Jeff Swicord recently wrote an excellent article exploring poverty in the United States. I include an excerpt:
They are a common sight in inner-city America: homeless people, living in the streets and going hungry. To most Americans, this is the face of poverty.
Population experts and those who work at trying to help the poor say the problem extends far beyond those who are homeless, and is often less visible to the general public.
Robert Egger is director of “DC Central Kitchen,” which prepares free meals for the hungry in Washington. He says, “If you ask the average American who is hungry, they are thinking it is a homeless person. And they think that that homeless person is hungry because they are an addict or a drunk. … ‘It is their fault. They are lazy.’ People need to realize that the face of hunger is a single woman, raising two kids, who has a job. At the end of the month, she is going to come up short (of funds) because she is only making $8, $9, $10 [or] $12 an hour. In most American cities, she is not going to make it.”
The U.S. Census Bureau calculates that 37 million Americans are living in poverty – on an income of less than $20,000 a year for a family of four, for example. The number of people living in poverty here has grown by more than five million since 2000, but overall the official measure of poverty has not changed significantly – 12.7 percent of the population (according to the latest figures available, for 2005).
Even the government’s figures say that 1 in 8 United States citizens live in poverty, but these numbers only scratch the surface. How does the government expect four people to live on $5,000 per year each of hard-earned money? Even the average middle-class family, making say 4 or 6 times as much yearly income, cannot afford a house or car, but must buy such necessities on credit.
We fool ourselves if we rely on such meaningless figures as the government’s definition of poverty. Rather, to correctly measure poverty, we need to use qualitative criteria, not quantitative criteria. Qualitatively speaking, poverty affects much more than 1 in 8 United States citizens.
The vast majority of the U.S. needs better education and healthcare systems! The vast majority of U.S. citizens need more time with their kids and families! The vast majority of U.S. citizens get overworked and underpaid!
Without government hand-outs (such as welfare, public education, etc.) the vast majority of United States citizens cannot afford the necessities of survival in contemporary society; At least not without loans in the government-backed credit-based economy.
Poverty does not merely affect those who cross over some arbitrary line drawn by the government. As the elephant in society’s living-room, the complex issue of poverty plagues society and affects all of us.
We can neither rely on the government’s arbitrary figures about poverty, nor can we rely on the government to end poverty. Instead, we need to end poverty ourselves non-governmentally, through personal responsibility and voluntary solidarity. Both individually and collectively, we need to help ourselves, our families, our friends and our communities.
What do you think?
I live in NYC, where developers are constructing buildings with
walk in refergeriators, so that residents can shop for food
on their Blackberries, on the Fresh Direct website and have
their groceries delivered before they arrive. FAO Schwartz
designs gyms for their children.
Meanwhile, in parts of the Bronx, where I work,
there are people living in apartment buildings with no heat, hot water,
rats, roaches, inhumane living conditions.
Women are being arrested for shoplifting infant formula.
In many Ghetto supermarkets, infant forumula is kept
in front of the cashiers, to prevent theft.
There is a wide rift growing between rich people and everyone else
in America.
I don’t know the intentions of those women, but supermarkets lose a lot of money from people who steal baby formula to sell it for money. Baby formula costs a lot of money, so shoplifters steal it to sell it, not use it.