What it means to be poor in the U.S.

yes, the Heritage Foundation is among to foremost think tanks on the right.

To me, their article brings up the fact that poverty is a relative concept, is always changing as a country's wealth changes ...or as a few billionaires skew the mean. This paper by the World Bank seems to do a pretty good job explaining poverty's relative nature, and will save me loads of typing. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPGI/Resources/342674-1206111890151/15185_ICRIER_paper-final.pdf

I like how the paper stimulated some thought in my head re:

--What should be the goal of development efforts (aka anti-poverty programs) given our fiscal and political constraints?"

--Should we just focus on eliminating absolute poverty so that they are self sufficient and off public assistance, or should we attempt to get people to the level where they can create wealth for themselves and their family members?

I'm not sure where folks put the Brookings Institute on the left-right continuum these days, but the folks at Brookings seem to argue that the poor are able accumulate all of the amenities described by the Heritage Foundation in a large part because they don't save any of their money for a rainy day, or even maintain a "transactional account" (aka bank account). Lots of stats and graphs:

http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/gale/19991130.pdf

If the folks at Brookings are right, we may need to some how get folks to value and define Wealth differently. If we were successful, Wealth would be defined as a savings account, a network of friends and family, an education, and a skill set that is valued by the labor market. These things serve as a buffer between something bad happening and a stint on TANF or in a shelter.

If we weren't successful, Wealth would be defined as a high definition TV, new shoes, nice clothes, going to clubs and a nice car. Relative to the above items, these things don't do much good when something bad happens and you can't pay your rent.

It is no newsflash to state that people with lousy spending habits don't tend to garner much sympathy. I think most of us has such a person in our extended friend set or family, and we avoid them like the plague.

Of course, all of this rambling is moot when your name is Joe and you are only skilled enough to earn $9 an hour. Let's assume Joe has best of spending habits, but just doesn't have a brain (or circumstances) that will allow him to get enough skills to get a better paying job.

I think there are a lot of Joe's, and that the folks at Brookings, Heritage and the World Bank always seem to somehow miss him. I have no idea how to improve his lot in life. Some are willing to provide him with affordable housing, others simply say "I can't help all of the Joes in the world, and decide that they will only help him if not helping him is more expensive"

BG- I wish you would join the conversation and help us figure out how to make the poor wealthy.

whynot_31 said:

BG- I wish you would join the conversation and help us figure out how to make the poor wealthy.

I feel the same way about the Heritage Foundation.

WhyFi said:

^^^ Turn them in to professional video game players, obviously.

is there still money in that?

Cool The Kid said:

Ha, I think you pretty much covered it with those posts whynot. I'm struggling to think of anything to add.

But I do think the view of the poor being hapless victims of the system is counterproductive. There are mechanisms at work... many of which are borne out of the values and habits within the communities of the poor... that are not helping to pull them out of their slump.

And of course, as the Heritage Found. article shows, while being poor still doesn't beat being rich, in America it's not as bad as it's made out to be, at least materially. And when you factor in some of the mechanisms at work (i.e., bad financial habits, predatory credit institutions like check cashing places, pawn shops, payday loan lenders), to me at least it seems like there is a lot of incentive in starting programs that can just educate poor people on how to deal with money. Obviously if one can afford luxuries like premium cable TV or an Xbox they have some form of discretionary income... so I agree that the country, especially those leaning left, need to get a more realistic view of poverty in the US before we can make any headway in "solving" it.

Then again even "normal" folks are struggling now... but much of that too is borne out of fiscal irresponsibility. And it goes all the way to the top (see: Federal Debt Ceiling + Deficit Showdown). As a country we collectively need to recalibrate how we deal with money and wealth... the cycle of poverty is really an extension of that more than an isolated mechanism...

I'm glad most people in this country do not subscribe to the eugenic theories of Charles Murray . His book, the Bell Curve, basically argued that the vast majority of people who are poor deserve to be poor.

Same unproven eugenic arguments, different day.

Obviously there is more to defining poverty than tallying up one's material possessions, but like I've said in the past you can't genuinely discuss the issue of poverty solely from the angle that it is the doings of the rich.

And as I've said in the past: I agree.

Eventually you have to look at what poor people do, how they live, what choices they make and how their own actions + values factor into it.

Agree.

It seems to me like you write off anything that doesn't portray poor people as victims who are only able to be saved by higher taxes on everyone else.

I write off anything that assigns most of the blame to what you wrote, or anything who's first answer is always, "bootstraps" "work ethic" "reverse racism" or the like.

That is not you and I know that, but that is the view point I am generally trying to tear down.

We've actually had that conversation before.

And I agreed with it.

If you can't find it by searching, let me know.

I don't know what 'far left' refers to, and I especially don't know what the point of labels like that are.

Given the hundreds of books and thousands of articles published on poverty over the last 50 years, it's doubtful the Heritage Foundation has suddenly discovered what it really means to be poor in America.

What's curious is that right-wingers continue to harp on welfare programs that have already been slashed. They seem to believe AFDC still exists (it doesn't). What they are finding out is that targeting government programs that serve the middle class (Soc Sec and Medicare) is a political disaster. There's rough sledding ahead for small government types.

witch-king said:

Given the hundreds of books and thousands of articles published on poverty over the last 50 years, it's doubtful the Heritage Foundation has suddenly discovered what it really means to be poor in America.

What's curious is that right-wingers continue to harp on welfare programs that have already been slashed. They seem to believe AFDC still exists (it doesn't). What they are finding out is that targeting government programs that serve the middle class (Soc Sec and Medicare) is a political disaster. There's rough sledding ahead for small government types.

yes, people who have paid into the the SS system and medicare, and participate in the workforce (aka the middle class) are genuinely going to be much harder to defeat than the public assistance folks and the disorganized far left.

This is a good thing.

I suspect BG is so far left that he is unable to be friends with Republicans.

...he seems to view them as immoral.

whynot_31 said:

You recently stated you we a member of the far left, and that moderates were merely confused sell outs.

it was precious.

Are you changing?

what?

I think the Go6 plan sucks.

Obama is a centrist and it doesn't surprise me at all that he embraces it. If he could write the policy himself, that's probably pretty close to what he'd want.

What are you asking, now?

Wait, are you really pretending I don't support my arguments?

What counts as NOT blind rhetoric?