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I know that poverty will always be with us, but that doesn't mean we give up trying to raise people up.
In today's NY Times there is good news that childhood poverty is down by a significant amount. The newspaper article is long and has lots of charts to illustrate the story, but I'll put in a few key excerpts.
"With little public notice and accelerating speed, child poverty fell by 59% from 1993 to 2019, according to a comprehensive new analysis that shows the critical role of increased government aid."
"Child poverty has fallen in every state, and it has fallen by about the same degree among children who are white, Black, Hispanic and Asian, living with one parent or two, and in native or immigrant households. Deep poverty, a form of especially severe deprivation, has fallen nearly as much."
"In 1993, nearly 28% of children (19.4M) were poor, meaning their households lacked the income the government deemed necessary to meet basic needs. By 2019, before temporary pandemic aid drove it even lower, child poverty had fallen to about 11% (18.4M)."
"It has coincided with profound changes to the safety net, which at once became more stringent and more generous. Starting in the 1990s, tough welfare laws shrank cash aid to parents without jobs. But other subsidies grew, especially for working families, and total federal spending on low-income children roughly doubled."
In some respects I see this Federal spending as analogous to arguments for a guaranteed basic income or the $1k/month stipend proposed by Andrew Yang. But these "benefits" are a combination of TEN different programs that hit at various target audiences and most of them have somewhat difficult processes to navigate in order to qualify. The ten programs are listed in the article along with the degree to which they lowered child poverty.
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There are a lot of different ways to look at the original post, and I'm going to say something that will probably not go over well, and it's more on the personal level.
I think there are people who deserve to be poor.
When I was a child, about once a month my grandparents (who raised me) would take me down to Naples, NY where the rest of my grandmother's family lived. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. I loved visiting all of them, except one family. This particular family made Ma & Pa Kettle look good. True squalor. And why? They had come from the same extended family as all the other families we visited. All the families had decent houses, worked on their own farms, or at other jobs including Widmer's Wine, had decent cars, good food. Except the one family who couldn't stay employed, were physically dirty (disgustingly so), had a shack to live in right in the middle of what looked like a junk yard. Equal opportunity with all the other members of the family. But their house was a pig style, and they were the pigs. I used to refuse to get out of the car if we visited them.
And then there was my sister. She quit high school 2 months before she would have graduated for no apparent reason. She wasn't pregnant or anything like that, she just didn't like going to school. She went the druggie-booze route her whole life. Literally worked less in her entire life than I worked in one year. Would get jobs and quit them or get fired within weeks. I would drive 900 miles once a year to visit my mother; she wouldn't drive the 1 mile to see me. She lived with a somewhat likable guy (though a dead head) and one day asked me why when I visited Florida I didn't drive that 1 mile to see her. My answer: "Well, I just drove 900 miles, I think you could drive 1. And you haven't had a working toilet in your house for 7 years".
I think there are people who deserve to live in poverty. I'm not talking about truly mentally ill people, or handicapped people, or the families I've worked with where the parents both work full time jobs and still have trouble making ends meet. But ya gotta try before I want to help or want my tax dollars to help. And some just don't try.
I have to agree with a whole lot of this. You were the lucky one living with your grandparents. I would have been that relative you wouldn't want to have visited. The house I grew up in was the worst on the block, run down, and always dirty. A whole lot of my parents money went to alcohol. I hated living in squalor. There were times that there was no food in the house and my dad would disappear for a whole weekend. That life motivated me to do better. That life made my brother a loser and homeless on a beach in Florida. He was taken in by someone and he ripped him off, and was finally kicked out. I have no idea where he is or if he's still alive. People like that don't want anything but hand outs. My mother made him weak by handing him money. I had to fend for myself at a young age. That made me strong.
I think you are totally right about some people deserving to live in poverty. There's a whole lot of people out there like my brother.
That's not to say that one size fits all. There are people out there that genuinely deserve to be helped and should be. I think we need a program that matches people on welfare with jobs, and a deadline to get off of it. There was a time where one generation taught another to have children and get on welfare. Ignorance breeds ignorance. You can't do anything about people who don't want to help themselves, but in this country, nobody goes hungry. There's always a place to get help.
What makes poverty so difficult is that it can happen for many reasons.
And you only need one way to get out of it: do something the world wants done.
Yes, it will involve taking risks, being afraid, failing, and being scared, but you only have one life to live.
The people who deserve sympathy are those impoverished in 2nd and 3rd world countries, the people impoverish in 1st world countries at least have the opportunity to escape. Not in a million years will an African feel sorry for any African American, one was born in a rich country and the other wasn't.
When you flip burgers for a living, like I once did, it shows you that no one is coming to save you or help you. You have to do it yourself.
... The people who deserve sympathy are those impoverished in 2nd and 3rd world countries, the people impoverish in 1st world countries at least have the opportunity to escape. Not in a million years will an African feel sorry for any African American, one was born in a rich country and the other wasn't.
When you flip burgers for a living, like I once did, it shows you that no one is coming to save you or help you. You have to do it yourself.
I get frustrated with Americans who insist that they have no options.
This morning one of my neighbors shared a meme whining about how all workers are forced to pay over half of their income to taxes. My response to her is, I know how much you earn. You simply do not earn a high enough income to even pay income taxes. The only 'tax' coming out of your paycheck is FICA at 6.5% for your disability insurance and retirement pension. Neither you nor myself are wealthy enough to pay income taxes, and even among the wealthy the highest progressive tax bracket is only 37%.
I used to flip burgers. I admit that for most of my life, I thought of burger flipping as the bottom rung of American poor. Until one day when my son came home from flipping burgers with some paperwork McDonalds gave him, they [McD] put him on a 401[k] plan with matching contributions. I had to seriously reconsider that situation. Working the grill gets you a 401[k] plan.
And you only need one way to get out of it: do something the world wants done.
Yes, it will involve taking risks, being afraid, failing, and being scared, but you only have one life to live.
The people who deserve sympathy are those impoverished in 2nd and 3rd world countries, the people impoverish in 1st world countries at least have the opportunity to escape. Not in a million years will an African feel sorry for any African American, one was born in a rich country and the other wasn't.
When you flip burgers for a living, like I once did, it shows you that no one is coming to save you or help you. You have to do it yourself.
If it was the easy to get out of poverty would we not not see more people doing it? There are many reasons people are in poverty so saying do what the world wants done does nothing for many of them it is not a simple answer and if you think it is you do not understand poverty.
If it was the easy to get out of poverty would we not not see more people doing it? There are many reasons people are in poverty so saying do what the world wants done does nothing for many of them it is not a simple answer and if you think it is you do not understand poverty.
About 1.1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the past thirty years in the Asia Pacific region. When I think back, my first trip to Singapore was in 1977 and it was poor. Look at it now. China, India, Malaysia, massive differences. It can be done. But requires a massive curtailment of individual freedoms that western countries hold dear.
Having said that, any analysis shows that the US has a large wealth difference between the rich and poor, probably more than other western countries.
Solutions are often long term and often unpopular and controversial. At the moment there is pressure here for our new government to both abandon or to deliver tax cuts for the higher income earners. They have just announced an extension of government funded paid parental leave from four to six months, which is seen as something which will help women in particular, in the long term. But there will no doubt be many opponents.
Poverty will always exist because the solution to it in the US is to work. I had a guy from Guatemala come and give me an estimate for fence work with paint on his hands that had broken English but he was doing it. Meanwhile, we have a lot of people around here that refuse to work because of drugs and instead resort to criminal activity by CHOICE. A lot of people go through difficult times but you cannot excuse that - eventually they need to take responsibility for themselves. I am not willing to give money to people that intentionally live poor due to laziness, etc.
An excellent article in today's NY Times on why poverty persists in the USA. It goes into many reasons why poverty persists and supports the story with dollar statistics where needed. The story shows the many compass points in American poverty and points to the 'true north' setting that capitalism has emerged triumphant over people and is more than ever a toxic force. NY Times is a paywall site.
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An excellent article in today's NY Times on why poverty persists in the USA. It goes into many reasons why poverty persists and supports the story with dollar statistics where needed. The story shows the many compass points in American poverty and points to the 'true north' setting that capitalism has emerged triumphant over people and is more than ever a toxic force. NY Times is a paywall site.
The US is not the first society in human history and it won’t be the last.
Here’s a cute quote from the 1980s: In capitalism, man exploits man; in communism, it’s the other way around.
…. -ism, -ism, -ism, -ism, -ism …
No matter how society is organized, the stronger, the smarter, the more ambitious, the more cunning rise above and more often than not exploit the weaker, the dumber, the lazy, the naive.
The US is not the first society in human history and it won’t be the last.
Here’s a cute quote from the 1980s: In capitalism, man exploits man; in communism, it’s the other way around.
…. -ism, -ism, -ism, -ism, -ism …
No matter how society is organized, the stronger, the smarter, the more ambitious, the more cunning rise above and more often than not exploit the weaker, the dumber, the lazy, the naive.
Whining and complaining does not change that.
I'm not sure that I'd feel so compelled to complain, if I actually believed that those who rise highest are truly stronger, smarter or more ambitious. Cunning perhaps. But I do think that sometimes there are individuals who were absolutely born into situations where they would effortlessly have access to levers of power, which they operate in a totally cynical way, exploiting society like parasites and simply taking it as their due.
But I 100% worked HARDER when I was poor. In fact the hardest I ever worked in my entire life was when I didn't even have a job, because I felt a lot of pressure to truly perform at perfect levels to tend to all other things. Care of two children, all cooking, cleaning, budgeting, planning, sourcing the best prices on every possible thing that was necessary to buy. I was out of work on and off for about a year after my ex had gone back into the military because we moved, and I had to try and find work that would pay more than what childcare cost us for two kids. Minimum wage wouldn't cut it, because childcare cost MORE than that.
And in the state we were in, it was illegal for anyone to care for kids who was not licensed by the state and paying the high annual licensing fees and properly insured and all, so it was actually illegal for a neighbor to let kids come hang out at their house after school even. So there we were backed into this corner, only one childcare facility offered transportation to the schools that our kids had to go to because of where we lived, it was our only option...I got connected to a temp agency just to have something that would pay more than daycare cost us, but when my temp jobs ended, we couldn't afford daycare, and if the boys weren't there they lost their spot and there was a waiting list...
So I pretty much started to give up on trying to work a paid job outside of the household, I was going to stay at home, but yeah, it was way, WAY harder work. Most guys don't understand that, and I guess I get it because when my ex was out of work he just sat around playing video games, but if you're doing that job right, it IS a job.
In my hardest situations in life, the ONE THING that would have made all the difference, would always first and foremost have been help with daycare costs. But if I had any kind of paying job at all, I made too much to qualify (even on part time minimum wage, many states will disqualify you for any help...but if you are getting benefits, you must be busting your backside trying to find work, meanwhile they're giving all of the money in the welfare coffers to people like Brett Favre to fund his pet rich guy projects, it seems.)
But hey, folks who simply believe that everything is a true meritocracy, ya'll don't want to read words or listen to anybody's story. Everybody's got one after all, who has time to care about any of that? Just grab a simple explanation that gives you license to not care about anyone. Not like any of us can "save" all the poor souls out there anyways, so we've got to find a way to be OK with that haven't we?
I mean, I kinda get that end of it too, because now that I'm doing OK I see how much money my elderly father in law threw at charities but all of the problems they are so urgent about fixing in every piece of junk mail fundraising he gets, they all existed yesterday, exist today, and will exist tomorrow. I know I've got relatives who feel entitled to demand money of me simply because I have it and they don't, and if I let them they'd take everything and leave me destitute and what good would that do?
It would be damned easy to act like I'm OK now financially because I "worked hard" and I "deserve" it...other people who like me or care about me or who feel some sort of common cause with me tell me that I "deserve to be happy" or whatever... But in truth, what prosperity I'm fortunate enough to have doesn't really have a lot to do with how hard I worked. I've got a good career and luck and schmooze were equally to thank for it. I am calculating an imminent inheritance from my father in law to my husband that will be life changing for us. Did we work for that? I did not even select my mate for this, I had no idea about it when I met him and I was earning twice as much as he ever did. Did my father in law "work hard to earn" the money that is coming to my husband? Not really. It actually came from about two generations up the chain.
In the time in which my husband's great grandfather was garnering his fortune, the remnants of which would eventually change our lives, a lot of present day adults' great grandparents were living under Jim Crow laws. Or some had family fortunes tied to a market that would crash, a bank that would fail, or a farm or business they put blood, sweat and tears into, that would collapse for reasons not of their own making.
There are strong, smart, DESERVING people who still end up with nothing.
There are many who get a lot who don't actually particularly deserve it for any real reason at all.
We don't live in a fair world. Or a just world.
But WORLD history...not simply recent history or American history...should tell us that the most egregious of the parasites have a fine line to tread, because should the masses in society ever stop letting ourselves be manipulated into fighting amongst ourselves and join in common cause, they really could not stand up to that. They are relatively few, after all.
Did anyone else see John Oliver last night? It was interesting. Had me thinking, those who hate welfare programs seem to love the government giving money to rich people. So if it got made clear that rich people are finding ways to exploit even welfare funding for their own purposes, could we maybe get those who shill for billionaires to shut up about it? Like don't worry, even though you are not allowed to literally go hit them with sticks for fun, there will always be poor people for you to spit on, dying in ditches. There will always be someone somewhere for you to look down on. And the government funds are still mostly going to the people that you believe deserve to get everything anyways, those shining golden rich people, so what's your gripe, eh?
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