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The Spectacle Blog
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report stating the poverty rate in America had increased to 15.1 percent in 2010. It is the fourth straight year there has been an increase.
It just goes to show that all the government spending in the world isn’t going to lift people out of poverty. With this in mind, President Obama’s jobs plan will be no more successful than his Stimulus bill.
The report also notes a 0.2 percent increase in the number of people without health insurance. This was attributed to a decline in coverage provided by employers. So much for President Obama’s oft repeated adage, “If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan.”
There are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, there will always be poverty amongst us. This is true in bad economic times and in good economic times. To be certain, there are people who grow up in less than ideal circumstances. But one’s fate is not preordained. Regardless of the circumstances in which one grows up, we are all responsible for finding our own way in the world. As my maternal grandfather, who worked in a coal mine for 43 years, would tell me, “The world doesn’t owe you a living.” Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to find your way alone. There are good influences in every community. It’s a question of finding those influences and having the wisdom to see their value and adopting those values as your own.
Second, poverty in America is relative. This isn’t Zimbabwe where one does not have reliable sources of food and drinking water. AIDS and other diseases aren’t as rampant over here. We do not have a life expectancy under the age of 50. It isn’t to say that there aren’t legitimate economic and social concerns here. There most certainly are. But even the poorest amongst us have access to food, clean drinking water, clothing, shelter and other amenities such as automobiles, cable or satellite TV, video game players, air conditioning computers, cell phones, MP3 players, etc.
Indeed, in January 2000, I had a job interview in New York with ACORN. Yes, that ACORN. It was a day long interview. At one point, the young woman who was conducting the interview took me to a housing project in Brooklyn. We visited a young mother in the hopes of trying to get this family to join ACORN. What I remember from that meeting is that we could hardly hear the woman because her big screen TV was turned up so loud.
Again, I don’t want to trivialize poverty in America. There are many families who have displaced by the state of the economy and find themselves in a precarious situation. Yet as Ronald Reagan said, “The best social program is a productive job for anyone who’s willing to work.” But jobs can’t made out of wholecloth. Jobs are created under the right set of economic circumstances. The fiasco at Solyndra proved that point. Government must tax and regulate but it has to be prudent as to how it does so. It also can’t pick winners and losers. It has to be neutral. Otherwise, there is no room for individual initiative to take root and grow.
President Obama speaks of calming oceans when a rising tide is in order.
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More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/09/13/thoughts-on-poverty-in-america
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PattyMor| 9.13.11 @ 5:33PM
Most what we have in the U.S. is a poverty of spirit. Too many want to live a life of degeneracy, debauchery, and laziness and want you to pay for it. As the Bible says, the poor will always be with us. But there is nothing like government programs to make things worse.
Pecos Pete| 9.13.11 @ 5:36PM
Does anyone know the amount of income below which the Census Bureau considers someone as living in poverty?
Aaron Goldstein touches on the reality of people living with multiple TV sets, etc. Good article that should cause people to question the methodology of the Census Bureau.
SpiralArchitect| 9.13.11 @ 6:37PM
By the Census Bureau’s latest measure, the poverty threshold last year was an income of $11,139 for one person and $22,314 for a family of four.
Full article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....-says.html
Google & 10 seconds yielded these results...slightly ironic asking somone else to do the job of locating the data regarding people w/ & w/o jobs. ;)
Pecos Pete| 9.13.11 @ 7:26PM
SA: Thanks.
SpiralArchitect| 9.13.11 @ 6:40PM
Yes Pete, too many think of the Gov as mother not as a government.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 9.13.11 @ 6:50PM
Does the census count illegal immigrants to come up with this figure? With millions of them here, they might just effect the outcome a little bit, don't you think?
I know the answer to this, of course they count illegal aliens to come up with the number of "Americans" living below the poverty level, because they want that number to be artificially high. Then the all knowing, all caring Government can come up with the solution, a program that'll only cost a few Billion Dollars to implement, to spend more money to fix the problem of poverty forever (or at least until the next time they decide to spend a few Billion more on the same problem again). That's what they do!! They throw good money after bad!!
Are you living in poverty right now? Probably not, because if you're reading this, well then you can't be "that" poor, to be spending money on your internet connection, with your costly computer hooked up to it, or the very expensive smartphone that you're reading this on. But if you are poor, and you are somehow reading this anyway, well then, what have you done for yourself to get out of poverty? Have you cracked open a book to learn something new, that might give you a skill that somebody would be willing to pay you money for, or are you watching TV every single night? I'm sorry, do poor people have TV's in America? Of course they do!! Even though TV isn't free either!! Maybe you're waiting for some superhero to come around and save you? Well I've got bad news for you then, he's not coming!! He doesn't exist!! And he never has!! And the Government isn't the answer either, you are the answer!! I was poor not to long ago, very friggin' poor (not that I'm rich now), and here's the solutions to all your problems!! Do something about it!! I did, and guess what, I'm not poor anymore!! "You" do something about it!! Fix your station in life, climb above where you are!! It's your problem, so you need to fix it!!
What are you waiting for? Superman? If so, see my comment above about him!!
LC Jack | 9.14.11 @ 11:29AM
Bravo ! I too am scratching my way back from getting caught up in the housing market and totally unexpected layoff from a job I was set to retire from in a few years. But getting back on my feet through very, very hard work, I'm doing. I've neither expected or demanded government assistance through all of this. Just the support of friends and family along with that work ARE getting us there.
Al Adab| 9.13.11 @ 8:49PM
To paraphrase Pres. Lincoln, "Obama must love the poor, he created so many of them."
Ira Silver | 9.14.11 @ 10:43AM
Liberals will see in these numbers proof that the government needs to create more jobs, whereas conservatives will lay blame on the government for the fact that poverty has grown under Obama’s watch. Surely we can do better than to use the poor as a political football. If we can look beneath the partisan wrangling, we will see that there actually is quite a bit of consensus on this issue. Most of us want a society where poor kids have equal access to a good education and decent employment. It’s just that we often don’t believe government is the answer – because this can mean higher taxes and bureaucratic waste. But, tackling poverty through private initiatives carries none of this baggage since charity is as American as apple pie. Visit my blog, Opportunity for All (www.oppforall.com), to learn about organizations you can invest in that are making significant inroads in the fight against poverty in the U.S.
Hal (GT) | 9.14.11 @ 2:18PM
Thank you for giving some perspective here. You are right that the poor here are wealthy by standards of third world nations. My fear though is that we are on the edge. The amount of homeless is continuing to rise, whether it's homeless living in their cars are bouncing from one friend's couch to another's.
And I'm afraid that number will continue to rise and we may find ourselves in the coming years faced with more and more "Tent City" conditions.