How to perpetuate poverty

The Central Bureau of Statistics report on socioeconomic differences between the Arab and Jewish populations of Israel, released a few days ago, should come as no surprise. This partial data corroborate claims of discrimination and neglect by the state toward the Arab minority, and underscore the ever-widening gaps between the two groups. Careful examination of the data reveals an even more worrisome picture.

The data relates to the definition of poverty in terms of net income (after social-welfare transfer payments and taxes), but does not look at the measurement of poverty in terms of gross income, or the inconsequential effect of transfer payments and taxes on the reduction of poverty in the Arab minority sector as opposed to the Jewish population. The gross-income data provides stronger evidence of the dimensions of the poverty and the gaps between the groups.

Throughout the past decade, there has been a continued increase in the poverty rate within the Arab minority as opposed to the moderate decline and stabilization within the Jewish population. The poverty rate among Arab families rose from a level of 47 percent in 1990 to 65 percent in 2002, based on gross income, and from a level of 34.5 percent to 44.7 percent, based on net income. In other words, state intervention, through transfer payments and taxes, succeeds in removing from the circle of poverty about 23 percent of poor Arab families. Conversely, the poverty rate in the Jewish sector is declining slightly, and is stabilizing around 30 percent, based on gross income, or around 41 percent, based on net income. In other words, intervention by the state reduces the poverty rate by about half.

Among Arab children, the 2002 poverty rate (based on gross income) was 70 percent, as opposed to 54.4 percent, a decline of only 30 percent, while the decline among Jewish children after the state's intervention was nearly 50 percent.

Studies show that the relative weight of characteristics unique to Arab families as a factor contributing to their state of poverty is 25 percent, whereas the primary causes of poverty are unemployment, profession, economic sector in which the employed person works, discrimination at work, and wages. The size of the Arab family is not among the primary causes of poverty; a statistical breakdown of poor families indicates that 10 percent do not have children, 46 percent have one to three children, and 44 percent have four or more children. In 55 percent of poor families in the Arab sector, the head of the household is employed. In other words, employment is not a certain recipe for evading the circle of poverty.

It is uncertain just what the original sin is: poverty increases dependence on the state, which is itself increasing poverty. An inferior standard of living, high infant mortality, low level of education - all of these factors contribute to an inability to find employment, especially in the current era, preserving the circle of poverty and perpetuating the inferior position and despair of the Arab minority.

The poverty rate among Arab families in Israel is three times higher than among Jewish families. The severe distress of poverty in the Arab sector is discernible in all types of families. The depth of poverty is greater than in any other population group in the country, and the transfer payments and taxes do not help many families break free from their state of distress. Arab families have become not only a focus of poverty, unemployment and frustration, but also a minority group bereft of all empowerment mechanisms, and worst of all - with a dangerously increasing dependence on the mercies of the state.

The situation has deteriorated in recent years, partly due to the failure to address the factors responsible for it. Incidentally, these underlying causes have been exacerbated in the past few years due to the continuing decline in Israel's economic situation and economic programs that serve to sever any links to the old welfare state; the transition to sweeping capitalism; structural changes in the Israeli economy that perpetuate the inferior status of minority members with low levels of education; the paucity of resources and their concentration in the old economy. Without any significant change and solutions that contain the seeds of hope and change, an outbreak of despair and protest is only a question of time.

The writer is a researcher at Mada - the Arab Center for Applied Social Research