Why are the number of poor people increasing?

[drthomas_21]

The #1 reason why the number of poor people are growing, is because they keep having children. That may be hard for some folks to read, but it is the truth.

You can always find some exceptions to every rule – how someone lost their job, or became sick. These things do occur and are terrible; but they do not account for the bulk of poor people.

The real question is, as a Christan, how do we assist the poor?

 

[JeanTereseMarie]

Hey, doc–
I tend to disagree with you. I lost my job as a teacher because people quit having kids. Went back to school for RN, & still not too many having babies.
I agree that there’s a lot less charity in the world.

 

[JeanTereseMarie]

Also, check out Austin Ruse at C-Fam.org and you’ll see why we have so many impoverished people.

 

[drthomas_21]

There have been a lot of reasons given here for the increasing number of poor people. One I have not seen addressed … it was briefly mentioned … is the lack of JUST WAGES!!! So many people work and still cannot afford to live…

Pax et bonum,
Winger

Hola,

What a well written, from the heart reply. I agree with just about all of the points you made. We spend a lot of resources trying to help people who do not want to help themselves. There are people in my neighborhood who do not work, and hang out each and every day, while people like your husband are working their buts off and can barley make ends meet.

 

[ElizabethPH]

O.k., that’s not a very good title, I apologize. Please don’t take this as a “silly” question, I am an adult and life long Roman Catholic. Two weeks ago our Pastor asked us to vote on doing away with the rule our Church had in place that those who come to the pantry for food can do so only once a month. (We’ve traditionally been a rather small Parish with limited resources). He pointed out the extent to which our Parish has seemingly quadrupled in size in the last few years. At any rate, we voted down that “informal” rule and are now bringing bags of food to the church each week. (There are 52 of those weeks in a year ).

My questions are, and I’ve seen this explosion erupting over the course of the last five years in our area, where are these impoverished people coming from? How is it possible that so many can’t cope in a society where the economy has expanded over the past 12 years, in a country where practically anyone can secure some type of employment? I pray for these people daily, but I can’t begin to understand this phenomenon. They walk the streets and roads of our area, (North of Houston) like displaced people. I’ve even wondered if somehow we aren’t being scammed by slackards, but by the same token, I see young and old alike, waundering lost in the suburban sea. Is it the “drug” scene? Is there some vast, unseen reservoir of hoplessness out there?

What have you in your experience found?

Hi I can only speak from my own experience and I can say that as a single parent; I raised my son’s from their early high school years on my own; they’re father died; I took many different jobs most of them minimum wage and waitress type positions. And often times worked two jobs; but that was a slippery slope having two teen-agers pretty much on they’re own a lot of the time. I barely got by with rent bills etc and I always came up short for food…so I would join the food lines to get the staples we needed. And sometimes got a bag of groceries from church. This wasn’t recent but back in the 70’s and 80’s…guess things haven’t changed so much.

 

[Wedgewood]

My DH works for an inner-city agency helping these people. Granted there are people that have generational assistance and don’t know anything else. There are the growing number of elderly that can’t afford rent, utilities on their fixed income. There are people who have lost their jobs and are trying to stay middle class but can’t afford everything now on their lower paying job. I don’t think it will get any better.

Questions: If you are a two income family and one of you loses their job, not enough money to pay mortgage, utilities, food, car etc. (you don’t receive assistance because you make to much at the one job left in the family) would you turn to your parish for food?

 

[goofyjim]

While I don’t believe in taxing the wealthy to redistribute to the poor, it is certainly not good to give them tax credits w/o requiring the corporations that get them to turn around and hire people. If all they do is reinvest it in capital goods then the poor will always be poor because no jobs are being created. This should be the fundamental goal of tax cuts-to create jobs in the private sector. In doing so then we will begin to lift the poor out of poverty w/o government controlling it all.

 

[SoCalRC]

While I don’t believe in taxing the wealthy to redistribute to the poor, it is certainly not good to give them tax credits w/o requiring the corporations that get them to turn around and hire people. If all they do is reinvest it in capital goods then the poor will always be poor because no jobs are being created. This should be the fundamental goal of tax cuts-to create jobs in the private sector. In doing so then we will begin to lift the poor out of poverty w/o government controlling it all.

This is an excellent point. For example, a weak dollar should help a lot of business (and, in fact, does help several of mine, which manufacture domestically and sell internationally), but there is no longer a large manufacturing infrastructure and a lot of financial disincentives into investing in rebuilding one.

Further, China’s fiscal policy largely nutralizes the effect of a weak dollar on our trade imbalance.

Tax cuts on corps does little to help the country if the recipients use the money to create more slave labor jobs in China. Especially when the cuts are combined with tax incentives for anchoring profits off shore.

The closest many Americans can get to sharing in the ‘investment’ is via the stock market - and for small investors that normally means a mutual fund. Has everyone forgotten how corrupt and unlevel that playing field has shown itself to be?

I don’t expect the government to play ‘Robin Hood’, but right now the system is actually reverse progressive. I pay less tax, as a percentage of total income, than the lowest paid people who work for me - and that seems just wrong.

Similarly, I hold them accountable to performance based standards. It seems reasonable to hold CEOs and boards of publicly traded companies to a similiar standard.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

While I don’t believe in taxing the wealthy to redistribute to the poor, it is certainly not good to give them tax credits w/o requiring the corporations that get them to turn around and hire people. If all they do is reinvest it in capital goods then the poor will always be poor because no jobs are being created. This should be the fundamental goal of tax cuts-to create jobs in the private sector. In doing so then we will begin to lift the poor out of poverty w/o government controlling it all.

I’ve long believed that the best anti-poverty program is a good job with benefits, a pension and the ability to join a good, strong union. I think the tax code should be adjusted to give tax credits/breaks only to corporations that hire people AND penalize those who offshore American jobs. We are currently REWARDING the offshoring of our jobs. This is totally backwards.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

Similarly, I hold them accountable to performance based standards. It seems reasonable to hold CEOs and boards of publicly traded companies to a similiar standard.

I think that in general incentives are appropriately enough aligned so that stockholders have good reason to make sure that they have quality management in place.

I’ve long believed that the best anti-poverty program is a good job with benefits, a pension and the ability to join a good, strong union. I think the tax code should be adjusted to give tax credits/breaks only to corporations that hire people AND penalize those who offshore American jobs. We are currently REWARDING the offshoring of our jobs. This is totally backwards.

I have a different approach. A good anti-poverty program would be a sound dollar, minimal taxes, and free trade. Employers should be free to offer any form of pension that they would like to, and likewise workers should be free to form unions. The unions should have the right to negotiate as a group, should they want to, but given no powers to coerce workers or employers.

A good economic system rewards enterprise and entrepreneurship, because it is the private sector that creates jobs. It give the people freedom to form contracts, and ensures that contracts are fulfilled. It recognizes that the labor market is like any other, and that government intervention (especially wage fixing) only brings about inefficiencies.

 

[SoCalRC]

I think that in general incentives are appropriately enough aligned so that stockholders have good reason to make sure that they have quality management in place.

CEOs give the board members their cushy gig. The board, in turn, sets the CEO’s compensation. Generally, public stock is secondary dilluted, so the holders have no real voice.

There might be other reasons that CEO pay is grotesque and wholly decoupled from actual performance, but chronyism, nepotism, and lack of protection for small investors still seem to be the most liekly culprits.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

CEOs give the board members their cushy gig. The board, in turn, sets the CEO’s compensation. Generally, public stock is secondary dilluted, so the holders have no real voice.

There might be other reasons that CEO pay is grotesque and wholly decoupled from actual performance, but chronyism, nepotism, and lack of protection for small investors still seem to be the most liekly culprits.

True, although the general trend in legislation seems to be aimed towards keeping these business practices in line. Although you’re right, the system is far from perfect.

 

[SoCalRC]

True, although the general trend in legislation seems to be aimed towards keeping these business practices in line. Although you’re right, the system is far from perfect.

We’ve seen massive trends in the opposite direction, particularly in the last seven years. With whole overisght departments of the excecutive branch essentially being disbanded. We hear some noise in response to public outcry - the mutual fund scandal, the sub prime lending fiasco, etc., but nothing really tangible in terms of result. The GOP controlled congress had no interest in strong business oversight, and the current senate cannot get serious reform passed the 60 votes needed to stop GOP fillibusters.

 

[Miles_Mariae]

We’ve seen massive trends in the opposite direction, particularly in the last seven years. With whole overisght departments of the excecutive branch essentially being disbanded. We hear some noise in response to public outcry - the mutual fund scandal, the sub prime lending fiasco, etc., but nothing really tangible in terms of result. The GOP controlled congress had no interest in strong business oversight, and the current senate cannot get serious reform passed the 60 votes needed to stop GOP fillibusters.

Subprime lending had little to do with whether CEOs are held to a high standard. The misaligned incentives in this case are mostly within the structure of investment banks and loan officers.

Your judgment of GOP motives is one that I do not share.

 

[Yerusalyim]

The NUMBER of poor has increased, but the PERCENTAGE has not increased. Further, the standard of living for the poor in the US HAS improved.

 

[SoCalRC]

Subprime lending had little to do with whether CEOs are held to a high standard. The misaligned incentives in this case are mostly within the structure of investment banks and loan officers.

But it required deregulation to occur, so it seems to demonstrate both my points.

Your judgment of GOP motives is one that I do not share.

I’m only reporting their actions (record fillibusters now, massive deregulation in the congress prior). Their movtives are their own.

 

[SoCalRC]

The NUMBER of poor has increased, but the PERCENTAGE has not increased. Further, the standard of living for the poor in the US HAS improved.

Actually, that is false. Both the poverty rate and the absolute number living in poverty has increased, at least according to the US government.

Standard of living has declined slightly overall (in constant dollars, the median houshold income is about $2000 less now than 7 years ago). Significant inflation has made the impact on standard of living higher.

 

[Yerusalyim]

Compare the standard of living for the poor in the US 50 years ago and today…BIG Difference. No, the percentage of poor in the US is relatively constant with some minor fluctiations…it’s around 12%.

 

[strngrnrth]

In 1858, poor meant starving, sleeping on bare ground, in rags that neither provided public decency by the day’s standards nor stopped the cold from killing nerve cells.
In 1933, poor meant what it meant in 1858.
In 1982, poor meant suffering severe acute malnutrition, shivering in bed half the year, wearing dirty clothes for want of laundry change or space for a clothesline, and getting a pair of second-hand sneakers for Christmas – and that was all.
In 2007, poor in the USA meant having a choice of healthy or convenient meals – just not both at one time – and wearing out-of-style, ill-fitting, but clean and perfectly physically adequate clothing, having air-conditioning more likely than not, heating almost always, and possibly a cell phone, a hundred TV channels, and an IPOD with as many songs on it as someone with a massive record collection in the heyday of vinyl.
I want to help the people who are poor in the old sense of the word the most. That number, though, is far fewer now than it was just a few generations back. Thank God or that.

 

[stinkcat_14]

If we have fewer poor today because their standard of living is higher than it was 50 or 100 years ago, then is the converse also true? Are there more rich as well? A household making $100,000 today has more stuff than the richest 1% of households 100 years ago. So is a household making $100k rich? If we figure out who is poor by comparing them with previous generations, why shouldn’t we do the same thing to figure out who is rich?