Now that property taxes are off the front page, we can turn our focus back to Indiana’s long, steady decline. The headline in my edition of Tuesday’s Star said, “Indiana still in Top 10 of fat states.” Wednesday’s headlines were a double-header: “No good news’ in Hoosier state’s latest SAT scores” and “In Indiana, 37,500 sink into poverty.”

Let’s reflect:

First, Indiana’s SAT scores fell faster than the national average. Yes, the test is longer and the writing section is new. But it was longer and newer all over the country, so those excuses don’t explain why Indiana is lagging.

Second, Indiana DID move down a spot—from 8th fattest to 9th fattest—but only because other states got even fatter. Our overweight population went up by ½ of a percent.

Third, the percentage of people living in poverty went up by that same ½ of a percent to 12.7%. That means slightly more than 1 out of every 8 Hoosiers is living in poverty. It is true that median household income rose $600—feel free to start the “We’re #31 cheer”—but that’s to be expected in a period of economic expansion. It’s also to be expected that poverty would fall, as it has in the nation as a whole. But not in Indiana.

I’m not an expert on macroeconomics, but it seems clear to me that we are suffering the slow, inevitable consequences of globalization. We were an industrial state. Slowly, surely those jobs are leaving. Yes, new plants—like Honda in Greensburg—are coming in, but the net effect is a loss.

The loss doesn’t affect everyone the same. The college-educated still find work and labor jobs can still be had . But in the global realignment, there are fewer and fewer ways for people on the bottom to raise themselves up. And gradually, insidiously, those clinging to the bottom of the middle class get pulled down. It doesn’t happen all at once, but in ten years the bottom will be larger, and the middle smaller. In twenty, it will be even worse.

Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) chief Mitch Roob showed characteristic compassion. Noting that educated, knowledge-workers are doing just fine in Indiana (we are, after all, #31), he said: “There is only so much the social service agencies can do. We try to help people help themselves, but if they aren’t getting an education and aren’t responsible for their behavior, things are not likely to change.”

He’s right, of course. Individuals do need to take responsibility for their behavior. And I’d bet my own money that those who have found their way through high school and on to college have made their way out of poverty.

But Roob is also wrong. This is not just a question of individual initiative. Globalization changed all the rules of the labor game and it’s going to take generations to recover. Yes, Indiana has to move toward a knowledge economy, but that’s easier to say than to do and it’s pretty obvious that we are starting near the back of the pack.

People in poverty should help themselves if they can; they’ll get nowhere playing the victim. People clinging to middle-class status should recognize that education is the only plausible way forward for their kids and stop hoping those $25 per hour factory jobs are coming back.

But those of us who are more secure in our knowledge-based jobs, and especially our FSSA administrator, need to realize that some serious structural changes are underway and that we are probably getting ahead because of the same changes that are severely dislocating others. Personal responsibility and initiative are not the only factors in the equation.

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