Caring About Those Trapped in Poverty is Fundamental to Being a Liberal

[cali]

Caring about "the least among us", and changing those circumstances with the tools of government is essential to liberalism.

First of all, what is poverty? Who defines it?

<snip>

Since the 1960s, the United States government has defined poverty in absolute terms. When the Johnson administration declared "war on poverty" in 1964, it chose an absolute measure. The "absolute poverty line" is the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health.

<snip>

The poverty guideline figures are not the figures the Census Bureau uses to calculate the number of poor persons. The figures that the Census Bureau uses are the poverty thresholds. The Census Bureau provides an explanation of the difference between poverty thresholds and guidelines.[24] The Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty.[22] The 2010 figure for a family of 4 with no children under 18 years of age is $22,541, while the figure for a family of 4 with 2 children under 18 is $22,162.[25] For comparison, the 2011 HHS poverty guideline for a family of 4 is $22,350.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/

As of 2015, if you are a single person, live in the contiguous U.S., according to HHS, if your income is over $11,770, you do not live in poverty. Clearly a lot more people than our counted by the government, live in actual though not official poverty.

16% if the U.S. population lives in official poverty. 20% of children live in poverty. 10% of whites, 27% of blacks and 24% of hispanics live in poverty.

But what does living in poverty mean? It negatively impacts virtually every facet of one's life. It means food insecurity and health insecurity. It means lousy schools. It means dangerous neighborhoods. It's means humiliation and being demeaned. It means a shorter, more brutal life. It means constant worry over things that those who don't live in poverty, scarcely give a moment's time to. It means not fixing your car when it breaks down. It means not being able to afford a lawyer. It can literally mean brain damage.

Poverty matters. It is a huge issue. It should be a big issue to anyone who calls themself a liberal.

[cali]

1. kick

[panader0]

2. K and R

Edit to add: I am "officially" in poverty. I'm lucky that I spent my good earning tears paying off my land and building a house.
But I am not suffering. The $804 a month I get would be a fortune in some countries. The trillions "lost" by the Pentagon
could have been put to sooo much better use.

[BrotherIvan]

3. yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

There is quite a lot of pretty shocking FUIGM going on on DU. How on earth did that happen in the Democratic Party? Twenty years ago I think one would be shamed too much to act that way. Well, not any more.

The United States ranks near the bottom of the pack of wealthy nations on a measure of child poverty, according to a new report from UNICEF. Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 - about $31,000 annually.

In the richest nation in the world, one in three kids live in poverty. Let that sink in.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/child-poverty-in-the-u-s-is-among-the-worst-in-the-developed-world/

Among racial and ethnic groups, African Americans had the highest poverty rate, 27.4 percent, followed by Hispanics at 26.6 percent and whites at 9.9 percent. 45.8 percent of young black children (under age 6) live in poverty, compared to 14.5 percent of white children.

If those numbers don't make you pause for one damn minute and then say, "We have to fix this NOW!" then you are a piece of shit and no better than a Republican. If you only give lip service to it, then you need to look in the mirror. If you think kids going hungry all day and all night isn't really that important, then you should hang your head in shame. We need to be looking at what causes it and how to fix it, as the causes are many. But instead we are told that platitudes will do. Ugh.

[cali]

4. I'm really discouraged that so many here don't consider this

an important issue. It's ironic.

[BrotherIvan]

5. John Steinbeck

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

[raouldukelives]

18. Well, sure. But those kids can retire later.

Cause they will be living such full, long lives on the bountiful planet we are leaving them.

I mean, the future savings on heating bills alone and all that new beachfront property? Ah, to be young.

[Tree-Hugger]

6. Yes!!!

[cali]

7. thanks

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Agree. Is there one prescription for getting out?

Some say education, some say more welfare, some say tax reform, some say other social policy changes.

i think the three biggest things we could do is stop importing foreign labor and exporting jobs, stop trade agreements and get money out of politics.

[AZ Progressive]

11. We should ask why the globalists care more about poverty overseas than right at home

After all, they are supposedly helping to lift people out of poverty overseas:

[pampango]

12. FDR was seen as a globalist (at least by republicans of his era) but he cared deeply about poverty

in the US too. He seemed to care deeply about poverty everywhere. We can do the same.

they are supposedly helping to lift people out of poverty overseas:

I don't know that 'globalists' get credit for that but helping the global poor is certainly not conservatives' concern. (They may give it rhetorical support but republican concern for "THEM" is not genuine.) If liberals don't support it, no one here will. We can leave it up to European liberals, I suppose.

The fact that the global middle class in increasing is a good thing, not a bad thing. We should be concerned with protecting our middle class (as Germany, Sweden, Canada and others do and as FDR did), while encouraging the growth of the middle class in the rest of the world as well.

[panader0]

13. I say start by making the rich pay their fair share of taxes.

Then, cut the military budget in half. Hell, they lose that much anyway somewhere. The resulting monies could be used for jobs, federally funded, to rebuild our "crumbling infrastructure. I am referring to roads and bridges and train tracks, but that "crumbling infrastructure" should also refer to those many out of work who could be helped. First we lost our middle class, now the lower class is the newest crumbling group.
Who would this hurt? The super-rich? The war machine?
Of course, that's just a start.

[HornBuckler]

14. I agree.

I would add the need of a way for workers to easily organize and unionize. Unions have been vilified for far too long and I think they need to come back in a bigger and better way. The workers have their word and their needs up against whatever company they work for, the worker has little power or voice for their concerns.

[daredtowork]

9. I have this to say to Team Hillary

If Hillary wins the Primary, please review her Welfare platform. Right now it differs not a trifle from Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform As We Know It. Her platform is filled with compassion for the poor, and paeans to work, but no real ladder from poverty to work. She frankly does not understand welfare or its drivers.

Secondly, there is a thread on DU right now containing anti-SSI/SSDI propaganda - something that should only come out of the news of Fox News talking heads or the GOP Clown Car. SSI/SSDI is not overloaded with fraud - it's overloaded with bureaucracy because of fake concerns over fraud. SSI/SSDI does not "stealth welfare" that needs to be cut. What would help is streamlining the bureaucracy and making it easier for people to enter/exit disability programs: move a lot of that money from paper-pushers to the disabled people who are now waiting through a 3 year application process for under $900/month. Try surviving on that in major urban areas!!!

If Hillary wants to get radical, she could support the Mincome: end means-testing and fraud-hunting forever.

[AZ Progressive]

10. Poverty, especially in a rich country like America, is a form of torture

There's no reason why there should be poverty in America, other than because the rich are not satisfied with paying more than 10 to 15% of their income in taxes (and for some even that is too much.)


The torture is of course how hard the poor in America have to live in this country, especially due to the high cost of living. In many states, you can be poor and not have access to healthcare, thus suffer from whatever ailments one has because one can't get healthcare. Lack of food creates hunger pains, a form of torture. Malnourishment also leads to ailments. If you don't live in a big city, you might not have a car and adequate access to transit, forcing you to walk for long hours, thus painful feet. The terror of not being able to pay for this and that is torture.

[HornBuckler]

15. Great post. Look at the official poverty number for a single person $11,770.

That's pretty sobering. I am sure the person pulling down 12k isn't thinking they are not in poverty. Of course folks like Darrell Issa would probably say they aren't drinking from the toilet and they got a fridge so.... yeah, doin' great!

[cali]

16. yeah, that sure is sobering

It's weird and depressing how rarely we discuss poverty here

[cali]

17. kick

[cali]

19. du, on the whole really doesn't give a fuck about poor people

It demonstrates that every day

[Fumesucker]

20. Not nearly as much as it cares about Caitlyn Jenner

[daredtowork]

21. Haha, we need a commercial like this