Poverty in America

I'm going to phrase this pretty starkly, because that's the way things are:

37 million Americans are living below the poverty line, and inequality has increased to a level not seen since before the Depression and the New Deal. I could batter readers with statistics forever, shock you with the percentages of children who go hungry and families who lack stable housing, but that would be missing the point.

The point is that an enormous number of people living in the richest nation in the world are struggling to get by, while a sliver of folks at the top just keep raking it in.

There are some who would point out that poor people in America are still rich by world standards, that compared with the 1 billion people who live on the oft-repeated "dollar a day," they are doing pretty well for themselves. It's certainly true that those of us who live in this country are very lucky to do so. But a key aspect of evaluating poverty is considering the ability to participate in one's society, and that is growing increasingly difficult for poor Americans to do.

The opportunities and choices available to low-income individuals and families are so different from those available to their wealthy and even middle-class counterparts that they might as well be living in another country. You're more likely to get sent to Iraq, more likely to go to jail, more likely to have an unplanned child, more likely to have asthma from breathing polluted air if you're poor. More likely to have to choose between paying for food (none of that organic stuff, either) and medical treatment, less likely to get adequate care if you choose the latter. Pointing out that there are still people in the world who are worse off in an absolute sense does not absolve us of the responsibility to address our own country's need.

Why is this important for young people? Well, first of all, young Americans make up a large percentage of those below the poverty line, a percentage that is increasing more rapidly than that of any other age group. As the gap between the rich and the rest increases, more and more of us young folks are likely to find ourselves flirting with poverty. But even those of us who are heading for jobs at Google should be worried about the principles of the country we hold so dear, the one that first declared that all men are created equal.

The invocation of the American dream is more disingenuous than inspiring these days; the America that we're inheriting is one that treats its own residents disgracefully. Poor people have become second-class citizens, and the stigma attached to poverty is justified by the illusion that we live in a meritocracy. Segregation is acceptable as long as it's rationalized by socioeconomic status, since that is supposedly determined by a person's choices in life. We don't like to admit that it helps to have been born into the right neighborhood, race, gender, family.

It's much easier to dismiss poor people as undeserving, unsavory, crackheads, welfare queens--not like respectable middle-class Americans--than to acknowledge the enormous problems that continue to plague our society. What it really comes down to is not morality or work ethic but that some of us have sufficient resources to cushion us from our mistakes and others do not. For millions of Americans, one fluke event can turn a delicate balancing act into financial free-fall. And when the government doesn't provide an adequate safety net, it's a long way down to the bottom.

I once read a study for a sociology class that showed that risk-averse people, when given a choice at a young age, choose to live in a society that is relatively equally distributed over one that is equally rich but grossly lopsided. Seems like a no-brainer, right? But as people age and find themselves in the higher brackets, the lopsided society doesn't seem quite so bad. People with power don't act to end the oppression of those without it unless pushed by some sort of force.

The growing gap between those at the top and the bottom of the socioeconomic scale is perhaps the greatest moral issue facing America today. If we, the young people of America, don't attack it with all the idealism and energy of our youth, who will? Desperate and afraid, we can turn on whoever seems to present a threat--immigrants, perhaps--or we can open up a constructive dialogue about the reality of poverty in America and what we can do about it.

How we measure poverty

The U.S. government's method, established in 1964, is badly outdated and leads to an inaccurate picture of who is, and is not, poor in America.

By Rebecca M. Blank 
September 15, 2008

Who is poor in America? It turns out that's a hard question to answer. 

The federal government's badly outdated method of measuring poverty provides an inaccurate picture. New York found the official numbers so useless that the city recently developed its own poverty measure. Other cities, including Los Angeles, are considering doing the same thing, and those efforts are expected to be high on the agenda when the U.S. Conference of Mayors meets in Los Angeles on Sept. 23-24. 

But what's most needed is an overhaul of the nation's poverty measurement statistics. The good news is that legislation is being drafted in both the House and Senate. A change is long overdue.

Why does it matter if we have a good measure of poverty? 

In the last four decades, the U.S. has greatly expanded programs for lower-income families, including food stamps, housing vouchers, medical care assistance and tax credits. But the poverty rate doesn't take any of these resources into account because it doesn't account for taxes or noncash income. At the same time, Americans' medical expenses have increased, and more single parents work and pay child-care expenses. The current poverty measure is unaffected by these changes too.

The result?

Poverty statistics that make it depressingly easy to claim that public spending on the poor has had little effect. Indeed, most programs to help the needy would never budge the U.S. poverty rate the way we measure it now. 

The current measure of poverty was established in 1964 by a Social Security Administration economist named Mollie Orshansky. Looking at data from 1955 -- the best available in the early 1960s -- she found that a family spent, on average, one-third of its income on food. Hence, three-times-food became the official poverty line. That line has ticked upward only by being adjusted for inflation each year.

No other regularly reported economic statistic has been unchanged for four decades. Food prices have fallen; today, food constitutes less than one-seventh of the average family's budget. But people pay substantially more for housing and energy. 

Still, the old poverty measure continues to be used by all sorts of government programs. Some use it for eligibility limits; most families below 130% of the poverty line, for instance, are eligible for food stamps. Some federal block grants to states are partly based on state poverty levels.

In 1995, I participated in a panel of scholars at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a group that advises the federal government on scientific issues. We recommended a far more effective way to establish a poverty threshold, based on expenditures for a bundle of necessities, including food, shelter, clothing and utilities. Furthermore, this threshold would vary geographically, based on differences in housing costs. 

This would mean that families in Los Angeles have a different poverty line from families in rural Wyoming. When New York calculated a new threshold with this methodology, officials found that it was $21,818 for a family of four, not far from the official U.S. figure of $20,444. But when they adjusted for New York's high housing costs, it rose to $26,138. 

But the poverty measure also needs to recognize that the resources in low-income families extend beyond wages and cash income. The NAS panel recommended a much broader definition, including cash income adjusted for tax payments, plus the value of government benefits such as food stamps or Section 8 rental vouchers. Unavoidable costs were subtracted from income, as well, because working requires spending money on transportation and, often, child care. Similarly, out-of-pocket medical expenses also were deducted.

Why weren't these changes made years ago? That's a story of politics getting in the way of good statistics. Back in the 1960s, the poverty measure was placed under the control of the White House. This is in contrast to all of our other national statistics, which are defined and updated by agencies with a long history of nonpolitical decision making. 

Unfortunately, no president (Democrat or Republican) has wanted to touch this political hot potato. If a new measure shows higher poverty, the president looks bad, but if a new measure shows lower poverty, he'll be accused of dismissing the problem. 

And the numbers will change. In New York, where the official U.S. poverty measure finds 18% of the city is poor, the new measure (largely because of housing costs) finds 23%. But the picture will be more accurate. New York found rates differed little for children but were much higher for the elderly because of out-of-pocket medical expenditures. 

That's why Congress needs to pass legislation to direct one of the statistical agencies to calculate a new federal poverty measure, guided by the NAS recommendations. Under a new measure, single-mother families receiving food stamps and in subsidized housing would appear a little better off; disabled individuals with high medical expenses, a little worse. Families in big cities with high housing costs, such as in California, would be poorer, and families that receive working tax credits less poor. 

But that is just as it should be. If we want to debate new policies to help the poor, we first need a poverty measure that shows us who they really are.



Rebecca M. Blank is the Robert V. Kerr senior fellow in economics at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

HEAVEN AND HELL IN ONE PLACE

Break The Silence,

Almost two out of every five Los Angeles County residents do not have enough income to meet their basic needs 

 

 

Local Charities Hurting From Sluggish 

Economy

 

March 16, 2008 - 9:04PM

BY JOYCE LOBECK, SUN STAFF WRITER

 

  The sluggish economy is posing a double whammy for Yuma's charity organizations, who are finding themselves with more people on their doorstep in need of help even as there's less in their coffers to provide it.

  Add to that, the charities are facing the same rising costs in fuel and utilities that are impacting both their donors and clients.

  While times are tough now, though, they're bracing for a long, hot summer that will challenge their budgets even further.

 "Definitely, we're seeing a large downturn in donations," said Capt. Jonathan Harvey of The Salvation Army. "The last couple of months it's been really slow for donations. If we don't get those goods, we can't give them to our clients or sell them in our thrift store."

  That's likely a reflection of the economic slowdown, he said. "People are more cautious. If they don't buy a new couch, they're not donating the old one."

  As for cash donations, what people may once have donated to their favorite organization is now going to pay their increased utility bills and to fill their gas tanks, he said.

  At the same time, Harvey said, requests for assistance are up dramatically. It's a trend he's been seeing for the past year, but one that is accelerating.

  In January, the agency saw a 39 percent increase in cases from January 2007, he said. In February, there was a 48 percent increase in cases from the previous February.

  It's the same story for Crossroads Mission and the Yuma Community Food Bank.

  At Crossroads Mission, every penny is being stretched as far as possible, said Myra Garlit, executive director. "We're seeing a marked decrease in cash donations."

  And she estimates that donations to the thrift store, a vital source of revenue for the mission, are about half what they were. That's based on the number of trips the truck makes to pick up donations, she said, which has dropped from 15 to 20 a day to six or fewer.

  Meanwhile, the mission is bedding overflow crowds of people in need of shelter on the floor at both the men's dorm and the family shelter, she said.

  With the electric bill for the mission's facilities already in the thousands of dollars, Garlit said she's expecting a rough summer. At the same time, she's clinging to the hope that the community will provide.

  "Last summer we were down to one can of green beans in our pantry. Then a 4-H group came in with a food drive. The community comes through."

  She invites residents to come visit the mission and see the real need not just for men, but also women and children.

  The food bank has been seeing a 10 to 15 percent increase in requests for emergency and supplementary food across the board for its various programs, said Ronna Sue Stubbs, executive director.

  "With the economy the way it is, more people are needing help. At the same time, it's harder to raise dollars."

  That's even more true during the summer, when donors' thoughts turn to vacations rather than giving, while seasonal workers need food to feed their families.

  New sources of food donations are also being developed through the food bank's membership with Second Harvest.

  For example, soon the food bank will begin picking up outdated and pulled product from Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, she said. "I have no idea yet of the impact, but I believe it will be sizable."

  That food will go into boxes for families who come to the agency, and also help other charities that look to the food bank for food assistance for their own programs, she said.

 

Diana Nicholson,

executive director/

www.zeropoverty.us 

join us!

POVERTY DEVALUES THE HUMAN LIFE.

American Dream Now a Nightmare for Millions
U.S. Census: One in Five Lives on Less than $7 per day.
The so-called “wealthiest, most abundant nation on Earth” now has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. In light of the fact that one dollar spent in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia buys what $3 or $4 does in the U.S means the quality of life for tens of millions of Americans is now on a par with huge populations living in the developing world.

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." Dante


First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

HISTORICALLY  IN WAR TIME PEOPLE HAVE A TENDENCY TO BECOME ISOLATIONISTS.  OUR GENERATION  HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE REMEMBERED AS THE ONES WHO CARED AND DARED TO CHANGE EVERYTHING.
Join us and be a hero for Zero Poverty!

THE UNITED STATES AND THE HOLOCAUST

During World War II, rescue of Jews and other victims of the Nazis was not a priority for the United States government. Nor was it always clear to Allied policy makers how they could pursue large-scale rescue actions behind German lines. Due in part to antisemitism (prejudice against or hatred of Jews), isolationism, the economic Depression, and xenophobia (prejudice against or fear of foreigners), the refugee policy of the U.S. State Department (led by Secretary of State Cordell Hull) made it difficult for refugees to obtain entry visas to the United States. The U.S. State Department also delayed publicizing reports of genocide. In August 1942, the State Department received a cable confirming Nazi plans for the total destruction of Europe's Jews. The report, sent by Gerhart Riegner (the representative in Geneva of the World Jewish Congress), was not passed on to other government officials. The State Department asked American Rabbi Stephen Wise, who also received the report, to refrain from announcing it.

Reports of Nazi atrocities often were not publicized in full by the American press. In 1943, Polish courier Jan Karski informed President Franklin D. Roosevelt of reports of mass murder received from Jewish leaders in the Warsaw ghetto. No immediate executive action was taken. The U.S Congress twice rejected legislation that would have allowed entry to the United States for 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children seeking refuge. On April 19, 1943, U.S. and British representatives met in Bermuda to find solutions to wartime refugee problems. No significant proposals emerged from the Bermuda Conference. In January 1944 Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (within the Treasury Department) to facilitate the rescue of imperiled refugees. Fort Ontario, in New York, began to serve as an ostensibly free port for refugees. Refugees brought to Fort Ontario, however, were not from Nazi-occupied areas, but rather from liberated zones.

By the spring of 1944, the Allies knew of the killing operations using poison gas at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Jewish leaders pleaded unsuccessfully with the U.S. government to bomb the gas chambers and railways leading to the camp. From August 20 to September 13, 1944, the U.S. Air Force bombed the Auschwitz-Monowitz industrial complex, less than five miles from the gas chambers in Birkenau. However, the U.S.MAINTAINED IT'S POLICY OF NON-INVOLVEMENT IN RESCUE, and bombed neither the gas chambers nor the railways used to transport prisoners. Citizentube focus: Darfur

CITY OF MALIBU
PROCLAMATION DECLARING MALIBU
A MILLENNIUM PROMISE CITY

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality” - Abraham Lincoln

Whereas the Malibu City Council and residents of Malibu believe that extreme poverty can be eliminated from our planet in our lifetimes; and

Whereas we seek to help implement the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and the Millennium Promise. We support the goals and steps articulated in Jeffrey Sachs’ “The End of Poverty”; among them, the eradication of extreme poverty by the year 2025; and

Whereas we seek to foster cooperation among individuals, organizations and nations;
and

Whereas we feel that Malibu has a unique opportunity to set an example for the rest of the world;
Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved that the City Council of the City of Malibu hereby declares Malibu as a Millennium Promise City; a city that stands united against extreme poverty and supports a plan to end it within our generation.

Presented this 11th day of June 2007,
On behalf of the Malibu City Council
Signed by the Mayor of Malibu
Jeff Jennings



Malibu declares goal to end poverty

Mayor Jeff Jennings read a proclamation at Monday's City Council meeting declaring the city's support of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the U.N. Millennium Promise's goal to end poverty. The proclamation was handed to Diana Nicholson, organizer of the End Poverty Malibu Meetup Group.
http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2007/06/13/news/newsbriefs.txt

GET YOUR CITY TO DECLARE ITSELF A MILLENIUM CITY.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends"
- Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/12/sunday/main2174664.shtml
Join us and be a hero for zeropoverty.
http://endpoverty.meetup.com/40/

Sincerely, Diana Nicholson
organizer of the
"End Poverty Malibu Meetup Group"

American Dream Now a Nightmare for Millions U.S. Census: One in Five Lives on Less than $7 per day By William Shanley New Haven, Connecticut (April 16, 2007) From Combined News Services and Evolution Solutions Newsroom – A 2004 analysis of data by the US Census reports that 60 million Americans now live on less than $7 per day. That's one in five in the U.S. living on less than $2,555 per year. At the same time, the richest 1 per cent now garners about 16 per cent of national income, double what they earned in the 1960s.[1] While global income inequality is probably greater than it has ever been in human history, with half the world's population living on less than $3 per day, and the richest 1% receiving as much as the bottom 57%, the fact that so many Americans are living on so little, is particularly confounding. The so-called “wealthiest, most abundant nation on Earth” now has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.[2] In light of the fact that one dollar spent in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia buys what $3 or $4 does in the U.S means the quality of life for tens of millions of Americans is now on a par with huge populations living in the developing world. And there’s more bad news to report from here. There has been no increase in non-supervisory wages since 1972. Twenty-five million Americans now depend on emergency food aid.[3] This rapidly increasing trend is a brutal reminder of how the extreme political right has eviscerated the social safety net in the U.S. over the last 25 years. At a time when globalization is in full gallop, and its destructive effects are being felt in many working-class communities from Detroit to Connecticut, the national crisis is being exacerbated by the rising power and stature of a winner-take-all culture that celebrates greed and egotism by rewarding the super-rich at the expense of the poor. With only 6% of global population, the US consumes 25% of the world's resources. A profile of Connecticut, one of America's richest states, is quite revealing. It possesses islands of some of the greatest wealth in the world throughout Fairfield County, yet has three of America's ten poorest cities, Hartford—the capitol—Bridgeport and New London. The New Haven-Meriden corridor has the 7th greatest gap between rich and poor in the US–in close running with some of the Old South’s poorest and most segregated states, Mississippi and Alabama. Across the nation, the price of this economic dysfunction is an increase in the level of insecurity and pain for everyone, and there is almost no place left to live without encountering violent and non-violent crime, proliferation of drugs, guns, mental illness, lost hope, cynicism and corruption. At the same time, the middle class is being forced to bear the brunt of the economic cost for courts, police, prisons and welfare through taxes. While the median price of a home has doubled in the last five years, and with interest rates now on the rise, home foreclosure rates for first-time homebuyers are skyrocketing. Rents have followed suit, pushing millions more into economic hardship, poverty and homelessness. For too many Americans, the litany of violence, punishment and suffering seems unending, and the American Dream is now a uniquely Made-in-America Nightmare. Evolution Solutions, a young, New Haven, Connecticut-based Internet start-up, is stepping into the breach to help bridge the chasm by organizing and circulating the enormous untapped wealth via a peer-to-peer gifts and wishes pool called GiveGet Nation. The non-profit social enterprise has launched its beta 1.0 application and its founders are welcoming the public to take the system for a test drive (www.givegetnation.net). ”If we can attract a mere 1% of what people in Connecticut have stored in lockers, attics, closets and basements, for example–a 1% that they will likely never use again–we can begin to wright the course and provide promise and possibility to the weakest among us here in the richest state,” said founder William Shanley. “Everyone, no matter how rich or poor, has needs and resources. We provide a level playing field for everyone to participate in the infinite game of life through sharing.” “By beginning to circulate the limitless human product, labor, intelligence and spiritual capital of the world, we can transform it a little bit at a time,” said Timothy Wilken, MD, a Carmel, California-based general practitioner and synergy scientist. Dr. Wilken is William’s partner in the initiative and is the inventor of Giftegrity, a give and get synergy engine used in GiveGet Nation based on the work of the late genius Buckminster Fuller. “We not only provide a means to circulate lumpy items like goods, but our application also organizes and circulates work, intelligence and spiritual power to build, solve and heal. If you are retired and need a volunteer to rake your lawn, we can provide it. The same is true with professional counseling, engineering, medical and legal services. If you have artistic and spiritual interests and pursuits, you can post gifts and wishes in those domains, as well.” “To make a difference, it’s crucial that we get the message out and alert givers and getters to the opportunities and efficiencies afforded by participating in our person-to-person world of sharing,” William continued. “Unlike many other non-profits that use a condescending top-down model with large staffs and overhead, we’re are the action that makes the rubber meets the road, without having to go through a cadre of social practitioners to meet peoples needs.” US in Denial as Poverty Rises Next door to Yale, the bastion of privilege that turns out the land's leaders, lies a tent city of America's poor, huddled masses. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AND BE A HERO FOR ZERO POVERTY http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/hero-for-zero-poverty

photo by anthony verebes www.avphoto.com "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." – Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968, American Civil Rights Leader and Nobel Prïze Wïnner There are two worlds One where people are poor The other where people have lots of things Maybe I am naive, but I believe it's time! time to wake up and say what's what TRUTH STEVE HARGREAVES, Staff Writer - CNNMoney.com How exactly are the American taxpayers going to get back the half trillion dollars in expenditures of money -- to say nothing of blood -- they have made? Or is this the penalty we as citizens will pay for electing an administration that created the debacle that is Iraq? And people think their vote doesn't matter. [ Laura Nyro "save the country" ] Bob Marley said "One Love" "One Heart" Lets get together ONE WORLD We can change everything together! Healing in joining! http://endpoverty.meetup.com/40/