They don’t know (Part 4)

[A series of posts which critique common misconceptions about the rural poor and working poor, held by media, politicians, and ordinary citizens.]

Small town America. What images do those words conjure up for you? Fourth of July parades? White picket fences? Neighborly conversations?

What about class antagonism? Surprise! Yes, class does exist in the rural Midwest, despite all the stereotypes about polite, aw-shucks Midwesterners.

If you live in Northern Michigan, I don’t need to explain that to you. It’s obvious every time you drive past multi-million dollar “cottages” for sale in Harbor Springs. Care to purchase an 8,000 square foot Up North vacation home? You will find some real finds here.

While growing up in Cross Village and then Cheboygan — where 60% of the city’s population is poor or working poor — I was very aware of class distinctions, even if I didn’t use those exact words in elementary school. I would describe my own class background as middle to upper-middle class (by Cheboygan standards); I had a very comfortable upbringing. But growing up in the community that I did, having the friends that I did, I knew there were different categories of people. Those who lived on the lake, tourists who vacationed Up North (“Fudgies”), people who wore white boating shorts and used the word “summer” as a verb — we regarded them as a class apart.

Looking back at our disdain for the tourists and summer people who came to Northern Michigan, I now see it as a kind of misrecognized class resentment: as kids we just knew they weren’t one of us. But what we didn’t know, or at least didn’t say, is that they were the ones with the money, while locals were the ones who were paid a pittance to make them sandwiches, fudge, and ferry them from place to place. Money and class were at the root of our resentment, which then got transformed into other cultural distinctions that we made between locals and tourists.

That was back in the ’80s and early ’90s. Now in 2019 the picture is even starker, when it comes to the economic divide in our region. Let’s look closer at the example of Emmet county, and a case story of someone who works at one of the most prestigious addresses in Michigan.

Although I knew Emmet county had a great extreme between areas of wealth and poverty, even I was surprised when the Economic Policy Institute released their conclusions from a study of income inequality by county in the United States. This study ranked the gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99% of residents by county, and guess what? Emmet county was ranked an astounding #102 out of 3,061 counties in the USA for worst income inequality.

The average income of the top 1% in Emmet is $1,276,653, while the average income of the bottom 99% is $45,166.

It’s a divide that is expressed visibly in the real estate prices and wealthy enclaves that have sprouted in Emmet County in the last 30 years. Lake Shore Drive, an area that is rich in Odawa history, has gentrified to the point that it is out of reach for all but the wealthiest residents. To the west of Petoskey, Bay Harbor’s gated community plays host to members of the DeVos clan and other Michigan 1%-ers. And of course in Harbor Springs is the Harbor Point Association, a resort community that is only accessible to its wealthy residents and the people who work there.

One of those who works on the Point is Wes, whose story was profiled in a recent issue of the Northern Express. Like many others who work in Harbor, Wes lives where the housing is less expensive — 24 miles away in Levering. For those who don’t know, Harbor Point is an old money enclave where cottages are often passed down within families. Cars are not allowed on the Point. Instead, visitors are transported by horse-drawn carriage the length of the nearly 1-mile peninsula. Local lore is full of the antics of the trust-fund residents who populate these cottages; for one recent event that gained notoriety, you must read the story of Point resident David Whitlow’s downward spiral.  

Employment at the Point is seasonal, like many jobs in our region. While the Harbor Point trust-funders decamp for warmer climes in the winter, workers like Wes have to find other ways to pull through the slow season and survive a Northern Michigan winter. With two young kids, Wes found himself turning to the DHHS for help with providing groceries as he looked for work. But he soon encountered the problems of the modern DHHS, caused by the implementation of the Universal Caseload program. What should have been a routine application to receive the food assistance that he deserved as a taxpayer, turned into a months-long struggle with a labyrinthine bureaucracy. As his family tried to raise the money to make do, “he and his wife separated, in part because of financial problems.”

There are many reasons that a marriage can break up, but money problems are almost always a contributing factor. By contrast, when a family has a secure financial footing, it can help a couple ride out difficult moments in their relationship. As a study by the Pew Research Center found, “marriage rates are also more closely linked to socio-economic status than ever before”. Here is a major contradiction in conservative thinking: state assistance programs, such as those provided by the DHHS, could go a long way in helping families achieve stability. Do conservatives really want to preserve traditional marriage? If so, they should fully fund the DHHS, so that families can receive the bare minimum of necessities they need to achieve full independence.

When Republicans pursue a policy of economic austerity (“belt-tightening”), departments like the DHHS begin to suffer, with consequences for families like Wes’. These reductions in state spending, of course, go hand in hand with reductions in the corporate tax rate and on dividends. And who benefits from this? People like Point resident David Whitlow, who lived for years off of investment income and became a victim of his own affluence. While Wes was made to jump through an ever receding line of hoops to get food assistance — and never did receive the benefits he was entitled to — Whitlow enjoyed a work-free life, splitting his time between 3 different residences. That wealth allowed Whitlow to endure a 9-year spiral of addiction, until a violent psychotic break that led to his eventual arrest.

Class warfare: it’s the background noise of our everyday lives, the result of policy choices that favor those who live off the interest of their accumulated capital (David Whitlow), at the expense of those who must sell their labor on the market (Wes). How do they keep those cottages looking so white and pretty?