a nationwide value system whereby wealth distribution was more easily realized. Can we care for each other similarly now? 

Perhaps the most endearing gift entrepreneurs give us is tangible creativity. They model and encourage thinking, which develops into options from which consumers can select the most solution-oriented or life augmenting potentialities. This has historically sparked human progress. It continues to do so.  

Given the current and ever-present range of problems in the world calling for answers and resources we look to the influencers, thought leaders, and groundbreakers to develop and implement transformative strategies, services, and products. 

Purposely including and addressing those Americans being left behind by a shifting and segregating economy could turn out to not only be nationally unifying, but also good business. 

Albert Einstein elegantly once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. This adage comes to mind when we see that yet again work requirements are being used as a bludgeon to combat Americans who live in poverty and who need safety-net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), HUD housing assistance, and if President Trump has his way, even Medicaid. 

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has recommended work requirements for the most extensive welfare programs and the current administration has mandated that federal agencies alter their presumably lax welfare program standards. These moves are premised on the continuing notion that the poor are a drain on federal resources due to their laziness, recklessness, and lack of ambition. So here we go again, concluding that the poor are so, solely because of their own deficient behavior and must be made to work harder to receive assistance from this government. 

It is not that simple. 

Is this work requirement approach fair that those recipients of aid (excluding children, elderly and disabled) should be made to show an attempt to earn their government supports, which allegedly incentives people to not be poor, or is this a kick to the poor and disenfranchised when they are already down? 

It is worth examining a few of points about welfare work requirements: 

1. According to the US Census Bureau the 2017 poverty rate was 12.3%, a 0.4% decrease from the year before. Since 2014 the poverty rate has fallen 2.5%. So, if the current trend line is a declining poverty rate why is a harsh condition like work requirements for the poor necessary currently?
2. This effort was last tried under Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich with their 1996 welfare reform legislation. We have had a couple decades to see how that has gone and studies like those from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and in the book Making Ends Meet (Edin and Lein) show that despite short term marginal improvements in employment they were not sustainable, mostly due to necessary and increased living expenses, absorbing any work generated financial gains.
3. Where are these jobs that the poor are supposed to get? If you have spent most of your life in poverty, chances are quite low you can pick up a knowledge-economy job quickly. We have all heard how the traditional manual labor jobs are drying up, so what is left? Lousy-waged part-time jobs with unpredictable and changeable hours is what’s left.
4. If the government feels the need to pick on somebody shouldn’t it be the employers of vast numbers of unskilled and low-skilled who pay their workers, including the working poor, insufficient wages that in turn need to be underwritten by the American taxpayers?

Now one place where there could be political agreement is in the government providing subsidized high quality work training requirements targeted to helping the poor get the knowledge and skills needed for a globalized and digitized economy. Currently, training requirements can be in lieu of work requirements, but their effectiveness remains questionable. 

The causes and cures for poverty are varied, complex, and far beyond the scope of this piece. But if we as a society are truly interested in ameliorating the condition of poverty (as we should be!) we need to be looking for demonstrably beneficial interventions that measurably make positive differences. Requiring the poor to get a low-end job that increases their childcare and transportation costs just to prove they are not milking the system or making them pay unreasonably for a hand-up from those of us with tax paying means is not a humane way to go about it. 

In rural 19th century Sutton, New Hampshire population declined following the sheep boom in the late 1840s as farmers abandoned their farms in search of better land in places like Ohio and Indiana. Sutton was not alone. Rural living was proving to be too difficult for many New Hampshire residents of small towns. Young women, if they could, were among those who traveled to Lowell, Massachusetts to work in textile mills and live in boarding houses. This was seen as a step up and better than a life of struggle on desolate unproductive farms. 

At America’s Credit Union Museum on the west side of Manchester is a turn of the last century photograph of hardscrabble young boys posing not in front of their school, but rather beside one of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company’s mills in which they worked. Injuries, death, and child labor among both boys and girls, were common then. The closing of the mills in 1935 hit the Manchester economy hard as did the closing of the Nashua Manufacturing Company in Nashua and the Brown Company paper mill in Berlin, both of which occurred in the 1940s. 

During the summer of 1987 Allied Leather Corp. of Penacook, NH announced it was closing, putting 300 out of work. The New York owners referred to the “tight labor market” and “continuing problems” treating the tannery’s waste. The company had been fined the year before for moving chemicals without a permit. Most of the employees were on their summer vacation when the news of their job losses broke. Plans were made for combining the tannery’s operations with other plants in New York and Pennsylvania. 

New Hampshire has many such economic hardship tales from its 230 years of statehood. When I was young in the 1960s and 1970s, and from Massachusetts, we would hear of the poor people in New Hampshire or “Cow Hampshire” as it was disparagingly called. The people were known as tough, conservative, and independent, but hardly prosperous. 

So, it caught my eye when U.S. News and World Report released its rankings of the Best States for Opportunity this fall. And guess who came out on top, Numero Uno, King of the Hill, #1 out of 50…you guessed it, New Hampshire! To quote them, “New Hampshire, which enjoys among the highest median household incomes in the nation, stood out as No. 1 for opportunity.” 

Let us take a moment to soak this in. Yes, we are surrounded by rancor, political polarization, culture wars, stagnant wages, opioids, automation, globalization, white nationalism, and on and on, but here on this rocky, thinned soiled, forested, mountainous, tick infested, small patch of America we are in the estimation of one journalistic source, with a methodology to back up their claim, the best state in the nation for opportunity. Wow! 

What happened? Some fun facts may help to explain why New Hampshire is now enjoying the most prosperous time in its history. Advanced manufacturing, technology, professional services, healthcare, and of course tourism are strong economic sectors here. Median household income in 2016 was $70,936. Given that the national average that year was $57, 617, we are not doing too badly. 

No personal income or sales tax probably helps, but that has been the case for a long time. Lots of retirees like it here. In fact, we are among the top 3 states with lots of old people. During the Great Recession and its aftermath 246,000 people moved away, but another 247,000 moved in. 

I cannot say exactly what has been New Hampshire’s secret success sauce, but one obvious observation is that modernity is being kind to the state. Somehow, we seem to be converting economic, social, and demographic changes into prosperity. Despite all the bad sky-is-falling news we are bombarded with daily this is a cause for all 1.3 million of us in NH to celebrate.