Poverty not a big topic in U.S. election

The 2012 U.S. election campaign concentrates upon the middle class and the need for jobs. In the 1960's Lyndon Johnson initiated a War on Poverty but in 2012 when poverty rates are even higher there is more a war on the poor as benefits are reduced.

Rob Reynolds an award-winning Washington correspondent has a recent article entitled "U.S. poor left out in the cold". Part of his article involves interviews with people at the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte North Carolina. The Center provides food and help for the poor and homeless. Charlotte is where the Democratic Convention is being held.

Every day around noon several hundred people line up to receive a bowl of soup together with a sandwich. Liz Peralta who manages development for the Urban Ministry Shelter and seeks out funding said:

"Eight-five to 90 per cent of the people we see are considered situationally homeless...They are homeless and this may be the only time in their lives that they will be homeless. They’ve suffered a job loss, an illness in the family or a divorce. Some episode in their life has knocked them from the precipice of being really poor but housed to being really poor but homeless."

The statistics on poverty in the U.S. are dismal.

In 2010 the U.S. Census Bureau listed 46 million Americans as living in poverty. This figure includes 22% of all children, 10% of the elderly, and 27% of African-Americans. Given figures such as this one would think that poverty would be almost on top of the U.S. political agenda. However it is not.

Back on January 8, 1964 President Lyndon Johnson in his state of the union address proposed legislation that was part of what was unofficially called the The War on Poverty. The United States Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty.

The War was never won. Not only was it not won but a constant refrain of subsequent politicians was often welfare reform. In 1996 the War on Poverty became a War on Welfare. This war had its own legislation with a much more upbeat terminology than the War on Poverty. As the Wikipedia entry puts it

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging employment among the poor.

The legislation was bi-partisan. The bill was introduced by a Republican but signed into law by then president Bill Clinton. While the bill had the laudable aim of breaking dependence of people upon the welfare system, when there are few jobs or the poor are in situations where they just cannot work they may lose benefits or find them more difficult to obtain. As Bill Clinton said at the time his bill ended welfare as it had been known up to that time. However the result has not been to boost the poor out of poverty but to give the U.S. one of the highest rates of poverty in the developed world. Yet Obama focuses on the middle class saying in a recent interview::

"The policies I’m offering are ones that have been proven in the past to help middle class families."

Mitt Romney has been explicit in indicating his lack of concern for the poor:"I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."

The rate of poverty in the U.S. now is greater than it was in 1967 at the height of the War on Poverty. The U.S. author, journalist, and radio host Earl Hutchinson suggests that a prime reason that programs for the poor are not a big campaign issue is that the poor do not come out to vote."Poverty is not an issue with elected officials from the White House on down, because one, there’s no votes there, two, poor people do not have defined organisations that can go to bat for them, and the bigger thing is that America is in constant denial including politicians that we really have a problem with poverty in this country." I might add that they do not have any Super-PACs on their side either.

Hutchinson notes that many Americans see poverty as a personal failure rather than being caused by economic and social forces. The system triumphs in that as long as this belief continues the system is safe from confrontation by groups who share a view that it is systemic features that contribute to their condition. The poor are at best objects of charity at worst pariahs to be avoided.

There is no war on poverty any longer. There is however a very expensive war on terror. To pay for this and much else there will soon be a War on the Deficit and that will mean cuts to the social safety net.

One in Five DC residents live at or below poverty line.

It is rather ironic, or perhaps symbolic, that the area containing the nation's capital should have such a high poverty and homeless rate. With almost a half billion dollar deficit D.C. has not the funds to begin to alleviate the problem. Maybe D.C. needs a government bailout for its poorest residents! This is from the Washington Post.

Report finds rise in D.C. poverty to nearly 1 in 5 residents
By Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writ

Nearly one out of five District residents lives at or below the poverty line, a statistic that helps expose a widening gap between the rich and the poor in the nation's capital, according to a study released Tuesday by social justice organizations gearing up for the 2010 elections.

The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995.

Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents -- up 11,000 in a year -- living at or below the poverty rate, which in 2009 was $21,800 for a family of four.

"With D.C.'s unemployment rate of 12 percent, it's very likely poverty is also on the rise in 2010 and a decline could be a long way away," said Jenny Reed, a policy analyst at the institute.

.....

The institute, DC Appleseed, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and more than three dozen other organizations have teamed to form Defeat Poverty DC. The group hopes to force candidates and elected officials to make combating poverty a central focus of their campaigns.

"D.C. has struggled with this persistent poverty for years and years," said Michael Edwards, the campaign director for Defeat Poverty DC. "We are going to be looking for elected officials to identify how they would address these issues and bring us back down."

Despite the District's pockets of wealth, the report said, nearly one in three D.C. children lives in poverty, about double the national average.

The overall poverty rate in the District rose to 18.9 percent in 2009, up from 16.9 percent the previous year, according to the report. In contrast, the Census Bureau has reported a steady increase in median household income in the District, estimated at $58,000 in 2008. But there are big disparities between white and black families. Although white households had a median income of about $101,000 in 2008, the median income of black households was about $39,000.

"We have some of the worst numbers in the nation, by any measure, when it comes to poverty," said Walter Smith, executive director of DC Appleseed.

Smith and other leaders of Fight Poverty DC say they don't blame Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) for the city's rising poverty rate. They said it has been a problem for decades in the city, worsened recently by the national recession.

......

This month, The Washington Post reported that the District is being overwhelmed by a rise in homelessness, resulting in about 200 families jammed into a shelter meant for 35. A Post story in January reported that D.C. service centers that process welfare and other aid applications were so crowded that some applicants had to wait for days to try to get assistance.

With the District facing a $500 million budget gap in fiscal 2010, the city's social service network could be hit with more budget cuts this spring.

Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the Committee on Finance and Revenue, said the city can't tap reserve funds to close the shortfall without risking its credit rating on Wall Street. Evans also noted that the council raised cigarette, sales and income taxes to help fill a budget gap last year.



Staff writer Carol Morello contributed to this report.

Poor Disproportionately Hit by Economic Crisis

Notice that it was the Democratic administration of Clinton not the Republicans who ended welfare as an entitlement program and replaced it by temporary aid. It is not likely that Obama will focus on poverty. The US withdrew any troops fighting the war on poverty long ago it would seem. The fight is left to private charity who do not have the resources to deal with mounting problems and increasing poverty. In fact they will have more difficulty with increasing donations during these recessionary times. The late Milton Friedman once said that deficits were not all bad since they provided opportunities to cut government entitlement programs. It is easy enough to use the deficit as a justification for cutting entitlements after claiming they are unsustainable. Of course military expenditures do not fall into the same category or bailouts of large financial institutions.

Poor Disproportionately Hit By Economic Crisis [Analysis] Daniel Schorr National Public Radio


In times of economic distress, bankers get bailouts and the middle class gets a stimulus. And the poor? In this recession, the social safety net that was to be the ultimate protection of the unfortunate lies in tatters.

In time of economic distress, bankers get bailouts and the middle class gets stimulus. And the poor? In this recession, the social safety net that was to be the ultimate protection of the unfortunate lies in tatters.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people classified as living in extreme poverty has risen since the year 2000 by more than a third to 17.1 million. A government report spoke of almost 50 million Americans living with "food insecurity." More than 36 million are on food stamps. So whatever happened to welfare, which has always been considered the last resort for someone down on his luck?

Welfare as a federal program was initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt as aid to dependent children. In 1996, with the rolls peaking at more than 4 million, President Clinton undertook to "end welfare as we know it." And he surely did.

Aid for Families with Dependent Children was replaced by Temporary assistance for Needy Families, ending the basic entitlement to financial assistance. A five-year lifetime limit on aid was imposed.

Peter Edelman resigned from the Department Health and Human Services in 1996 in protest of Clinton's welfare reform. Today he recalls that the draconian program removed many from the rolls who could not find jobs. A number of states cut their welfare rolls by almost 90 percent.

It took a recession to reveal the full effects of the welfare restrictions. It's hard to get people to go from "welfare to work" when there is no work.

Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in The Washington Post that the Clinton welfare overhaul was based on reckless assumptions about perpetual prosperity. They say what is urgently needed now is a massive emergency relief package to repair the safety net.

President Obama is concentrating his attention on creating jobs — itself a worthy endeavor. But that will not address the problem of the hungry and homeless, who have no welfare rolls to turn to in their emergency

War on Poverty in the US

This is from the Information Clearing House. The war on poverty in the US is not going any better than the war in Iraq. Perhaps the war on poverty needs a bigger budget!


U.S. Severe poverty rate at highest in three decades

Plight of poorest of poor extends to suburban areas

By TONY PUGH
Mcclatchy-Tribune

02/26/07 "Huston Chronicle" -- -- WASHINGTON — The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high as the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of the 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 — half the federal poverty line — was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period.

McClatchy's review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to other areas.

The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries.

That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty — the highest rate since at least 1975.

The growth, which leveled off in 2005, in part reflects how hard it is for low-skilled workers to earn their way out of poverty in an unstable job market that favors skilled and educated workers. It also suggests that social programs aren't as effective as they once were at catching those who fall into economic despair.