One Third of Israeli Children Live in Poverty

Roy Goldenberg recently reported that one third of Israeli children live in poverty. I include an excerpt:

The National Insurance Institute Poverty Report for 2006 states that Israel had 1,649,800 persons living below the poverty line. The proportion of poor persons was unchanged from 2005, when there were 1,630,500 poor.

The proportion of children living below the poverty line rose to 796,100 in 2006 from 768,800 in 2005, although the proportion was unchanged at more than one third of all children. The proportion of children in poverty has risen 60% since 1998.

Of course, non-Israeli Palestinian children also live in shocking rates of poverty. In addition to poverty, these children of both groups often have to face violence and terrorism, especially since both groups often target civilians. Unsurprisingly, these children grow up angry and otherwise distressed, which can lead to more violence and poverty.

Of course, the governments and leaders involved spend billions of dollars on war, while this poverty rages.

The United States gives billions of dollars to Israel for military purposes. If the United States wants to give its taxpayers money away, I suggest that this money go to feed hungry children rather than to war.

I doubt that we will ever resolve poverty while warfare continues, and I doubt we will stop warfare while land remains divided. We need to find a way to allow all people, regardless of race and religion, to move in and out of any country or region and get jobs and housing. So long as land remains divided and certain races or religions get excluded, people will fight over the land and the divisions.

I hope for better days for the poor Israeli and Palestinian children.

The Rich Attacking The Poor

Gary Younge recently wrote an article about poverty in the United States. At one point in the article, he shows how the Bush administration has pushed more working class people into poverty. I include an excerpt:

So it would have seemed last Tuesday when the US census bureau revealed its latest findings on income, poverty and health. The report showed that since George Bush came to power the poverty rate had risen by 9%, the number of people without health insurance had risen by 12%, and real median household income had remained stagnant. On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina we learned the racial disparity in income and the gap between rich and poor show no sign of abating.

Ironically, the Bush administration cites fractional decreases year in the poverty he created as good news. In the article quoted above, Gary Younge describes class warfare as the rich attacking the poor, and points out that the poor have not yet started fighting back. He points out the lack of unity amongst the working class, due to many Americans referring to themselves as “middle class” rather than “working class.”

I think the entire working class needs to band together and stop letting ultra-rich people leech off its labor. Within any 10 year period, approximately 40% of the United States falls into poverty. People cycle in and out of poverty. Poverty affects the entire working class, not some isolated, marginal lower class. If the working class organized better, they could fight the socioeconomic corruption that rich people use to weasel them out of their money. The working class can demand more freedom and fairness, and finally put an end to poverty and other working class problems.

Local Anti-Poverty Groups Required

Large organizations cannot end poverty, at least not by themselves. They can’t do it right for the same reasons big public schools cannot correctly raise children. The children each need their own parents who can meet their individual needs, and similarly we need to fight poverty on a local, grassroots level.

We will never find a one-size-fits-all solution for poverty, because none exists. While we can use generally effective methods, only grassroots groups can attack local poverty with the detailed precision required to successfully eliminate it.

For that reason, I believe that the most effective large-scale efforts must focus on helping local anti-poverty organizations, rather than fighting poverty directly.

If you want to join the fight against poverty, I suggest you that you work with small local organizations in your community, rather than just donating to large-scale organizations. If you cannot find any worthy local groups, you can form your own.

If you want to talk about how to fight poverty locally, and about how to find or start a local anti-poverty group, you can join the Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and we have members from all over the world.

Poverty and Racism Continue

The Daily Times published an article about recent poverty data from the US Census Bureau. I include an excerpt:

More than one in ten Americans, or 36.5 million people, live in poverty in the United States, with children and blacks the worst hit, an annual report by the US Census Bureau showed Tuesday.

According to the report, around 12.8 million children under the age of 18, or around one-third of the poor, existed in 2006 on incomes below the threshold used by the Census Bureau to determine who lives in poverty.

The number of children without health insurance swelled by 700,000 in 2006 compared with the previous year, according to the report, which also showed that the total number of Americans without health coverage had risen by three million to 47 million.

In percentage terms, three times more black people, 24.3 percent, lived in poverty than the 8.2 percent of white people who did, the report showed.

The U.S. Census Bureau releases a similar report every year about poverty with staggering statistics about the millions of Americans in poverty, including the racism involved. Yet, every year our we fail to do anything about it. Year after year we let poverty and racism continue. Passive indignation will not do anything to stop this. We need to take action to put an end to poverty!

Millions of children in the United States live in poverty, of which millions do not have enough food to eat. With children growing up in such horrible conditions, they do not get a fair chance to succeed, which will lead to most of them remaining in poverty. We need to stop the poverty cycle. We need to take action!

The world has more than enough food to feed everyone. We have more houses than homeless families. The fact that hunger, poverty, and homeless continue demonstrates a fatal flaw in the social structure of our society. We need to fix this, or we will not survive.

A Poor Mindset

Today, I read the most interesting article about poverty that I’ve read in a long time. In the recent article, Steven Pearlstein explains the ideas of Charles Karelis in regards to the seemingly counterintuitive behaviors common to poor people. I include an excerpt:

The reason the poor are poor is that they are more likely to not finish school, not work, not save, and get hooked on drugs and alcohol and run afoul of the law. Liberals tend to blame it on history (slavery) or lack of opportunity (poor schools, discrimination), while conservatives blame government (welfare) and personal failings (lack of discipline), but both sides agree that these behaviors are so contrary to self-interest that they must be irrational.

[…]

If you and everyone around you are desperately poor, maybe it’s perfectly rational to think that an extra dollar or two won’t make much of a difference in reducing your misery. Or that you won’t be able to “study” your way out of the ghetto. Or that if you find a $100 bill on the street, maybe it’s logical to blow it on one great night on the town rather than portion it out a dollar a day for 100 days.

On the other hand, maybe the point at which people are most willing to work hard, save and play by the rules isn’t when they are very poor, or very rich, but in the neighborhoods on either side of the point you might call economic sufficiency — a motivational sweet spot that, in statistical terms, might be defined as between 50 percent ($24,000) and 200 percent ($96,000) of median household income. And if that is so, then maybe the best way to break the cycle of poverty is to raise the hopes and expectations of the poor by putting them closer to the goal line.

I highly recommend reading the whole article by Steven Pearlstein. Finally, I got to read an article written outside the bipolarized political partisanship so common to any discussions about political economics. I like how Pearlstein described the partisan ideas of the left and right, and the stale and unproductive debate between them.

In regards to the excerpted portion, I think it did a great job in explaining the mentality that causes poor people to not fight harder to get out of poverty. Unfortunately, poverty arouses feelings of hopelessness and discouragement. With limited opportunity, poor people will not receive the same benefits as more privileged people when they do the same amount of work. For example, working hard at an inner-city public school won’t get a person even close to as much as working hard at a high-class private school. That seems very discouraging.

Of course, this reminds me of the importance of positive role models. Among the many benefits they offer, positive role models show others, namely children, the possibility of success. The existence of positive role models offers children a tangible example of what hard work and dedication can do, which can help replace hopelessness with hope and replace discouragement with motivation.

Of course, poor people, namely children, actually need to have a reasonable route to success. I say reasonable route, because it won’t work if only exceptional children can escape poverty. It needs to apply to the rule, not to the exception.

I suggest offering full student loans to anyone who wants them. These student loans need to completely fund high-quality education, job training, and then job placement, as well as food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare the entire time. Such student loans would offer everyone a viable route to success.

United States Housing Crisis

Michael Stetz recently wrote an article about how the housing crisis adds to the poverty picture in the United States. I include an excerpt:

Nationally, more people are losing their homes because of the subprime mortgage meltdown. Wages have been flat. We feel fortunate to pay 3 bucks for a gallon of gas.

A growing number of middle-class people are anxious, they say.

“Poverty is a hot issue,” said Donald Mathis, president of the Community Action Partnership, which represents hundreds of poverty-fighting agencies nationwide.

Mathis points to a recent poll showing more angst among Americans when it comes to poverty.

In a poll taken in June by the Zogby research firm, 55 percent of those responding said they were “very concerned” about poverty. The poll found 58 percent believed poverty was the single-most-important or a top priority facing the nation’s leaders.

The spate of home foreclosures is particularly alarming, Mathis said. Many people feel vulnerable. Poverty is sometimes hidden, invisible. This is not. This could happen to someone down the street, he said.

Regardless of how well the United States can pull through the current housing crisis, I think we have to worry about the underlying problem. In the United States, most hard working people cannot afford houses. The working class simply does not earn enough to afford houses–even though they build them.

For the most part, working class people can only get homes by renting or through mortgages. Despite what the deed may say, when a person has mortgage, the bank really owns the property.

Working class people only get an allowance from the powers that be. When the economy turns sour, the working class loses that allowance.

To fight the underlying problem, we need to make it so working class people own their homes outright, instead of getting swindled by rich, unproductive usurers.