Hola
mi Gente,
Just
recently, President
Obama and congress cut funding for food stamps… Think about that for a
minute.
Punishing the Poor
Government has to start living within
its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford
so we can put the economy on sounder footing...
--
President Obama, weekly radio address, July 2, 2011
To put the above quote in context,
consider that since the Great Recession in 2008, 95%
of the total increase in income went to the top 1% of the population. On
another related note, one Christmas morning, I once posted the following Facebook
status update:
Before you post about all your gifts, consider that today one third -- ONE THIRD -- of children in the US are homeless.
A contact correctly pointed out
that my figure -- that one-third of all children in the US are homeless -- was
wrong and he posted a link to a credible source. I gotta respect that.
In fact, if we go by official estimates, my figure grossly overestimates child homelessness.
I’m usually more careful about my
statistics, so no excuses. What I should
have posted was that child homelessness has risen and represent one-third of the homeless population. If we
take the “official” homeless figure for children at 1.6 million children each year. To put it in perspective that
equates to more than 30,000 homeless children each week and over 4,400 each
day.
There are two things I want to
explore a little further. One is that there is no concrete way to count the
homeless. So the correct homeless figures vary widely, most will say that the
figure stands at anywhere between 600,000-1.5 million. That’s a huge margin of error.
The National Coalition for the
Homeless points out:
Many people call or write the
National Coalition for the Homeless to ask about the number of homeless people
in the United States. There is no easy answer to this question and, in fact,
the question itself is misleading. In most cases, homelessness is a temporary
circumstance -- not a permanent condition. A more appropriate measure of the
magnitude of homelessness is the number of people who experience homelessness
over time, not the number of “homeless people.”
Studies of homelessness are
complicated by problems of definitions and methodology. (here)
Of particular interest to me, and
to those who actually study homelessness, are the children of families who are
living doubled up with friends and families because they have no place to stay.
These aren’t counted as “homeless” and don’t qualify for homeless services.
Furthermore, there are the families who have dropped off the grid entirely,
living on the precarious margins of society with no hope. These the families
who have no way of being contacted, therefore studies, many of which rely in
part on telephone surveys, never count them.
Therefore, if we expand the
definition of homelessness in order to better understand and explore it, my
one-third figure, while admittedly still an overestimation, is not as much of
an exaggeration as one would think.
In the interest of better
articulating my point, let me use a related issue, poverty. If we use the
accepted norm for measuring poverty, we find that nearly 15 million children in
the United States -- 21% of all children
-- live in families with incomes below
the federal poverty level -- $22,050 a year for a family of four. However, the
way we measure poverty is distressingly inadequate and obsolete. For example,
research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that
level to cover basic expenses. Using
this standard, 42% of children live in low-income families (here). Notice that using a more rigorous
measure of poverty causes the poverty rate to double. It doesn’t take a social scientist to understand the
relationship between poverty and homelessness, so I have to wonder just how
much of an exaggeration is my one-third figure.
Among the 21 most affluent nations,
the
United States has the highest percentage of poor children. In fact, our
rate is twice that of the country next in line. And contrary to the demonizing
and racializing of the poor by neoliberal idiots, most of
these children have parents who work, but low wages and unstable employment
leave their families struggling to make ends meet. Poverty sentences children
to live on the margins of society as it impedes the ability to learn and
contributes to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty is a major
factor in poor health and is correlated to mental health. Risks are greatest
for those who experience poverty when they are young and/ or experience deep
and persistent poverty.
What to do? What’s needed is the
exact opposite of the austerity budgets favored by Obama and conservative
politicians in the US and Europe. More government spending and tax cuts
targeted at the working class, beyond what President Obama has proposed, will
surely make the deficit larger and drive up debt. But the post-World
War II ratio of GDP to debt in 1946 was at 109% -- a record. This was followed by two of the strongest
decades of economic growth in U.S. history.
FDR, who reneged on his initial
promise to balance the budget and initiated the New Deal instead once declared,
“To balance the budget in 1933, or 1934, or 1935 would be a crime against the
American people.” Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle today is that poverty in
America has been racialized. The
color of poverty is black and brown and it’s far easier to demonize, as neoliberals
do, the shiftless black and brown hordes of poor who multiply like rats and who
have taken “our” country away from “us.”
This is what is meant when neoconservatives
mewl about “taking our country back,” or “making America great again.” But this
isn’t just a neoconservative stance, since corporate (neoliberal) democrats
aren’t too much better than the idiots on the extreme right.
Never mind that this perception is
false and there are multitudes of poor, hungry, and homeless children who
happen to be white, as long as the mainstream political narrative can paint the
issue in stark racial tones, Americans in the US won't identify with the plight
of the poor. When the right cries “class warfare” their argument is little more
than a thinly veiled racial slur. It’s how they get the white working class and
the culture warriors on their side. Because this strategy is itself so deeply
irrational, it’s inevitable that conservatism would become poisoned by it.
Essentially, American conservatism is little more than a primal scream about
its own demons and imaginary hells. Who benefits? The 1% percent benefit and
reap the largest rewards as they pick our pockets while those on the right whine
about fetuses and sex.
Without a champion or the political
will to brand balancing the government budget as a “crime against the American
people,” today’s crisis will likely drag on as economic hardship mounts for
more and more of us -- especially our
children.
My name is Eddie and I’m in
recovery from civilization…
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