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50 million Americans living in poverty
A man named R.J. eats a free meal at the St. Anthony Foundation dining room in San Francisco.
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Here's a staggering number: Almost 50 million people in this country live in poverty, some 16 percent of the population. And some six million people survive on food stamples only. That puts America, one of the richest nations in the world, on par with countries like Croatia, Jordan and Indonesia. Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman says it's unacceptable. His new book is "So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America."
"America and poverty are words that should not appear in the same sentence," Edelman told Tess. "We're the wealthiest country in the world, that we should have poverty at all is oxymoronic."
Edelman recognizes that the rich-poor gap exists in other industrialized nations, like Japan, but none of them are as wide as the United States. The reason these other nations have a smaller gap is because there are jobs that pay enough for people.
He doesn't deny the importance of personal choice to pull out of poverty, but he says it's important to recognize that there are structural problems that make it very difficult for people to lift themselves up, like poor education for the children of the lowest-income brackets.
Listen to the audio above to hear Edelman's perspective on poverty in America.
YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL!
Peter Edelman's statement "We're the wealthiest country in the world, that we should have poverty at all is oxymoronic..." certainly struck a resonant chord.
He went on to identify the root causes of poverty as structural pitfalls in society, such as poor education for low-income (predominantly ethnic) kids or lack of a living wage, etc.
On the surface, these conclusions seem logical and well-reasoned but deeper analysis suggests his conclusions are wrong.
POINT #1: Peter Edelman's premise is wrong. It shouldn't be "Why are 50 million Americans living in poverty?" but rather "Why aren't ALL Americans living in poverty"?
Earnings in America are in freefall right now. Anything that CAN be outsourced IS being outsourced. Highly compensated senior professionals are finding their skills are not marketable at any price. This is especially true in IT, where an army of cheap Indian talent is flooding the industry, in turn deflating U.S. incomes at an alarming rate.
At this point, one might be tempted to say "This is so unfair!" But maybe this is the very essence of fairness at work. What entitles U.S. workers to the rich compensation we've grown accustomed to? Are we smarter? Math and science test scores say no. Are we better educated? The % of population without degrees or with degrees in "pschology" would indicate not. Are we more innovative? Internet excluded, no -- we import more high-tech than we export. Are we harder working? Debatably, not -- no one would accuse any U.S. union worker of being "over-worked" or "under-paid".
So what then is it that entitles Americans to our prosperous lifestyle? Arguably -- nothing.
POINT #2: We are not special.
We've grown up consuming a steady diet of propoganda that somehow the U.S. is different -- that we need not weary ourselves with hard work and that prosperity and wealth should just naturally accrue to us.
"...Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else..." -- Tyler Durden, Fight Club
The aftermath of World War II gave us an incredible lead in global manufacturing. Of all the industrialized nations, the U.S. was the only nation whose factories were still standing, completely unscathed, at war's end. This set us up to dominate manufacturing for the last 50 years. THIS is what drove the unparalleled run-up in our standard of living these last 50 years. But those days are past and unless we're planning to carpet-bomb China and India we need to face the new reality -- that what we are is FAT, LAZY, SELFISH, OVER-ENTITLED and seriously UN-COMPETITIVE.
Until we face these brutal facts, next year's story will be "Why are 75 million or 100 million Americans now living in poverty?"
The thing Mr. Edelman doesn't understand is that the cost of living isn't a fixed number whereby if you mandated a minimum wage at that level, everyone whould have what Mr. Edelman thinks they should have. See, we all compete for goods and services in the economy using our incomes. If you gave everyone that amount of money, than prices would just adjust upward and you'd have the same people living with and without as you had before, but just at a new price level.
At the end of the day, the most we can hope for is to consume as much as we produce. And if your knowledge and effort allow you to only produce as much as a guy living in China, then maybe you should be the one riding a bike to work instead of complaining about the price of gas.
When the government mandates a level of compensation that is higher than the value added to that business activity for that person, the activity wouldn't take place or that operation will be outsourced to a place where that labor can be legally purchased at a price that is economicaly viable.
America is the world largest debtor nation. We need to get used to producing more and consuming less, like our grandparents used to do.
Why are 50 million Americans out of work? At least part of the answer is that 50% of Americans are, by definition, below average. Not only that but these 50 million Americans are all but totally powerless in government and business management.
I would request that each of us ask themselves if they personally know, really know, anyone in the bottom 50%. It doesn't count if all you know are the peripheral facts: name, family and where they live, etc., but knowing their background, financial status, handicaps (physical and mental), and barriers in their lives.
I worked 30 years in facility management and came in daily contact with custodians, maintenance workers and groundskeepers, many of whom could barely speak English let alone read and comprehend the most basic information. It was unsettling to learn that a substantial portion of the functionally illiterate or borderline literate workers were that way not because of a lack of education or effort but because they simply lacked the mental horsepower necessary to attain that basic skill. Not that they were not good workers, in fact I saw no difference in work ethic between them and more educated employees.
This highly competitive America has lost its compassion towards those Americans who, through no fault of their own, a simply not as smart as they. Actually, it is worse than that. Laws, payday loans and school vouchers come to mind, have been enacted actually allowing unethical predation of the less fortunate.
My point is that until we, as a society, acknowledge and then address this immutable truth we will continue this ineffective wringing of hands about our 50 million in poverty. Surely, we are smarter than that.
Robert Gilbreath
