Dean Newman co-authors Taxing the Poor

Members of the Hopkins community are familiar with travel. Many people on the Homewood Campus can share their eye-opening experiences of visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, coming nose-to-nose with poverty in India, or being in close proximity to the London Riots. These experiences inspire new perspectives and ideas.

For Katherine S. Newman, Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, inspiration took place within U.S. borders, in Alabama.

In 2008, Newman ventured to modest Montgomery, Alabama to help Alabama Arise, an advocacy organization with a mission to fight for fair taxation. Newman specifically worked with the group to repeal a tax on food.

"[It] was very surprising to me that this was so serious, that food taxes were so high in Alabama," Newman said. "So I went to participate in a political campaign to repeal these tax laws."

However, the endeavor was not successful.

"The campaign failed," Newman said. "But I came to know [Alabama Arise] very closely."

Despite failure of the campaign, her curiosity for unjust taxes remained after her return to Princeton University, where she was teaching at the time.

"When I finished my advocacy work with them . . . [I] decided to look at where those taxes had originated and how widespread they were," Newman said.

And the ideas began to flood in. Shortly after her trip, she teamed up with Princeton doctoral candidate Rourke O'Brien, to write, Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged.

"And that's what launched me on this whole long odyssey on trying to understand where these taxes came from and what it has meant to America's poor . . . It began with a trip to Alabama," Newman said.

Published earlier this year in February by the University of California Press, Newman and O'Brien look at the history and consequences of regressive taxation, such as sales taxes and its role at a national level.

After doing research about unjust taxation in the south, Newman realized that the problem is relevant all over the nation.

"I was interested in the historical origins but I could see how much deeper this problem has gotten in the last 25 years or so," Newman said. "So this is very much a problem that is with us right now, and if anything, during this great recession, it's getting even worse."

Newman cites unfair taxes as a serious problem that contributes to early mortality, malnutrition, low graduation rates, crime, and other negative consequences. One of the most pressing issues across America is sales tax on necessary items.

"I think it's a problem in many states where sales tax is huge especially for basic commodities that people can't avoid purchasing," Newman said. "You can't avoid buying food, or medicine, or clothing . . . we are talking about taxes that are exacted for daily items."

The book weaves together a collection of stories from Alabama.

While Newman and O'Rouke's book concerns an issue that is predominant in the southern and western states, and a relatively minor problem in Maryland and the northeast, Newman emphasizes it's relevance to the Hopkins Community.

"Well I would love for Hopkins students to read it," Newman said, with a laugh. "And I hope they will find it interesting and worthwhile. I would like them to understand is that this kind of social science is directed at the blending of research interests that we have on the faculty and public problems that matter very much in the real world beyond the walls of the University."

And even if students are not interested in taxation or public policy, Newman sets a prime example of the many research efforts on campus that makes significant contributions to the world.

"I hope that students will see in it what kind of work they could do as researchers themselves and that their faculty are engaged in," Newman said. "[Research can] bridge the distance between the world of universities and research studies and the real world of people who live right around us who are affected by these kind of decisions."

These real world situations and choices inspired Newman to return to Alabama to do research for the book. Taxing the Poor weaves together many stories that illustrate the striking effects of poverty, which are only further burdened by taxation.

Newman shared one of her most memorable encounters, of an overweight home health aid who works ten hour work days at minimum wage.

Mother of two, the woman has a hard time making ends meet. Due to the high costs of healthy food such as fresh produce, she must opt to serve unhealthier items at the dinner table.

One day at work, her back just snapped and she now has serious health problems. In order to get back to supporting her household, she currently takes online courses that will eventually put her $40,000 in debt—a debt that she will mostly never be able to pay.

This story is merely a glimpse into the poverty that Taxing the Poor examines. Newman, recognizing the hardships of this account, shared it to the Class of 2015 at the Freshman Convocation this past month.

"I wanted the students to know how much education matters to people who are in such desperate states such as the rural poor in Alabama and how lucky our students are, and the faculty, that we have the privilege to be part of such a wonderful institution. There are people who would give anything for that privilege," Newman said.   

This is the eleventh book that Newman has co-authored, but it is the first one regarding taxation. This book is particularly significant to Newman due to the people that she interacted with during her research.

Newman dedicates Taxing the Poor to the people at Alabama Arise, and notes that all the royalties that she receives from the book's sales goes directly to the advocacy group.

"While I love all of my books (just like I love my children), this one was special because the people who first brought the issue of taxation to my attention are among the most noble individuals I've met in my career," Newman later wrote in an e-mail to The News-Letter. "The rural poor of Alabama whom I interviewed remain in my mind whenever I discuss the issues that appear in the book. Having spent much of my career writing about the urban poor, their rural counterparts were far from my mind. No longer. They are among the most deprived and isolated Americans I have ever encountered. If this book does anything for them, it will have been well worth it."