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Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, has just wrapped up a 15-day tour of the United States, and documented "homelessness, unsafe sanitation and sewage disposal practices, as well as police surveillance, criminalization and harassment of the poor.
The rise in poverty, they found, disproportionately affects people of color and women, but also large swaths of white Americans.
The report concluded that the pervasiveness of poverty and inequality “are shockingly at odds with [the United States’] immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights.”
From the report;
"I have been struck by the extent to which caricatured narratives about the purported innate differences between rich and poor have been sold to the electorate by some politicians and media, and have been allowed to define the debate. The rich are industrious, entrepreneurial, patriotic, and the drivers of economic success. The poor are wasters, losers, and scammers. As a result, money spent on welfare is money down the drain. To complete the picture we are also told that the poor who want to make it in America can easily do so: they really can achieve the American dream if only they work hard enough.
The reality that I have seen, however, is very different. It is a fact that many of the wealthiest citizens do not pay taxes at the rates that others do, hoard much of their wealth off-shore, and often make their profits purely from speculation rather than contributing to the overall wealth of the American community. Who then are the poor? Racist stereotypes are usually not far beneath the surface. The poor are overwhelmingly assumed to be people of color, whether African Americans or Hispanic ‘immigrants’. The reality is that there are 8 million more poor Whites than there are Blacks.
The poor people I met from among the 40 million living in poverty were overwhelmingly either persons who had been born into poverty, or those who had been thrust there by circumstances largely beyond their control such as physical or mental disabilities, divorce, family breakdown, illness, old age, unlivable wages, or discrimination in the job market."
Prolonged and or untreated mental and/or physical illness without family support are the only two real excuses for poverty. And even there we have to look at specific circumstances.
Unless you choose to live just under the poverty line...which several people I know have done. Due to government regulation they have no financial incentive to make more money unless they make a significant amount more therefore they simply remain just below the cut.
What others do and taxes are rubbish excuses in this discussion.
If you are free from physical and mental illness all you have to do is upkeep your health, don't have kids, don't buy things, don't take out loans, and don't do drugs/other costly vices and you can waltz into a solid career/middle class lifestyle.
Rather than taking care of Senior Citizens and the Physically disabled, the systems rolls out the red-carpet for poor millennials who have several kids from several different daddies or mommies.
The poverty rate for families for instance is much lower than government statistics show as many get Cadillac welfare packages with $30,000 yearly housing vouchers, $10,000 in EBT and WIC to buy lobsters and steaks, the kids get free breakfast and lunch so daddy and mommy can buy their cigarettes and liquor with TANF benefits. There is also hundreds of dollars in energy assistance for those big section 8 McMansions.
The poverty rate though for America's seniors and physically disabled is tragic. Insane amounts of vulnerable physically disabled and seniors who are incredibly frail on the streets or living on city buses because the welfare prioritizes poor people who have multiple children despite having no skills to raise them correctly.
Seems to be a game among many poor, undocumented immigrants and criminals to have as many children as they possibly can. The government is the father and gives them section 8, EBT, WIC and that is just the beginning thanks to liberals.
It is very sad that many women these days get pregnant as many times as they can to fit in America's inner-cities like it a competition. Many men these days get women pregnant between jail stints so that the women can collect welfare packages valued at about the equal of a $100,000 a year job.
All this while, millions of senior citizens are starving and lonely. Physically disabled being ignored and treated like 2nd class citizens.
Last edited by lovecrowds; 12-23-2017 at 08:36 PM..
Prolonged and or untreated mental and/or physical illness without family support are the only two real excuses for poverty. And even there we have to look at specific circumstances.
Unless you choose to live just under the poverty line...which several people I know have done. Due to government regulation they have no financial incentive to make more money unless they make a significant amount more therefore they simply remain just below the cut.
What others do and taxes are rubbish excuses in this discussion.
If you are free from physical and mental illness all you have to do is upkeep your health, don't have kids, don't buy things, don't take out loans, and don't do drugs/other costly vices and you can waltz into a solid career/middle class lifestyle.
It is so very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, especially when it comes to telling other people how they should run their lives. Unless you have lived in another person's shoes, the things you are suggesting are just you guessing.
Rather than taking care of Senior Citizens and the Physically disabled, the systems rolls out the red-carpet for poor millennials who have several kids from several different daddies or mommies.
Worse we let a few Million across our borders every year with no education and immediately offer them assistance.
We'll never pull our poor up as long as we continue letting them pour across the border.
More whites in poverty than black, duh blacks are only 13% of the population. SO ya more poor whites
Tax plan brings inequality, land of opportunity not handouts.
Speaking of handout 700K plus DACA children ?
Who paid for their housing, schooling, food, clothing, medical care? YOU DID.
Did you help your own elderly, displaced, mental illness, downtrodden, vets, job less, home less ? NO.
Want to help the 40 million in poverty ? Start BY NOT FUNDING 20 Million Plus Illegals.
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