The Associated Press recently released an article that points out an increase in educated poor. I include an excerpt:
A rise in college attendance coupled with downsizing, outsourcing and a shortage of high-paying jobs is bolstering the ranks of the educated poor – people with college degrees who don’t earn above the national poverty line, economists said.
According to recent U.S. Census estimates, the number of college graduates earning below the poverty line has more than doubled in the past 15 years to almost 6 million people.
I felt compelled to post this information for two main reasons.
First, I want to show that poverty threatens all of us. It affects our friends, family members, children, and people in our own local communities. It doesn’t just affect some lazy and uneducated strangers from nowhere land. We have to organize our communities to eliminate poverty as a matter of self-preservation.
Second, I post these facts about the educated poor to undermine the myth that a poor person can escape poverty on their own. That myth causes people to put the blame solely on poor individuals rather than our non-meritocratic society. The high and rising rates of educated poor and working poor people show that one cannot simply escape poverty by getting an education and a job.