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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Surprising Facts About America's Poor

In his address to the joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama called for $477 billion in new federal spending, which he said would give hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people hope and dignity while giving their low-income parents "ladders out of poverty." And today, the U.S. Census released its annual poverty report, which declared that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. What President Obama didn't tell America as he was pleading for more spending--and what the Census Bureau didn't report--is what it really means to be poor in America.

In a new report, Heritage's Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield lay out what the U.S. government's own facts and figures really say about poverty in the United States. The results might surprise you, especially if your view of poverty is the conventional one, perpetuated by the media--namely, destitute conditions of homelessness and hunger. In reality, though, the living conditions of those defined as poor by the government are much different than that popular image. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau:

  • 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
  • Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
  • Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television
  • Two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR
  • Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers
  • More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation
  • 43 percent have Internet access
  • One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television
  • One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo
As for hunger and homelessness, Rector and Sheffield point to 2009 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food, 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless, with 42 percent of poor households actually owning their own homes. Want an international comparison? The average poor American has more living space than the average Swede or German. You can read even more of those facts in their report, "Understanding Poverty in the United States."

None of this is to say that the poor have it easy. Sadly, one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year, and one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year. But exaggerating the conditions of poverty does not do America any good, as Rector and Sheffield explain:
The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and should be an important concern to policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.
Those exaggerations about the symptoms of poverty don't solve the root causes of the problem, either. As Rector and Sheffield write, "Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and the erosion of work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty." In order to truly benefit the poor, they say, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. And it should strengthen marriage in low-income communities, rather than ignore and penalize it.

Poverty is a serious problem that requires serious solutions. But policymakers and the public need accurate information about what poverty in the United States really means. Only then can they implement the right policies to help those Americans who are truly in need.

12 comments:

  1. If you continue to do the things that made you poor you will continue to be poor. If you continue to do the things that made you rich you will continue to be rich. Most of the "poor people" in this country are fat. Go to Ethiopia or Somalia if you want to really see "poor".

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  2. I place the blame squarely on organizations such as food pantries and programs such as free school breakfast and lunches. Also Toys for Tots, etc.
    All these entitlements enable people to not learn responsiblities.
    Why should someone save their money throughout the year and forego the plasma TV, etc when do gooders will provide Christmas presents for their children?
    I think these do gooders are in LaLa Land anyway. Don't they know these recipients of all this free stuff are half the time out selling it for pennies on the dollar to buy booze, cigarettes and drugs or even to get their nails done!
    My friend belongs to a civic organization who last year delieverd turkeys to "needy" families. They weren't even done yet, before they saw some of the recipients trying to sell the turkeys to people driving down the street!

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  3. During the “Cold War”, Russian propaganda filmed America’s poorest neighborhoods and families; it showed thousands of people in poverty. It showed America in a very negative way. It was used to show how “Democracy” would destroy Russia if it was adapted. Well, what some people of Russia noticed was not the poor people living as they do, but how America’s poor had it better than they did! Every poor family had a pet! The people of Russia were starving, yet in America, they had enough food to feed a pet! No matter how poor they were they had enough food for an animal! This is true even today, just about every poor family has a pet, and we as taxpayers pay the vet bills and feed it!

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  4. Round up all these lazy poor leeches and either put them in jail, or give them jobs on the Mexican border. I am SIck and TIREDS of my TAX MONEY going to these freeloaders.

    STOP ruining my country. WOrk or GET THE H### OUT!!

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  5. 9:51 ...sadly...you are 100% right!

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  6. in our church we have to visit the families who need assistance or who we come in contact with outside the church. they need to be visited for this very reason.

    in the past we have actually visited families that had more than many of us in the church. as a young christian, it was an eye opener for me.

    there are people and situations that truly need help, but check it out first to be sure you're not being duped. of course if you are duped for some reason; remember that God will honor your efforts.

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  7. I won't mention any names but I actually saw on a local job website last year a help wanted for a housekeeper for a homeless shelter.
    You mean to tell me these people can't even clean up after themselves!
    Then not too long after that this shelter had the nerve to go to the county asking for funds. I saw this in the newspaper and the clueless powers that be with no questions asked gave it to them!

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  8. I know someone (not in this area) who bought a bunch of Wal Mart gift cards for alot less than there value off of Craigslist last year after Christmas.
    The people were all given them to buy Christmas presents from different organizaions.
    I also know of local people who have been confronted in front of our Wal Mart with people selling them but they were afraid to buy them thinking they were stolen.

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  9. It's not for me to judge who is poor, REALLY poor, faking it, or scamming the system. But I CAN say that, with a million foreclosures a year and plant closings, layoffs, part-time jobs replacing full time work, benefits being reduced/eliminated, food and energy prices rising at the same time, and 401(k)'s and other retirement and savings vehicles being decimated, along with the continued drop in home values and equity, there is a very REAL problem. But I DO take comfort knowing that obama and his entire family still get to go to Paris, Spain, Rio, Martha's Vineyard, etc. I KNOW those trips are extremely important to our nation. I KNOW he feels the suffering of the people. He just doesn't know what to do about it...

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  10. Many of these comments, particularly those of 9:51, illustrate how jaded we have become. You are certainly right that some of the recipients of our largesse will sell what they have been given. On the other hand, those who are Christians in more than name only have been called to help those in need. There really are people in great need these days. All we can do is help as our heart dictates to us. Then, it's "on them" to do as they choose. If helping those less fortunate than we are makes us "do-gooders" or inhabitants of "La-la Land," so be it.

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  11. 11:59 Being a true Christian takes due diligence. There are people in great need and it's the duty of a Christian to find those people (as does 10:59's church) and help them and not just donate obliviously and think one is doing Christian works.
    As a matter of fact if one doesn't do their due diligence and instead of "helping" someone they are enabling then they are sinning. It's called The Sin of Enabling Others to Sin as you are helping one to carry on with deceptions, addict behaviour, etc.

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  12. 3:13, my church and I DO use "due diligence" when helping our brothers. However, despite our best intentions, we have been taken advantage of. I have "enabled" others to continue their sinful ways; obviously, I would not have done it on purpose.

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