Poverty in America Affects Millions

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).

Read entire VOA News article by Jeff Swicord.

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?

Blood Diamond Stars Speak Out Against World Hunger

A recent article on Medical News Today reports that stars from the new movie ‘Blood Diamond’ speak out against world hunger. I include an excerpt:

“What is so powerful that it can make you overcome your greatest fear, turn your brother into an enemy, and leave wounds that scar long after the fighting is over? What is so potent, it passes effortlessly from mother to child? from generation to generation?”

The answer: “Hunger — so deadly it kills 25,000 people a day.”

These questions are being asked by actors Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly, two stars of the film, Blood Diamond, in a new trailer for the World Food Programme (WFP) that will run ahead of the film in cinemas across the world. Blood Diamond opened in cinemas across Britain and Ireland on Friday, the 26th of January.

WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency, hopes that the exposure generated by the Warner Bros. Pictures film will raise much-needed awareness of hunger and poverty, which stalk more than 850 million people globally.

Read entire Medical News Today article.

When fighting world hunger and poverty, first and foremost we need to raise awareness about world hunger. Through the trailer at this popular movie, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly acheive that exact goal. Additionally, they promote WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency. In fact, on average, WFP provides food for 90 million poor people every year.

What do you think?

Canada & The War on Poverty

David Olive wrote an informative article about poverty in Canada. Here’s an excerpt:

If the poor weren’t so conveniently invisible, maybe we’d come to our moral senses and devise a national strategy for eliminating poverty.

But the one in six Canadians trapped in poverty are hidden in plain sight. They return from their minimum-wage work to a cot in a flophouse. They continue to live with an abusive spouse for lack of an alternative[…]

“Poverty is fear, malnutrition, chronic bad health, loneliness, illiteracy and inadequate job skills and no time or money to upgrade them,” Nash says.

“It’s not knowing whether you and your kids will have a decent place to sleep next month.”

Imagine yourself in a state of constant dread. That’s poverty.

John Clarke, an organizer with the Ontario poverty coalition ever since OCAP was founded in 1990, believes, like many anti-poverty activists, that only a widespread sense of outrage will rid us of this social evil.

“When OCAP was launched, I couldn’t imagine that over its history the conditions of drab misery for poor citizens would actually worsen rather than improve,” says Clarke. “I believe Canadians are concerned about homelessness, for instance. But passive indignation is not enough.

“You have to challenge these injustices endured by our fellow citizens. Because only when politicians see that the public is acting on its discontent with the status quo will we see a difference.”

Read entire Toronto Star article by David Olive.

Unfortunately, the United States has higher poverty rates than Canada. Additionally, the privatized insurance-based price-inflated healthcare system in the United States denies the vast majority of poor and homeless people medical treatment.

Nonetheless, poverty is a global problem. Both the United States and Canada float in the same sinking boat. No nation can survive when it values the greedy desires of an undeserving but socio-politically powerful few, rather than valuing the rights and safety of all the people within it.

The entire global community needs to actively work to successfully eradicate poverty through decentralized movements based on the power of the people.

What do you think?

Food Aid Reforms Needed to Combat Hunger

Emergency aid has saved millions of lives, but such help provided over longer periods might destabilise markets, create dependency on imports and delay reforms needed to lift domestic output, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report.

“Reforms to the international food aid system are necessary but they should be undertaken giving due consideration to the needs of those whose lives are at risk,” FAO said in its report on the state of food and agriculture in 2006.

“Whenever possible, it is always better to teach and help people to fish rather than to give them fish,” FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said.

About 854 million people around the world lack enough food to lead active and healthy lives and more than 90 percent of them are chronically hungry, the FAO said.

Food aid needs to focus on emergencies and target only those who really need it, while longer-term efforts should aim at building the funds, skills and other conditions required to revive local agriculture and trade.

“Although the moral imperative to provide assistance to people suffering from extreme hunger is undeniable … some ask whether such aid may in fact be counterproductive to longer-term sustainable reductions in hunger and poverty,” the agency said.

FAO said it favoured selling food aid where possible on local markets to raise funds for development and urged donors to switch to targeted cash assistance and food vouchers when food was available locally.

Read entire report by Svetlana Kovalyova.

I agree so much with the points made in the above article. Throwing food or money at the problem usually makes it worse. Society needs to give poor and hungry people the opportunity to help themselves, both collectively and individually as individuals and communities. Surges of food aid undermines the local markets by under-pricing local farmers and food stores. Instead of treating people like children, we need to work together with them to find mutually beneficial solutions, through such means as student loans, business loans, and employment.

What do you think?

Why Do The Good Die Young?

Rather than mourn a good person’s death, it’s better to celebrate the life that they had lived. On today, what would have been the seventy-eighth birthday of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I cannot bring myself to celebration. I cannot bring myself to happiness.

I am so happy that the great Martin Luther King Jr. graced our world with his messages of hope, justice, freedom, and peace. But, that happiness is overshadowed by my sadness over his premature death by assassination.

Why do the good die young? Why did Martin Luther King Jr. have to die before his time?

I have no answers to these questions.

I have included audio and video clips from some of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speeches and sermons (and a song by Common at the bottom):

The full version of Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death[…] Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit. And go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism.” -Martin Luther King

“We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world. And that’s all this whole thing is about. We aren’t engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God’s children. And that we don’t have to live like we are forced to live[…] We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda–fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Clips:

Common – I Have A Dream:

This is a video for Common’s new song for the upcoming movie Freedom Writers. The clips are from Common, Talib Kweli, Matisyahu, the movie Freedom Writers, and a couple random Youtube clips.

What do you think?

Poverty Never Takes a Holiday

During the Holiday season people give more, but unfortunately the influx of charity and cooperation quickly ends after the holidays. This happened in Utah, where the good people of Utah helped thousands of local people in need during the holidays, but now the state’s food banks still face major food shortages, with many falling hundreds of thousands of pounds behind their goals.

We cannot simply give to charities during the holidays. Rather, we need to work year-round to come up with effective solutions to permanently end hunger and poverty. Essentially, on this issue I agree with The Daily Herald which had the following to say:

The food shortage is a reminder that charity isn’t something we should only practice during the holidays. There is something about the season that seems to make people more generous. Maybe it’s a sense of gratitude for a good year or the thought of someone doing without during cold, dark winter months. Whatever the reason, people’s hearts tend to open.

But, too often, it seems that people put their good intentions and charitable behavior away with the Christmas ornaments, not to be taken out until next November. In their minds, poor people don’t need help during the spring, summer and fall. Worse, some think they don’t deserve it, even little children or the mothers who nurture them.

Poverty doesn’t take time off, nor is it glibly solved. The poor have to cope with finding food, clothing and shelter year-round, not just during the holidays.

While the newspaper articles about desperate families conclude after the holidays, similar stories are being written every day in the lives of human beings in our community. They are still around, still needing a helping hand.

Without your assistance, the food banks may run out of supplies by mid-summer. And hunger in July feels no different than hunger in December.

So, if you haven’t come up with any New Year’s resolutions yet (or at least ones that you actually intend to keep), allow us to suggest one: Make regular donations to the food bank throughout the year. It doesn’t have to be a lot — perhaps just an extra bag of groceries a month.

Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol,” vowed that he would keep the charitable spirit not just during Christmas but throughout the year. We all should do likewise.

Read entire Daily Herald article.

What do you think?