Mitchell Dawkins
Eco2013(1960)
Take-Home Essay
9/29/14
Good Intentions
The video I watched was entitled Good intentions narrated by Dr. Walter Williams. Dr. Williams is an economist and had an interesting take on the “war on poverty”, the education system, the economy and how the government affects them all.
The war on poverty was created with good intentions in mind, those being ending the poverty in the United States in the 1960s. According to Dr. Williams that the government had everything to do with the issues of poverty increasing during the “war on poverty.” Government ant-poverty policies created a system in which it became easier and more economically friendly to be poor and wait to receive benefits from the government. This is known
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Dr. Williams saw this as a large issue. He believed minimum wage was the cause of this issue. With minimum wage high employers could not afford the risk of hiring inexperienced workers. In the poverty stricken areas this meant teens would be caught up in the street activity rather than learning the work force and the experiences it brings. The government enacted many regulations, which caused further issues for working adults. The examples given in the video by Dr. Williams were the union construction system and the taxicab system. In Philadelphia it costs $20,000 for taxi cab driver to purchase a license to own their taxi, which would help them to make more money driving taxis. The issue is the amount it costs to own a taxi was out of range for cab drivers to pay it. This is a roadblock causing drivers to remain in a lower income and not grow the economy. With union construction workers the issue was similar A law called the Davis Beacon Act, an old outdated law, built to keep employers from under cutting wages has created another roadblock for minority construction workers and companies. They are not in unions, which restricts them from gaining government