Poverty is not what you think it is

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Poverty fell off a cliff after the Second World War. It fell like a stone, including for American blacks. The economy was booming and everyone benefited. The poverty rate dropped from 35 percent in 1950 to less than 20 percent when President Lyndon Johnson, nonetheless, announced his War on Poverty.
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By the time the War on Poverty kicked into gear in 1967, the poverty rate had fallen to 14 percent. After the implementation of the War on Poverty, poverty eradication ground to a halt. While it has ticked up and down a few points since that time, today it stands roughly where it stood back in 1967.
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The War on Poverty has been witheringly expensive. From 1967 to today we have spent 22 trillion in 2012 dollars on poverty relief. Today the U.S. government runs more than eighty means-tested welfare programs, including cash, food, housing, medical care, and other social services. A whopping hundred million Americans get some kind of aid. That is a third of the population.
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This article by Austin Ruse makes me wonder whether new tactics are needed in the war on poverty.

Full article
 
Why are so many people are on government benefits? To keep them voting the way that their masters order them to.
 
JimG said:
This article by Austin Ruse makes me wonder whether new tactics are needed in the war on poverty.

"The War on Poverty has been witheringly expensive. From 1967 to today we have spent 22 trillion in 2012 dollars on poverty relief. "

Full article
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Not so ironically, that’s about the federal budget debt. :hmmm:
 
What bothers me about these programs is that they are structured to destroy the family and keep people in poverty. There are disincentives to start working and to get ahead by the too-great loss of benefits.

And on top of it, married couples who make too much to receive benefits are unable to have more children because of the expense, while poor women, many unmarried, are rewarded for having more children.

The entire system is totally twisted towards destruction of virtue.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Why are so many people are on government benefits? To keep them voting the way that their masters order them to.
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How would you propose to get them off of it?

The majority of people who are on government benefits and are considered able to work (so excluding children, the elderly, the disabled, and full-time caretakers), are actually working. They’re just working in jobs that don’t make ends meet. Which in turn is supported by corporations that pay low wages and an economy that demands cheap products which are backed by those low wages.

For all these luxuries, it would be interesting to see what the total proportion of spending on them is per household.
Monte_RCMS said:
Education is the way out of poverty.

youtube.com/watch?v=2KpPKxTMmrY
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There’s what is termed academic inflation. That’s when too many people get a degree in a particular field for a job market. So suddenly employers want another degree, or a degree and an unpaid internship, or something, and a bunch of people are left with a useless degree.
 
DarkLight said:
How would you propose to get them off of it?

The majority of people who are on government benefits and are considered able to work (so excluding children, the elderly, the disabled, and full-time caretakers), are actually working. They’re just working in jobs that don’t make ends meet. Which in turn is supported by corporations that pay low wages and an economy that demands cheap products which are backed by those low wages.

For all these luxuries, it would be interesting to see what the total proportion of spending on them is per household.

There’s what is termed academic inflation. That’s when too many people get a degree in a particular field for a job market. So suddenly employers want another degree, or a degree and an unpaid internship, or something, and a bunch of people are left with a useless degree.
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Choose wisely.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
Choose wisely.
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You can’t predict the future. And even now the total number of college degrees is reducing the value of a college degree. Now you need a degree for fields that used to never need a degree, just because they can get one. I think there’s just only so many truly educated jobs that the economy can support - if everyone gets a degree, even a “good” degree, we’re just going to see a lot more people with degrees working in the service industry anyway.
 
For those with unsustainable student loans, education may be the way into poverty and indentured servitude.
 
Interesting to note that the figures in the article do not include Medicare and Social Security, which are also transfer payments. I’m in effect receiving Medicare benefits paid for by my young nieces and nephews even though they can barely afford their own inflated health insurance premiums. True, I paid Medicare taxes, but those went for a prior generation of beneficiaries. Same with social security.
 
The error in government poverty programs is that they arbitrarily assign a level beneath which one is categorized as a victim of poverty. They address only material poverty, and the standard is in flux.

Having traveled to several Central American nations, I can testify that there is far less “poverty” in the US than many suppose.
 
JimG said:
For those with unsustainable student loans, education may be the way into poverty and indentured servitude.
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Daughter is a Lutheran parochial school teacher. Has college loans - 4 years of private college. Lives frugally in order to pay them off. Anecdotal? Sure.
 
DarkLight said:
You can’t predict the future. And even now the total number of college degrees is reducing the value of a college degree. Now you need a degree for fields that used to never need a degree, just because they can get one. I think there’s just only so many truly educated jobs that the economy can support - if everyone gets a degree, even a “good” degree, we’re just going to see a lot more people with degrees working in the service industry anyway.
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A great argument against taxpayer paid college education.
BTW, there is a growing teacher shortage. The pay sticks. You spends hours a week outside of school on lesson plans and grading papers.
 
Poverty is food, medical, housing, clothing,

A person could become educated, suffer a medical condition, not be able to work, have a bunch of education , become poor.

Poverty is natural disasters.

Poverty is ?
 
Roseeurekacross said:
Poverty is food, medical, housing, clothing,

A person could become educated, suffer a medical condition, not be able to work, have a bunch of education , become poor.

Poverty is natural disasters.

Poverty is ?
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Poverty is more often not completing high school, having children before being married, getting involved in drugs or crime, not getting and keeping a job.
 
I’ve known a lot of people in the “working poor” category. Some were educated, some were not. Almost all had at least a high school degree and very few were unwed parents. It was just the plain fact that service industry jobs don’t really pay enough to live on.

My worry is that we’re developing an economy where that sort of employment is the jobs we’re gaining, rather than the professional jobs that pay better. Educating people won’t help if there’s no jobs for them to do.
 
JonNC said:
Poverty is more often not completing high school, having children before being married, getting involved in drugs or crime, not getting and keeping a job.
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That’s too limiting a definition.

If we start defining poverty by affluent first world standards or expectations, we will never beat it.

Try telling a refugee , home and homeland absolutely destroyed, who had all the same opportunities pre war , that

Try telling a person with a Ph.D, disabled due to illness, with no recourse to aid, that.

Try telling a homeless 55yo woman, homeless due to no fault of her own that.

Try telling a low wage earner, who can’t afford both rent and food for himself and his kids that.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
That’s too limiting a definition.

If we start defining poverty by affluent first world standards or expectations, we will never beat it.

Try telling a refugee , home and homeland absolutely destroyed, who had all the same opportunities pre war , that

Try telling a person with a Ph.D, disabled due to illness, with no recourse to aid, that.

Try telling a homeless 55yo woman, homeless due to no fault of her own that.

Try telling a low wage earner, who can’t afford both rent and food for himself and his kids that.
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First, I didn’t make a definition, much less a narrow one. I made a generalization about poverty in the United States and how best to avoid it or escape it.
But if you want to expand the cause of eliminating poverty worldwide, a good starting place is the expansion of capitalism worldwide.
If, instead, you wish to focus on the exceptions - the homeless woman, that is what charity is for, as in Christ’s call to help the least of His children
 
DarkLight said:
I’ve known a lot of people in the “working poor” category. Some were educated, some were not. Almost all had at least a high school degree and very few were unwed parents. It was just the plain fact that service industry jobs don’t really pay enough to live on.

My worry is that we’re developing an economy where that sort of employment is the jobs we’re gaining, rather than the professional jobs that pay better. Educating people won’t help if there’s no jobs for them to do.
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From my time in business school, I was taught that manufacturing - particularly “value added” manufacturing where the product is exported - is the best driver for long-term economic growth. When those jobs drop, folks go to college to attempt to make up the lost income (professional component of service sector). The glut of college graduates stagnates the value of a degree. We see this as most new grads aren’t making much more than they were circa 2000 with a few exceptions like “engineering”.

This, however, is a beneficial situation for those that employ such professionals domestically.

The down-side of “free trade”, I’m afraid.
 
I’m seeing a whole lot of people posting in this thread with wildly inaccurate beliefs about poverty. I thought that 1 John 3:17 was fairly non-ambiguous…
 
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