Indeed, our poverty nows makes us the pity of the world. Yesterday, the
Observer (United Kingdom) highlighted America's rising poverty:
37 Million Poor Hidden in the Land of Plenty
Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.
The Observer compares the living conditions of many of the poverty stricken in America to that of third world countries. In fact, America now has the highest poverty rate of all developed countries.
While we Americans like to think of ourselves as the envy of the world, we have now become the shame of the world. With all of our riches, all of our opportunity, all of our success, we squander it and allow the worst poverty to invade our shores.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two.
...
But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
The Republicans' standard line on poverty is that the poor would not be such if they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and worked hard rather than waiting in line for a government welfare handout. This article shows that, as with all things, that line of crap is exactly that: bullshit. Many do work hard. Two to three jobs hard.
What sends many into poverty is not a choice of their own making, but rather, bad luck.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster.
And the government is actively seeking to NOT help them.
The minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush's trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programs.
The article makes one final point that I think stabs at the heart of poverty in America:
In America, to be poor is a stigma. In a country which celebrates individuality and the goal of giving everyone an equal opportunity to make it big, those in poverty are often blamed for their own situation. Experience on the ground does little to bear that out. When people are working two jobs at a time and still failing to earn enough to feed their families, it seems impossible to call them lazy or selfish. There seems to be a failure in the system, not the poor themselves.
We are all living in a delusion, no more real that my Powerball fantasies. That we can all lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. There is equal opportunity for all.
The truth is we are all equal until something bad happens to us, no matter if it is our fault or not. Once something does, tough shit. It is one strike and your're out in this America. There is no second chance.
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