Our Poverty Myth

[eridani]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=3

So why can’t a hardworking family get ahead? For one thing, it’s expensive to be poor.

Try finding an affordable place to live. You need to have enough cash on hand to pay a deposit. Many apartments require you to prove your income is 2.5 times the cost of the rent.

Public assistance programs only help the most destitute, and often don’t provide enough even then.

For the disabled, the situation is worse. In theory, Social Security provides for those with disabilities. In reality, getting approved for disability payments is costly (in both medical and legal fees) and difficult. Once you get approved, disability payments are low, condemning you to poverty for life.

In short, there are many reasons why poor Americans are poor. It doesn’t help that our society thinks it’s their own fault.

In a May 2009 article for Labor Notes, Malcolm Harris, then-president of the UUR wrote: “We are proud of our work to build SEIU and through these efforts hope to rescind the layoffs, win a decent contract, and push SEIU to uphold the values it claims to represent — dignity, respect and fair treatment of workers. Then we can get back to our real work, building the labor movement.”

[ebayfool]

1. Yup. That old nut about 'pulling yourself up by your boot straps? Doesn't work too well ...

without boots or straps. But there is no shortage of voices waiting to tell poor people just what THEY think the poor are doing wrong!

Rec'd!

[MrScorpio]

2. Damn Skippy nt

[fasttense]

3. Because capitalism is designed that way.

The poor stay poor or get poorer and the rich get richer.

That is how the system of capitalism is designed. It's designed to ensure that those with capital rise to the top. Capital in it's most basic form is excess money. Money NOT needed for everyday living. The rich have it. The poor don't. The middle class have it sometimes. Today the middle class have very little of it. To get ahead in a capitalistic economy, you have to have capital.

There are laws, mostly passed during FDR's time, to prevent rich capitalist from taking over everything including democracy. But most of those laws were removed by RepubliCONS and Democrats. All those free trade agreements include requirements to remove any laws that restrict the use of capital in any way shape or form.

So, capitalism will continue to devour the American middle class until very few are left. What will remain will be a handful of uber rich men and huge never ending swaths of very poor people, with just a few middle class to make it seem like the poor can get ahead.

The poor are stuck where they are until they get some capital. And everything in the economy and the government is designed to keep the poor from gaining any capital.

[rusty quoin]

5. I don't remember where I heard this story about Castro's response about the movie, "Jaws"

He said it was a lesson in capitalism vs. socialism.

In a socialist society, the beaches would have been shut down before the boy was eaten by the shark.

In capitalism, there was a huge argument over whether how much money would be lost that year by shutting down the beaches, and reasons for keeping the beaches open won.

I think it's a great example of how socialism is better.

[Downwinder]

4. A tacit admission that the figures for the poverty

level classification are wrong are the programs that base qualifications on 130% or 150% or higher of poverty level.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. How expensive it is to be poor is something that is

very rarely acknowledged. Or understood.

I once read something by a person who talked about the real costs of being poor, how you never bought 3 for x dollars because you could only afford the one. That column helped me free myself from my poverty mindset, and while I don't have any more money than I did a few years ago, I do have a different take on my spending. I now do buy the large container of toilet paper or paper towels, because I get it that I only have to front that money every six weeks or so. I pay better attention to sales. I stock up on various personal items.

Of course, I understand that while I'm relatively poor, I'm not absolutely poor, and that makes a difference. My heart goes out to those who can't do what I do -- buy toilet paper or chicken leg quarters in bulk to use up later. Although, maybe, just maybe, at least some of the functionally poor can learn that they can change their ways and improve their lives. I only hope so.