If you are poor, chances are it is your own fault. At least that's what Americans thought in 2001. In a National Public Radio poll from that year, about half of those surveyed said the poor are not doing enough to pull themselves out of poverty.
Now, one would think that since the recent economic crisis predictably has led to increased poverty people would start blaming circumstances more than the poor. This has not been the case in the United Kingdom. A recently published survey shows that Brits over time have become more likely to blame poor people themselves for their financial trouble. From 1986 to 2009, the proportion of people who attribute poverty to laziness and lack of willpower has grown to a little under 30 percent, with the proportion blaming "injustice in our society" conversely falling.
People's attitudes towards poverty to some extent determine sentiments about health care, welfare benefits, and other collective interventions. Not surprisingly, the UK study found that more and more Brits believe government benefits are too high.
In the United States, the picture is, perhaps surprisingly, a bit more nuanced. The 2001 NPR poll shows that attitudes about welfare at that time were determined by the income of the person asked. Those who made more than twice the poverty level were almost twice as likely as those closer to being poor to say that welfare recipients had easy lives and could do very well without the benefits if only they tried.
This difference is significant. Since household income has been declining over time (and proportionally fewer individuals earn more than twice the poverty level), the silver lining of the 2008 crisis might be that more Americans start seeing poverty for what it is: not something anyone "deserves." This could even help bring about more coherent anti-poverty policies when politicians, many of whom seem to want to appeal to the "poor people are lazy" sentiment as a way to obtain votes, realize their constituents understand reality better than they do.
And poverty is, in fact, becoming reality for more and more people in the United States.
In 2010 more people were recorded as living in poverty than in any of the previous 52 years for which rates have been published: 46.9 million (representing 15 percent of the population). About 17.2 million households were registered as food insecure for that same year, meaning they didn't have consistent dependable access to enough food. This, again, is the highest number ever recorded in the United States. Even percentage-wise, poverty rates in 2010 were the highest they had been since 1993.
And poverty is not just something people "are," something that might be inconvenient and often frustrating (though it surely is both of those things in copious amounts).
Poverty is a very real obstacle to exercising human rights, bringing with it substandard housing, under-resourced schooling, lack of health care, and at times unsafe neighbourhoods, as well as many other disadvantages. Children are particularly affected, since years of poorer quality education and potentially unhealthy living has consequences that to some extent continue even after a family pulls out of poverty -- which only some ever do.
And not only is poverty an obstacle to exercising rights. It is also, in many cases, caused by rights violations. Four million more women than men live in poverty, and both African-Americans and Hispanics are over-represented amongst the poor. In 2010, women earned 77 cents to every dollar earned by men. For black women that figure is 68 cents, for Hispanic women 59. Unemployment rates fluctuate enormously according to sex, race, and marital status. Women constitute 65 percent of all part-time workers.
To be sure, everyone is ultimately responsible for how they deal with their circumstances, and some individuals pull out of poverty despite multiple odds stacked against them. But many more do not. This is not because poverty is inevitable. It is because it generally requires support for health care, education, housing, anti-discrimination initiatives, and other interventions at least partially sponsored by the government. Without addressing the growing poverty in the United States through collective action based on human rights, chances are that if you are poor you will stay poor. Through little fault of your own.
Published first at RHRealityCheck.org.
Follow Marianne Mollmann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cluelesscamper
That is changing and it is way past time for it to change. Many economist warned of the coming wealth inequality crisis decades ago when Reagan stated the "govt is the problem" platitude. They knew right away that cutting taxes and cutting govn services would mean economic chaos. Not immediately, but slowly and surely it would.
And that is exactly what happened. Every republican who worships Reagan's economic policies does not remember the truth of his presidency. When he cut taxes, the deficiet immediately began to balloon and suddenly the ecnonmy went into a recession. What did he do? He RAISED TAXES and started govenerment spending. Everyone of the republican clowns that idolize him don't know a damn thing about his record.
5.5 MILLION jobs lost since 2000.
$3.90 spent on Chinese goods for every $1 spent on American goods.
On track to lose a half million jobs in the manufacturing sector this year.
12 million Americans work in the manufacturing sector today, the same amount as in 1941.
As a percentage, the U.S. has lost 32% of its manufacturing base.
U.S. Census Bureau says 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty, the highest number since they've been tracking it for 51 years.
Those who are poor because they have lost a job and cannot find another no matter how hard they look create sympathy in almost everyone. Our views on those who have spent generations in poverty hasn't changed all that much.
However, note how poverty is defined: income below a level stipulated by government. Worse it doesn't take into account government assistance, assets, and/or charity. Solving poverty on a national scale is foolish at best; we should be working in our own neighborhoods instead.
How do you define poverty and what are you doing to help your neighbor?
I don't think attitudes have changed all that much about those who represent generations of tax-takers or who are poor because they refused to complete school, had children out of wedlock or arrange their lives around the acquisition of recreational pharmaceuticals.
Tax cuts to the rich get 30 cents to the dollar in bang to the productive, consuming economy. As compared to 1.54 dollars for food stamps, a little more for unemployment benefits and 3.5 bucks for work on infra-structure
Republican supply side economics are racist, labor hating and anti-democratic in all of their real world implications. NEVER EVER VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN FOR ANYTHING!
You're siding with traitors.
What about people that have been thrown out of their jobs in their 40's 50's, and 60's lost their retirement nest eggs in the bank fiasco, and now find that their last remaining asset, their home has lost 50% of it's value. I don't even want to go into sick people or people with sick children, who have to rely on the government for medical help. Every country that applies a mixture of free market with government interventions has done better in the long run. Look at Canada, Denmark, Germany. Small government will in the end mean a tyranny of the corporations, just think what that will look like if they can do whatever they want.
Your shining example isn't.
Some of these friends have tried starting their own businesses only to lose their investment, some have had a series of short-term jobs, with long periods of unemployment in between, some have actually tried retraining or expanding their training, and in the end, most are still desperate. I know one former engineer who finally lost his house and is living with his brother and driving a limo on weekends. Another couple has been trying unsuccessfully to sell their house for a year and a half, and if the husband's new business doesn't get off the ground, they'll lose it.
I can think of two who've now gotten new employment in their fields, but both are being paid half of what they used to make.
And of course, as you mention, there are all other categories of poor people as well, and if someone has a major medical problem in this country, even if they DO have insurance, they can count on going bankrupt or, if they had significant savings and investments, going through all of their funds before it's all over.
Without safety nets - which the GOP has started referring to as "hammocks" - the poor and unemployed will never go get jobs. To hear them talk, there are jobs out there for the taking, and only the ignorant, lazy and the drug users aren't working. That's why they insisted on drug testing unemployment recipients and insisting they be involved in a GED or job training program as a requirement to receive unemployment insurance.
Judging by comments I've read in HP, there are also a lot of Americans that haven't.
Too many as far as I'm concerned.
Empathy is NOT a form of ESP..............but you'd have a hard time proving that based on reading the HP comments sections.
These tra.itors will be crying and sniveling and whining for solidarity when the IT jobs are severed, IN FORCE, which is the next sector that will go.
They will find no solidarity from me. Join me in the muck, schmucks.
Particularly those you would label traitors.
Furthermore, it is extremely foolish to divide your forces (IT vs non-IT), and make war upon yourselves.
Particularly ironic, given your insistence that we are conquered due to divisions forced upon us.
Finally, an invitation into your muck has no appeal to those you mean to enlist.
Your bias against IT employees undermines your call to unity -- a call upon which your salvation depends.
Mind that you first conquer your own demons.
When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, the unemployed were characterized as causing their own problems. They wanted to accept $350/wk instead of working. Conservatives wanted him treated like the welfare recepient: drug testing, job training and free labor in exchange for the benefit.
Then the blame got shifted to the working poor who, after exemptions and deductions, had no federal taxable income. These FULL TIME workers were the new chislers and deadbeats getting services they weren't paying for.
Now the blame is subtley but surely being shifted to those benefitting from the payroll tax cut. Since the taxes not covered are made up from general revenue funds, the conservative now says the people getting the payroll tax cut are getting a two-fer: Their social security is being funded and they are getting government services from the same general revenues. Again, deadbeats not paying their fair share.
I think the author needs to review the history of scapegoats before writing about what should be.