Radiolab Presents: On the Media: Busted, America's Poverty Myths

Summary

Radiolab Presents: On the Media – Busted, America’s Poverty Myths
Radiolab / WNYC Studios
Airdate: January 18, 2017

---

Episode Overview

This episode is a special collaboration where Radiolab features On the Media’s acclaimed series “Busted: America’s Poverty Myths.” Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich invite Brooke Gladstone to discuss and play excerpts from On the Media’s five-part investigation into the prevailing myths about poverty in the United States. The conversation focuses primarily on two overarching myths:

• The Myth of Upward Mobility (the “Bootstrap” narrative)
• The Myth of the Social Safety Net

With rich storytelling, data, and voices of those who have experienced poverty first-hand, the episode challenges listeners to re-examine deeply held assumptions about poverty, meritocracy, and the support structures in American society.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Origin of the “Rags to Riches” Myth (04:07–07:47)

• Ben Franklin’s Narrative
  Brooke Gladstone and historian Jill Lepore discuss how Benjamin Franklin’s life and autobiography laid the foundation for the American “rags to riches” myth—the idea that anyone can surmount humble beginnings through ambition and hard work.
  • Franklin, born poor, literally turned “rags into riches” by establishing paper mills and earning a license to print currency in colonial America. (04:25–05:09)
  • His autobiography offers a template for the self-made man, erasing the roles of those who helped or depended on him—most notably his sister Jane Franklin, whose life “endures the fate that almost everyone else in the 18th century does: She remains in the station to which she was born.” (07:12)
• Quote:
  “The historical record is asymmetrical. We know so much more about people who thrive and so little about the people who don’t thrive.”
  — Jill Lepore (07:47)

2. The Endurance and Illusion of Upward Mobility (08:24–11:42)

• Political Uses of the Myth
  Brooke reviews how American politicians routinely invoke the “self-made” narrative, citing family backgrounds of struggle regardless of political party.
  Examples: Andrew Jackson, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gephardt, Edwards, Obama.
• Media Satire
  Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show mock the omnipresence and hollowness of “bootstrap” stories in politics. (09:30)
• The Actual Numbers on Mobility
  The U.S. is not exceptional in upward mobility; in fact, it lags behind comparable countries:
  • Only about 7.5% of Americans born in the bottom quintile move to the top (11:01), versus nearly double that in Canada and Denmark (11:11–11:25).
  • Mobility is highly geographic—better in San Jose, Seattle, Salt Lake City (12:09–12:17), much worse in cities like Memphis or Charlotte (~3–4%).
  • Quote:
    “Your likelihood of moving up is based on where you are even more than who you are.”
    — Brooke Gladstone (12:40)

3. The Impact of Segregation, Inequality, and Luck (12:52–19:31)

• Raj Chetty’s Research (12:52–13:25)
  Upward mobility correlates strongly with segregation, income inequality, single-parent households, poor schooling, and lack of social cohesion.
• Systemic Barriers to Moving Up
  • Housing vouchers exist but are hard to obtain and landlords can refuse them, so many families remain trapped. (13:36)
  • Martin Luther King’s powerful analogy (14:23–16:03): historic government support for whites versus the lack thereof for black families.
    • Quote:
      “It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
      — Martin Luther King, Jr. (15:36)
• Discrimination in Opportunity
  • Resume studies show "white" names yield more callbacks (16:03), even more so than criminal records for black applicants.
  • Surveys: Wealthy people credit hard work over luck (16:40).
  • Robert Frank (17:38–19:31) challenges Fox News host who insists luck is irrelevant, illustrating that success stories often downplay random chance.
    • Quote:
      “Success may also hang on the month or location of your birth, not to mention the wealth you’re born with.”
      — Brooke Gladstone (16:58)

4. Psychological and Societal Effects of the Myth (19:31–21:06)

• The Danger in Ignoring Luck
  Not acknowledging the role of fortune fosters less gratitude and less willingness to help others.
• Personal Reflection
  Brooke shares her story: though she experienced hardship, she was always sure she’d go to college—a sign of hidden privilege.
  • Quote:
    “Hard work is real, but bootstraps are bunk and social mobility a myth. Unless a nation chooses to build the infrastructure, the roads on which a person can move upward, you pretty much can’t get there from here.”
    — Brooke Gladstone (20:45)

---

Segment 2: The Myth of the Safety Net (24:38–36:45)

1. Life on a Precarious Margin: Margaret Smith’s Story (26:40–33:05)

• Personal Catastrophe
  Margaret, single mom of six, becomes homeless after her teen son is shot (27:03). She is evicted not for late payment—but because a crime occurred on her property (28:10). She subsequently loses her job and the family becomes scattered.
• No Effective Safety Net
  Although she has health insurance and food stamps, she's out of time-limited cash assistance. A string of health crises and strict policies have left no room for recovery. (31:15)
• Margaret’s Perspective
  She describes the high costs of being poor: higher prices, no margin for emergencies, constant threat of downward spiral.
  • Quote:
    “You might be on top of the world tomorrow, but it can end for you the next day. And you’ll go through poverty—what we’re going through.”
    — Margaret Smith (32:35)

2. Structural Disadvantages of Poverty (33:05–34:44)

• Poverty Is Expensive
  Brooke and James Baldwin illustrate how the poor pay more for basic needs—food, rent, transportation, services—due to lack of options and punitive policies.
  • “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
    — James Baldwin (33:05)
• The “treadmill” of poverty, where “nothing you have done has helped you to escape the trap.”

3. Systemic Failures and the Limits of Safety (34:44–36:45)

• Zero Margin for Error
  Jad and Robert reflect on how a single disruptive event can lead to immediate ruin for families with little or no cushion—a reality for many Americans but largely invisible to those who buy into the meritocracy myth.
• Eviction Policies
  Brooke explains the policy linking any police action at a residence to forced eviction, a mechanism consistently used against families like Margaret’s.

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “The historical record is asymmetrical. We know so much more about people who thrive and so little about the people who don’t thrive.” — Jill Lepore (07:47)
• “It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. (15:36)
• "Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self made men." — E.B. White (16:40)
• “Hard work is real, but bootstraps are bunk and social mobility a myth. Unless a nation chooses to build the infrastructure...you pretty much can’t get there from here.” — Brooke Gladstone (20:45)
• “You might be on top of the world tomorrow, but it can end for you the next day. And you’ll go through poverty—what we’re going through.” — Margaret Smith (32:35)
• “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” — James Baldwin, quoted by Brooke Gladstone (33:05)

---

Important Timestamps

• 04:07–05:51 – Ben Franklin’s “rags to riches” and its literary legacy
• 07:47–09:30 – The persistence and exploitation of the “bootstrap” myth in American politics and culture
• 11:01–12:50 – Actual upward mobility rates in the U.S. versus other countries; geographic disparities
• 13:25–16:03 – Effects of segregation, discrimination, and policy on life chances (MLK speech)
• 16:03–19:31 – Studies on racial discrimination in hiring; the debate over luck versus hard work (Robert Frank/FOX News segment)
• 20:45 – Gladstone’s reflection: “bootstraps are bunk”
• 26:40–33:05 – Margaret Smith’s story: the collapse of the “safety net”
• 33:05–34:44 – The additional costs and burdens of poverty, James Baldwin’s commentary

---

Tone and Style

The episode weaves together historical research, contemporary policy analysis, personal narrative, and cultural critique, in the often wry, thoughtful, and sometimes emotional style that characterizes both Radiolab and On the Media. The personal storytelling and data-driven discussion is accessible, skeptical of received wisdom, and aimed at prompting listeners to reconsider American narratives around poverty and opportunity.

---

Final Note

For listeners looking to understand the real dynamics of poverty in America—the myths that shape our beliefs, the data that challenge them, and the lived experiences that often go unheard—this episode offers both pointed criticism and deep empathy. For the full multi-part series (“Busted: America’s Poverty Myths”), visit onthemedia.org.

Transcript

[Bob Garfield]

Your new home is now ready. Dr. Horton, America's builder, has new homes that are ready today. With new construction communities in Ellensburg and throughout the Greater Seattle area. Dr. Horton has the right home for you. At Dr. Horton, we're still building with flexible living spaces, smart home technology, and two and three car garages. More communities and more homes available every day. Find your new home in Ellensburg now ready@dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

[Brooke Gladstone]

What are you doing in a meeting? That could have been an email. That's right. You're losing interest. Don't let it happen to your money, too. Vanguard's CashPlus account can't help you at work, but we can help with your savings because Vanguard believes in giving you more. So how much interest could you earn? Find [e-mail] cashplus offered by Vanguard Marketing Corporation member FINRA and SIPC.

[Commercial Announcer]

Lowe's Early Black Friday deals are going fast. Don't miss. Up to 50% off. Select major appliances, plus up to an extra 25% off when you bundle. Select major appliances. And with Christmas around the corner, you're gonna need more string lights. Right? Save $4 on GE LED 100 count string lights now just $5.98 Lowes we help you save. Valid through 12. 3. Selection varies by location. Select locations only while supplies last. See Lowes.com for more details.

[Bob Garfield]

Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

Okay.

[Margaret Smith]

All right.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Margaret Smith]

All right.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wnyc.

[Bob Garfield]

This is on the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Robert Krulwich]

Say who you are.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Crowicz. Jad's been gone for a while, so you might have forgotten that, but he's here again. I'm back.

[Jad Abumrad]

So glad to be back. And today, today we are featuring our.

[Robert Krulwich]

Those people you just heard.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. These are our pals from down the hall at onthemedia with part three of.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Our series, Busted America's Poverty.

[Robert Krulwich]

Because a little while back, Brooke Gladstone, she put together a wonderful set of.

[Jad Abumrad]

Stories, five in all, I believe, about.

[Robert Krulwich]

Poverty in the United States.

[Jad Abumrad]

And it's a pretty, pretty amazing series. And we figure part of what we should do here always is present not just our work, but great work that's happening around us. So we decided to bring Brooke into our studio.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Hello. Hey.

[Robert Krulwich]

Hi. Nice to see you in our territory.

[Brooke Gladstone]

All right, so she came to talk.

[Jad Abumrad]

About what she found and to play Us parts of this series which we think you're gonna dig.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I have to say that except for my comic book, which tells you a lot, this. It was the hardest thing I've ever done professionally, really. You know, breaking down a ridiculously complex story into little.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Components and then putting it through the on the media play. D'oh. Extruder. So it came out media shaped. And the thing is, is what we do at on the Media is we examine the prevailing narratives and use those as a way to discuss the reality.

[Jad Abumrad]

Must I forever be a beggar? So if you haven't heard on the media, you definitely need to listen to on the Media. It' required listening these days. Especially these days. But in this series, what Brooke does is she sort of goes episode by episode and examines one by one, the big media myths when it comes to poverty. You know, like, in one episode, she talks about, you know, the myth of laziness, that poor people are just lazy. In another episode, she tackles the myth of the social safety net. You know, that someone's gonna catch you when you fall.

[Brooke Gladstone]

That's right, the upward mobility myth, the one that paints America as a nation where everyone has an equal chance to surmount any obstacle and advance from rags to riches. It's an idea sown on our shores by a founding father himself born into poverty. Benjamin Franklin.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

He's the youngest of 10 sons, and his sister Jane is the youngest of seven daughters. Benny and Jenny, they're called when they're little. Their father's a candle maker and a soap boiler.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Historian Jill Lepore, author of Book of the Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, writes that Jenny and Benny are close. He teaches her to read.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

They spend their childhood making soap and dipping candles. Benjamin is an apprentice to his brother, who's a printer, and when he's 16 or 17, he runs away to Philadelphia, and he eventually opens up his own printing shop. And he does so well that Franklin actually manufactures most of the paper in the colonies. In the 18th century, he opens up and owns a whole lot of paper mills. Paper in the 18th century is made from rags. And so Franklin, in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, prints these little notices. Bring in your rags. Cash for rags.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Ben sends them to his mill to be pulped.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

Franklin, though, also gets the license in Pennsylvania to print paper currency. So Franklin literally turns rags to riches, and that's really where the notion comes from.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, interesting.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So the phrase rags to riches comes from Ben Franklin having opened up a bunch of paper plants, and then paper was made from rags, and he printed currency and made tons of money doing that, hence, literally rags to riches. Thus enriched and, of course, esteemed for his service to the new nation, he recounts his rags to riches saga in a groundbreaking memoir.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

The only sort of stories of lives at that point are the stories of the great, of kings and princes. And Franklin starts out as a pauper, essentially. So he publishes this autobiography to be a model for young men. He wants to tell the story of having made his own rise.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is not to slight. The man who helps draft the Declaration of Independence invents the the lightning rod, his stove, bifocals, the flexible catheter, and the glass harmonica you're hearing now, and who also launched the first lending library and also the first publicly supported hospital. Clearly, Ben does not want the poor struggling for books and medicine, but as a general principle, he's okay with struggle. He famously wrote, the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. And that the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

He's responsible for himself and his great success and his success alone, and people in his life that depend on him or on whom he may have depended for support. He erases them. And that becomes so much a part of the literary tradition of American autobiography.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it's like the original pick yourself up by your bootstrap stories like a Ben Franklin.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Franklin, yeah. But as we mention in the piece, one notable absence from Ben's book. His sister Jane married off at 15 to a ne' er do well with a history of mental illness passed on to two of their sons. And when most of her 12 children die too young, Jane raises their children and their children's children.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

Her whole life, she's constantly trying to scrabble together some kind of a living by taking in borders, taking in laundry, making the family soap. But the fascinating thing in remembering how important that story is to our sense of the American past is Benjamin Franklin's sister endures the fate that almost everybody else in the 18th century does. She remains in the station to which.

[Brooke Gladstone]

She'S born, and she writes with love to Ben that some impediments are just too hard to break through and that far too much potential is squandered through an accident of birth.

[Historian Jill Lepore]

And that's the story of Jane Franklin's life. She's this brilliant woman struggling, you know, to figure out how to get firewood for her many, many, many, many children, taking care of Franklin's parents, whom he abandoned, who were sick and destitute in their old age, he comes to Boston and erects a giant monument to their memory that really just celebrates him and his generosity. The historical record is asymmetrical. We know so much more about the people who thrive and so little about the people who don't thrive. You really have to think hard. What is this storytelling? What does Franklin's autobiography telling me? What is it not telling me? Who's missing here?

[Jad Abumrad]

I love that part, by the way.

[Robert Krulwich]

I do too. It occurred to me that the myth, that if it is a myth, the story that Ben Franklin told about being an American boy and about the upward potential of that, where if you started poor but sharp, you could knife your way to the top. And that story is still true in many people's minds.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah, I mean, it started with Ben Franklin, but that's exactly, exactly the point we're making in the show. Ever since, the self made man has been the avatar of the American spirit, especially in politics, starting with old hickory Andrew Jackson, right up to Hillary Clinton citing her drape making dad, and Donald Trump claiming he grew his fortune from nothing but a small multi million dollar loan from his father. Likewise, the 2004 election featured Dick Gephardt, son of a milk truck driver, John Edwards, son of a millworker, and Barack Obama, son of a goat herder, leading Jon Stewart to ask Daily show senior political analyst Stephen Colbert, are they laying this on a little thick?

[Bob Garfield]

Does it ring hollow if everyone trumpets this bootstrap story? Wow, that's pretty cynical, John. I mean, I for one connected with what they were saying. Then again, I myself am from humble origins. My father was a poor Virginia torture turd miner. I'm sorry, he mined turds, John. That's why I believe in the promise of America, that I, the son of a turd miner, could one day leave those worthless hicks behind while still using their story to enhance my own credibility.

[Jad Abumrad]

In terms of the idea of the American idea of upward mobility, the bootstraps mythology, clearly it happens enough so that it persists. But what is the case you would make?

[Robert Krulwich]

I think it might happen enough to make it more likely to be in America than to be in the Philippines or in Argentina or in Mexico or.

[Jad Abumrad]

Right. Like, is there some kind of analysis that says how many people born into a certain social place end up moving up? Like, what percentage of Americans throughout the course of their life actually do better?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Uh, well, the way that you measure this generally is how many people go from the bottom of the fifth income bracket to the top. And for America, on the average, it's about seven and a half percent.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow. That's.

[Brooke Gladstone]

If you. That's not bad.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which is Israeli. Sounds low to me.

[Robert Krulwich]

Really?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. I would imagine. I was hoping for bigger numbers, but.

[Robert Krulwich]

Going from the bottom to the very top.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But it's twice that in Canada. It's twice that nearly in. In Denmark. It's better in Australia.

[Robert Krulwich]

So we decided to look at the numbers, the hard numbers. Den 11.7. So that's much better than America.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Canada is at 13.4, which is.

[Robert Krulwich]

That is double.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, roughly double.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You know, there's a bunch of countries all across Europe that do better than we do. So, you know, when it comes to this basic measure of upward mobility, not only are we not unique, we're sort of toward the bottom of the pile when measured against similar countries.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Robert Krulwich]

Are you sure?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah. And the crucial thing to remember is that even within the US Your chances of moving up varies incredibly from one place to another. There's a famous researcher named Roz Chetty at Stanford and he showed that in some regions of the country your chances of moving up are really good. The best in the world. Places like San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm looking here. San Jose, 12.9%, San Francisco 12.2. D.C. 11, Seattle 10.9, Salt Lake 10.8.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But when you get to Columbus, 4.9. Atlanta, 4.5, Milwaukee, 4.5 Charlotte, 4.4. In Memphis, it's closer to 3%.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, just so I understand what we're talking about, this is the percentage of people who are able to sort of move on up.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

So it sounds like the bootstraps myth is pretty much not there. Except if you were born in San Jose or a place like that.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah, yeah. So that just shows that your likelihood of moving up is based on where you are even more than who you are.

[Jad Abumrad]

Let's listen to more of that story.

[Brooke Gladstone]

According to Rajeti, the worst performing neighborhoods are correlated with segregation, income inequality, single parent families, poor schools, and lack of social cohesion. These neighborhoods are very often black and overlooked when officials set budget priorities. Chetty says that government can effectively begin to boost mobility by investing in and fixing those neighborhoods. Meanwhile, a can do a better job of moving families, especially with young kids out of them.

[Jad Abumrad]

25% of the gap in earnings between blacks and whites is driven simply by.

[Bob Garfield]

The fact that blacks tend to grow up in neighborhoods that are much worse.

[Jad Abumrad]

On average than whites.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The government already spends more than $20 billion annually on housing vouchers calculated to enable poor families to rent in better areas. But they can take years, even decades to get. And when they get them, most states allowed landlords to refuse vouchers, and they often do. So these families wind up where they started paying a savvy slumlord much more for much less because there's no place else for them to go.

[Commercial Announcer]

In 1863, the Negro was told that he was free as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation being signed by Abraham Lincoln. But he was not given any land to make that freedom meaningful.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Martin Luther King at the national cathedral in Washington, 1968.

[Commercial Announcer]

It was something like keeping a person in prison for a number of years and suddenly discovering that that person is not guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. You just go up to him and say, now you are free, but you don't give him any bus fare to get to town. And the irony of it all is that at the same time the nation failed to do anything for the black man. It was giving away millions of acres of land in the west and the Midwest, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic flaw. But not only did it give the land, it built land grant colleges to teach them how to farm. It provided low interest rates so that they could mechanize our farms. And to this day, thousands of these very persons are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies every year not to farm. And these are so often the very people who tell Negroes that they must lift themselves by their own bootstraps. It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.

[Brooke Gladstone]

In 2003, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a famous study in which researchers responded to help wanted ads for clerical, administrative and customer service jobs in the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. They applied with names associated with whites like Greg or blacks like Jamal. Based on naming data for babies born in the late 70s, the white names produced 50% more callbacks. A white name yielded as many more callbacks as an extra eight years of experience on a black resume. In another study based in New York, whites with criminal records got more callbacks than blacks with clean records. So much for bootstraps. EB White once wrote, luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self made men. Indeed, surveys find that wealthy people are far more likely than poor ones to say hard work is what leads to success and to credit hard work above all for their happy Lot in life, of course, hard work and talent matter, but they offer no guarantee. As Robert Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University, observes in Success and Luck, Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. He says success may also hang on the month or location of your bir, not to mention the wealth you're born with. But when we compose our personal narratives, those things recede into the mist, as Frank found when confronted by Fox News host Stuart Varney.

[Bob Garfield]

Am I lucky or not? Who I am and where I am, I'm lucky. You are lucky, okay? And so am I. That's outrageous. That is outrageous. What about the risk I took? Do you know what risk is involved in coming to America with absolutely nothing? Do you know what risk is involved in trying to work for a major American network with a British accent, a total foreigner? Do you know what risk is implied for this level of success?

[Brooke Gladstone]

I do.

[Bob Garfield]

Is it luck that you hold a tenured position? Yes. That's nonsense. I am insulted by what you said. Well, you are going against the American dream. I'm not. Look, if you come to America with nothing and you play by the rules, you work hard, you get discipline inside yourself, you marry and have children, in that order, okay? You do all of those things, you play by the rules, you will make it in America, and luck has nothing to do with it. That's not true, sir. I got in my cab leaving the studio and of course, only then did I think about all the fat pitches he had thrown my way that I had completely failed, even to swing at Frank.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Speaking sometime later at New York University.

[Bob Garfield]

He said he'd come to the USA with nothing. He had a degree from the London School of Economics. That's coming to the US with nothing. He had somehow overcome the handicap of working in America with a British accent. Americans love British accents. He said he took risks. Well, what's a risk? I looked it up. Merriam Webster. Risk is the possibility that something bad or unpleasant, such as an injury or loss, will happen. He took risks and he succeeded. Well, that means, by definition, that he was lucky, full stop. But I didn't have the wit to point that out.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But what does it matter, pointing it out? Well, as Frank notes, several studies suggest that when we feel gratitude, we're more generous to strangers. When we're reminded of luck's importance, we are more likely to plow some of our own good fortune back into the common good. But we underplay luck because we can recall our own struggles far better than the fateful but fuzzy roll of chance. And because the very idea corrodes our faith and free will. But mostly because like Benny Franklin, we're deeply invested in our own autobiographies. Take me. My parents went broke a couple of times. Once we had to put all our stuff out on the lawn to be auctioned. I went to college almost totally on aid, but I always knew I was going to college. Even on nights when supper was left over. Kentucky Fried Chicken I brought home from the job. I knew that this was temporary so I can say, wow, I'm really self made. But I know I'm not sure I I always kinda knew I was lucky. But not until working on this series did I really begin to understand what that meant. Hard work is real, but bootstraps are bunk and social mobility a myth. Unless a nation chooses to build the infrastructure, the roads on which a person can move upward, you pretty much can't get there from here.

[Jad Abumrad]

We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll take a look at another myth about poverty with Brooke Gladstone and you'll hear an interview that just when I heard it just like stopped me cold.

[Bob Garfield]

This is Sam calling from Denver, Colorado. Radiolab is supported in part by the.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding.

[Bob Garfield]

Of science and technology in the modern world.

[Brooke Gladstone]

More information About [e-mail] Radiolab is supported by BILT. Nobody wants to pay rent, but if you have to, Bilt works to make it more worthwhile. By paying rent through Bilt, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more. But it doesn't stop there. You can dine out at your favorite local restaurants and earn additional points, get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios and enjoy experience exclusive experiences just for built members. Every month, earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home by going to joinbuilt.com Radiolab that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com.

[Molly Webster]

Radiolab Hey, I'm Molly Webster and this is an ad by BetterHelp. So it happens every year. The seasons are changing, the days are getting shorter, and basically once it becomes dark outside of my window, I feel like the rest of the world disappears and I'm just alone and there's nothing left to do but watch television. This November, Better Help is asking everyone to reach out to our people. That could be your family, your friends, your neighbors, and to resist this call of the cocoon. And yeah, reaching out can take some courage. I've got text messages from January I haven't responded to. And you know what? I'm gonna write them back right now. Hi, sorry I've been missing. How are you? Why don't we all do this sooner? Therapy is the same way. BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. You just fill out a short questionnaire and they find a licensed therapist who they think you'll like. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Radiolab that's betterhelp.com Radiolab.

[Bob Garfield]

Radiolab is supported by Planet Visionaries, the podcast created in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Stay tuned for a trailer and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I'm Alex Hongle, professional rock climber and founder of the Hondel Foundation. I wanted to let you know about a brand new season of the Planet Visionaries podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This is the podcast exploring bold ideas and big solutions from the people leading the way in conservation. Join me in conversation with the likes of climate champion Mark Ruffalo, biologist and photographer Christina Mittermeier, and one of the most successful conservations of our time, Chris Tompkins. Join us on Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bob Garfield]

Limu Emu and Doug. Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Jad Abumrad]

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Bob Garfield]

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, we're back. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab.

[Jad Abumrad]

And we're back talking to Brooke Gladstone from On the Media about a series of stories that they broadcast called Busted America's Poverty Myth.

[Robert Krulwich]

We've already gone through the myth of upward mobility, but this next one, it gets a little more personal and a little more downward.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Let me just say that one of the most important parts of this whole enterprise for me was to let people tell their stories as fully as they could in their own voice. And that was the case with Margaret Smith.

[Jad Abumrad]

She's the woman we meet in chapter four. Yes, but can you set up the conceit? So we did the myth of the bootstraps.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This was the myth of the safety net. That's what this was about. And I'm Brooke Gladstone with part four in our series America's Poverty Myths. This time it's the myth that America's social sanctions, the safety net, though imperfect, still is able to catch people in economic free fall before they slam the pavement. But there's no way to confront that myth without conveying how that sounds. So prepare yourself for the narrative equivalent of boom splat. And I talk about how many many people only have $1,000 or less in savings and that a majority of people would not be able to save themselves from a relatively inexpensive, from our point of view, short term emergency. And so what I was trying to do in that episode was to describe the way that people put their lives together and how fragile those arrangements are. And Margaret was an example of that. So get ready for that boom splat. I mentioned at the top, the sound of someone crashing through the safety net.

[Margaret Smith]

Hello, how are you?

[Brooke Gladstone]

You can come on in. Recorded here at the YWCA Family center in clean and orderly homeless shelter in Columbus, Ohio.

[Margaret Smith]

My name is Margaret Smith and I have six children, five boys and one girl. The reason I ended up in the shelter is because my son was shot outside of our house.

[Brooke Gladstone]

How old is he?

[Margaret Smith]

He's 17. He knew the girl, he used to date her and he didn't want to be with her anymore. She came with some guys and they shot my son six times. He's like, mom, help me. I feel like I'm about to die. I said, you're not going to die on me today. All the kids were sitting there, they were watching. I'm seeing this blood, good shot of his neck. So I grabbed the blanket, put it around his neck, put a knot in it. I told my 15 year old daughter, I said, I need you to put your hands right here and apply pressure to his neck. My 11 year old went to get a pillow off the couch to elevate his head. He said, sissy, keep talking to me, talk to me, talk to me. The ambulance finally got there as he's in ICU fighting for his life. I go home three days later. I go to the landlord to pay the rent. She tells me, did you get the eviction notice? I said, what eviction notice? She said, well, you have a three day eviction notice. So I called the attorney that was over the property. What I did was made a mutual decision to leave in 45 days. But I let him know that I can't leave in three because I'm still at the hospital.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You had violated your agreement in their view because you had committed A crime. It wasn't for lack of payment.

[Margaret Smith]

It was because a crime was committed on the property. But it wasn't the people that lived in the property that committed the crime. He was a victim. So I ended up in the shelter. I lost my job. I worked as a customer rep for Southern Connecticut Gas, Gas company. They couldn't hold my position. They had me go through Aetna to see if they would get it approved under disability. They denied it. So they couldn't hold my position for the four weeks I needed to take care of my son. So they terminated me. So not only did I lose my place, I lost my job and I ended in the shelter. And not only that, all my kids are spreaded out different places. My son is still healing. He still had nurses, physical therapy. And it's just breaking my heart that I can't be with my kids.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Where are they?

[Margaret Smith]

My son is at my mother's, my daughter is at her aunt's, and my other son is at her cousin's. And I have the two youngest ones with me here. It's just been a nightmare. I've been trying to find places, but every time I go to the place, they ask, well, how are you going to continue to pay the rent? I'm going to go to work and pay the rent like any other normal person would do. Just right now, my main focus is getting my children back together in the house. Me and my family were a victim of a crime. So why should we lose everything because of what someone else created for us? It's not fair.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Tell me about your kids.

[Margaret Smith]

My oldest son, that's Juan, he's a diabetic. He's 23. Very good kid. He helps me with the children while I work. My other son, Raymond Cook, is the one that was shot. He was 17 years old. Every morning he would get the kids off to school, which was down the street from my house, and then he would go to school. So by him being in the hospital, that was ruined because I didn't have the kids in daycare, because I felt like I had enough older kids we could pull together and make this work. So everything was just all screwed up. My 15 year old is my daughter, Tiara Cook. Straight honor row student, plays basketball. She wants to be a lawyer when she grow up. She's trying to get a scholarship. My 11 year old, his name is Elan Smith. He is so supportive. When I was at the shelter, in our room, I just broke down crying and he grabbed me and he said, mommy, it's gonna be okay. And he put my big head on his little shoulder, you see?

[Brooke Gladstone]

With some skillful juggling, she'd maintained a stable if fragile life for her family. But a lethal ex girlfriend swept in like a hurricane and blew it apart. Margaret has health insurance for the kids and food stamps, but no money. There's a lifetime limit on cash assistance of 60 months. And Margaret had used it all up many years ago. When her father died, she required long treatment to overcome a suicidal depression. Later she had diverticulitis. Then she had to have a mass in her throat surgically removed. Then a hip replacement. She needs another one, but obviously that'll have to wait. Now she has to get all those balls back up in the air.

[Margaret Smith]

I gotta get my kids out of here. We done came a long way from the projects to me. Moving, living on my own the last seven years, paying regular rent. I didn't ever want to go back to the projects. I lived there all my life. That project would destroy especially young men. You don't have a chance. You got people that's in the gang over here. It'll swallow your kids up. I had to go, but it came to my house. So this is what I say to people. Even people that's got money and power don't walk around with your head up high. Some people look at you like, oh, you're beneath me. You're this and you're that. But I'm still a person. I have a heart. I have ambitions. I might not have got there yet, but I'm working towards it. You treat people how you want to be treated, whether they have a dollar in their pocket, a penny, or you a millionaire. Because you never know when it's short term, anything can happen. You might be on top of the world tomorrow, but it can end for you the next day. And you'll go through poverty. What we going through?

[Brooke Gladstone]

James Baldwin once observed, anyone who has ever seen struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. If you're poor, you pay more for public transit because you can't afford a monthly pass. Or you rely on old cars that break down and cost more to fix while paying gas prices that have outrun your wages. You pay more for car insurance because of where you live. You pay more for rent than your place is worth. If you're poor, you're unlikely to eat healthy meals because healthy food costs an average of $45 more a month. Tough on a minimum wage, you can't buy any food cheaply because it costs more in poor neighborhoods. And without spare cash you can't even save by buying in bulk. You're less likely to have a bank account because of soaring fees and penalties. You cash checks at places that take a cut. You also pay a higher percentage of your income in state and local taxes than the rest of us do, and so on. It's death by a thousand cuts and no way to staunch the bleeding. As Baldwin wrote, one's feet have simply been placed on the treadmill forever. You are 30 by now, and nothing you have done has helped you to escape the trap. But what is worse than that is that nothing you have done and as.

[Bob Garfield]

Far as you can tell, nothing you.

[Commercial Announcer]

Can do will save your son or.

[Bob Garfield]

Your daughter from meeting the same disaster.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And possibly coming to the same end.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like, I know, I know that people construct their lives in such a way where there's zero margin for error. On some level, I think every parent who isn't made of money lives in that state where at any moment you have to drop everything to go deal with a sick kid or whatever. But this was that ordinary experience taken to a degree that was shocking. It was truly shocking that you could see somebody making it and then suddenly they fall and they fall so hard and so quickly and for no other reason than they just got luck, you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Know, See, for me to hear that like, so, yes, the shooting was uninvited and unexpected, but then comes the eviction and then comes the refusal to amend or in any way postpone the eviction in the face of what is an.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Obviously well that's left because people sign leases saying if there is any police action on your property, you have an instant eviction. I mean, it is an instant. It's three weeks and they won't stop it. They won't stop it for anybody. I've heard this over and over again. That wasn't just because of some recalcitrant landlord. That is what goes on every day in America. Sa.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's Brooke Gladstone from On the Media. What we've played you was part of a series called America's Poverty Myths, produced by Mira Sharma and Eve Claxton, edited by Katya Rogers.

[Jad Abumrad]

They produced the series in collaboration with WNET's Chasing the Dream, Poverty and Opportunity in America.

[Robert Krulwich]

You can hear all five episodes of Busted if you go to onthemedia.org poverty.

[Jad Abumrad]

You can also subscribe to onthemedia on iTunes or wherever to listen to all five of the episodes there. We would definitely recommend you do that because there's so much more than we were able to get into and it's great. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krylwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks for listening.

[Bob Garfield]

This is Jacob from Dallas, Texas. Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Soren Wheeler is a senior editor. Jamie York is our senior producer. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Brenna Farrell, David Gebbel, Matt Kielty, Robert Krolwich, Annie McKeown, Lateef Nassar, Melissa O', Donnell, Arianne Wack and Molly Webster, with help from Tracy Hunt, Nigar Fatali, Phoebe Wang and Katie Ferguson. Our fact checker is Michelle.