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| Poverty in America |
“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty” –Aristotle
“This song is dedicated to all the happy people. All the happy people who have real nice lives and have no idea what its like to be broke... I feel like I'm walking a tight rope without a circus net. I'm popping percocets, I'm a nervous wreck. I deserve respect but I work a sweat for this worthless check, bout to burst this tech, at somebody to reverse this debt.” –Eminem, Rock Bottom
“I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black, my stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch… Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares; one less hungry mouth on the welfare… that’s just the way it is.” -2pac Changes
Most Americans living inpoverty work, but till cannot afford to make ends meet. Barbara Ehrenreich writes the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. In this book, she goes to various places in the United States and tries to make ends meet on lower-class jobs such as a waitress, a Wal-Mart worker, a cleaning woman, and a nursing home assistant. These jobs require unskilled labor and usually pay around $6 to $7 an hour. In her best-case scenario, she had to work two jobs, seven days a week, and still had to join a shelter. She shows that behind the smiles of Wal-Mart and gas station workers alike are the borderline homeless. These lower-class workers’ civil liberties are often ignored, and hard work does not land the ticket out of poverty that America promotes as its redeeming quality. The book is vital to understanding the American economy and the situation that is enveloping more and more people as the American class structure becomes more stratified.
Poverty is shaking the foundation of American life at its core, and the biggest problem is that it causes the family social structure to fall apart. Poverty keeps citizens from getting proper medication, physical, and mental healthcare. and fuels single parenthood and 'illegitimate' children. There are no longer incentives to marry for the lower class. The welfare system has made getting married economically irrational. Welfare for families is higher for a couple if they do not marry because the government will then treat the two as separate “households.” George Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty, makes the point that welfare has made poor fathers economically dispensable. The problem is that the children born into poverty and whose parents depend on welfare are three times more likely to be on welfare when they become adults. This inter-generational dependency shows that the current system is failing to bring the poor to self-sufficiency. 2
The problem is that the current system gives no incentive for individuals to get off the welfare system. The more money welfare recipients make, the less money they receive from the government. Richard Keith, a former economics professor at North Texas State University and the U.S. House of representatives 23rd Majority Leader, puts it best:
The chances of rising above the poverty level are two and one-half times greater if an individual or family does not receive welfare. Thirty years ago, one in every 40 white children was born to an unmarried mother; today, it is one in five. The current system’s financial penalties on marriage can be correlated with an unprecedented and growing number of unwed mother welfare recipients. 3
Material poverty is having reduced resources so that a family cannot meet certain needs and is below the official poverty threshold. Behavioral poverty is associated with the qualities and values needed for self-sufficiency, stable relationships, healthy family formation, and mental health. Welfare reform must begin with the realization that most programs designed to alleviate “material poverty” generally lead to an increase in “behavioral” poverty. While the poor were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the War on Poverty, they instead have become its victims.
Behavioral poverty is created by an eroded work ethic and dependency, making individuals feel they are unsuccessful and have no sense of accomplishment. It is created through lack of educational ambition and attainment, and the inability or tireless unsuccessful effort to control one's own children. Behavioral poverty results in illegitimate children from parents battered with mental self-anguish, which has a high propensity to lead to criminal activity, drug, and alcohol abuse. Make no mistake, welfare that is intended to assuage material poverty has successfully led to a dramatic increase in behavioral poverty and destroyed the family structure.
1. Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” Owl Books: Henry Holt and Company, LCC. 2001
2. Egendorf, Laura K. “Poverty.” Opposing Veiwpoints Series, Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999. p.105-109
3. Egendorf, Laura K. “Poverty.” Opposing Veiwpoints Series, Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999. p.22-24
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