Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on Oct 15, 2016 21:20:34 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Oct 16, 2016 0:29:53 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University. Hmm - I'm about as confident in these stats as I am in either of our Presidential candidates. How has the information been cherry picked or distorted to support the premise? For example, the first item purports to relate to single Moms. But, the supporting statics are restricted to urban Moms. Gee, there were single Moms in the non-urban areas where I lived, too. Then there is excluding low income Moms who were in long term relationships with their children's father. I always understood not married to be single. Apparently the writer of the article has a different definition of single. Then there is the arbitrary selection of a five year period as a determinant of who is included in the stats. Since there isn't a five year qualification period before receiving low income benefits, the only purpose to using that time period in the analysis ppears to be to scew the statistics. After decades as an accountant and financial analyst, I've learned that there is a lot of truth to the old saw that figures lie and liars figure. I don't know what the truth is, but I'm skeptical of the claims and statistics of both sides of most issues similar to this one.
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milee
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Post by milee on Oct 16, 2016 6:56:06 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University. Hmm - I'm about as confident in these stats as I am in either of our Presidential candidates. How has the information been cherry picked or distorted to support the premise? For example, the first item purports to relate to single Moms. But, the supporting statics are restricted to urban Moms. Gee, there were single Moms in the non-urban areas where I lived, too. Then there is excluding low income Moms who were in long term relationships with their children's father. I always understood not married to be single. Apparently the writer of the article has a different definition of single. Then there is the arbitrary selection of a five year period as a determinant of who is included in the stats. Since there isn't a five year qualification period before receiving low income benefits, the only purpose to using that time period in the analysis ppears to be to scew the statistics. After decades as an accountant and financial analyst, I've learned that there is a lot of truth to the old saw that figures lie and liars figure. I don't know what the truth is, but I'm skeptical of the claims and statistics of both sides of most issues similar to this one. My favorite obvious distortion is the statement about welfare funding being .047% of the federal budget. That must be based on an incredibly narrow definition of "welfare", such as only cash payments directly given to a recipient or one certain program. I don't even need to google to know that there is no way in heck that Medicaid and the taxpayer subsidy component of Medicare, for example, is less than 1% of the federal budget.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 16, 2016 9:29:38 GMT -5
I thought "Absent dad" was a euphemism for "the family has no main breadwinner" ie, there's NO consistant income coming in and non of the 'family' perks of having a full time worker (like insurance). NOT that the absent dad didn't show up once in a while or call...
I also thought that most of the other "myths" were euphemisms for other things. "Black dads" = in an urban sense: being in prison or unemployable or uneducated . "poor people are lazy" = working the system for 'free money' "homeless are drunk people" = people with mental illness/drug addiction/transitory immigrants (who follow the 'work' they do). You get the idea.
I felt the article was kind of making a big deal out of pointing out that "it's raining cats and dogs" doesn't actually mean there are cats and dogs falling from the sky. I'm alittle suspect of the stats as well... maybe they are applicable to a particular area and not over all?
Poverty is a complicated thing.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 10:36:47 GMT -5
I actually came across the information this article was based on when my Dual Enrollment kids were working with stereotypes. I don't know if the author of the article Chloe linked cited her sources so I'll link the one we found. link
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 16, 2016 14:06:06 GMT -5
I actually wonder how much mental health and physical health correlate to poverty. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy and stamina to hold down a decent job and keep your life on track.
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phil5185
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Post by phil5185 on Oct 16, 2016 14:53:13 GMT -5
Maybe everything we know about journalists is wrong?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5
Amen. Single motherhood puts you way behind the curve except in rare instances (a coworker who had a high-power career and had a baby with a donor at age 40, niece who had one at 19 but got EXTENSIVE support from her parents and eventually married an architect and got credentials to work as a radiation therapist). Get pregnant, quit HS, try and support a baby on what the government doles out, have one or two more... it's very hard to recover from that. Not impossible, but very hard.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Oct 16, 2016 17:50:32 GMT -5
The topic is a touchy one because it's not fashionable to say that family structure matters but on a macro level it does. As households become more divided in education, housing, and outcomes based on income the consequences of not having two incomes are becoming more pronounced. The marriage gap and it's implication for the life trajectory of children is an important topic. A year or two ago we passed the threshold of over 50% of public school children living in low income or impoverished households. www.city-journal.org/html/marriage-and-caste-12908.htmlI think one has to determine what measurement is being used by each writer to determine what the terms that the writer uses truly mean. For most measures of poverty, cash income is used. There is often a massive difference between cash income and value of goods and services consumed after you include the value of social services provided to the impoverished. To assume that "living in poverty" equals massive deprivation may be a fallacy when you talk about people living in the US. It is quite possible that the true situation is more similar to that of a life long a British dole recipient. She was so impoverished that she had closets full of designer jeans and two of her five children had to share a personal computer. As I remember the story, each of the children had their own TV in their bedroom and three of the kids had laptop computers. All in all, not a bad standard of living. It's more than I grew up with.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 16, 2016 18:25:34 GMT -5
There are so many correlation v causation questions. I remember speaking with a native American man who grew up on the reservation. He gave me a small taste of the vicious cycle. If you can't provide for your family, you feel like a failure and leave, but that only puts the family in a worse position. Does poverty cause leaving or does leaving cause poverty? I believe the answer to both is Yes.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Oct 16, 2016 18:42:45 GMT -5
Pretty strongly. In the books I mentioned you can see that those conditions cause poverty but also that poverty can lead to those conditions. One thing that struck me when reading is how difficult some simple tasks are when you are in deep poverty. For example many don't have internet access on anything but their smartphone so a lot of the interviewees were spending hours filling out applications on their tiny phones. It's an interesting mix. Most of the families in the books I read found money for drugs, cigarettes, cable television, but were living in homes without running water or power or furniture. All of the families were going hungry. Very few people receive cash welfare, few people who qualify receive subsidized housing, but there was an economy that had sprung up around bartering SNAP benefits for cash. The more you look at the problems the more intractable they seem, at least to me. Anne, you point out what may be a very significant factor in poverty. The way a portion of the population makes decisions. If that is a significant causative factor, it seems that providing the poor with cash, goods, and services would not address the cause of poverty, only the symptoms. The question then becomes how can we teach folks to make better decisions? If we can't teach new decisions skills, then maybe trying to eliminate poverty is a lost cause. Something in which we taxpayers invest a lot of resources, but which yields almost no positive results. If that's truly the case, is there any point in continuing to invest in a no win situation?
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 16, 2016 18:48:53 GMT -5
Pretty strongly. In the books I mentioned you can see that those conditions cause poverty but also that poverty can lead to those conditions. One thing that struck me when reading is how difficult some simple tasks are when you are in deep poverty. For example many don't have internet access on anything but their smartphone so a lot of the interviewees were spending hours filling out applications on their tiny phones. It's an interesting mix. Most of the families in the books I read found money for drugs, cigarettes, cable television, but were living in homes without running water or power or furniture. All of the families were going hungry. Very few people receive cash welfare, few people who qualify receive subsidized housing, but there was an economy that had sprung up around bartering SNAP benefits for cash. The more you look at the problems the more intractable they seem, at least to me. Anne, you point out what may be a very significant factor in poverty. The way a portion of the population makes decisions. If that is a significant causative factor, it seems that providing the poor with cash, goods, and services would not address the cause of poverty, only the symptoms. The question then becomes how can we teach folks to make better decisions? If we can't teach new decisions skills, then maybe trying to eliminate poverty is a lost cause. Something in which we taxpayers invest a lot of resources, but which yields almost no positive results. If that's truly the case, is there any point in continuing to invest in a no win situation? Unfortunately decision making is an ingrained process that is taught to us all day every day of our childhood. Undoing that is hard. Like cult-deprogramming hard. We've got to catch them while they are young. Use that social-programming machine we have in place: public schools. But we can't so much as say 'use a condom' without some fundy freaking the f out about it.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Oct 16, 2016 18:53:03 GMT -5
I wonder how often something like this happens: A family or group of relatives "help each other out" when one of them gets ahead. Basically, they all share resources but not everyone contributes evenly or at the same time... so any "getting ahead" is shared (pay other people's bills or help out in some other way since it is EXPECTED) to the point that any step ahead isn't really a step ahead at all - it's more of a maintain the status quo (of poverty). I'm sure there's plenty of functional families living in poverty who get trapped in that - they have to turn their backs on relatives/family/friends in order to make progress at getting out of poverty. I have no solution for this.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 18:53:49 GMT -5
I do think we have detached fatherhood from responsibility. I hate, hate, hate the term "baby daddy." I hate it when my girls use it, and I hate it even worse when my guys use it.
I don't know the answer. I'm too old because all the girls were shipped off to relatives in my generation. Their babies were put up for adoption.
It was an incredibly imperfect system. It also didn't work for the African-American community just as adoption doesn't work now that well for them. Why isn't a baby just a baby?
Like I said, I don't have the answers. I just know that couples spend tens of thousands of dollars to conceive babies while tens of thousands of children can't find homes and are supported by the taxpayers.
There is such a major disconnect.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 16, 2016 19:29:38 GMT -5
I wonder how often something like this happens: A family or group of relatives "help each other out" when one of them gets ahead. Basically, they all share resources but not everyone contributes evenly or at the same time... so any "getting ahead" is shared (pay other people's bills or help out in some other way since it is EXPECTED) to the point that any step ahead isn't really a step ahead at all - it's more of a maintain the status quo (of poverty). I'm sure there's plenty of functional families living in poverty who get trapped in that - they have to turn their backs on relatives/family/friends in order to make progress at getting out of poverty. I have no solution for this. That is a really good point. Carl has talked about the pressure to help his family. I can see how that takes away a little of the joy of hard work resulting in monetary reward.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2016 19:59:36 GMT -5
I do think we have detached fatherhood from responsibility. I hate, hate, hate the term "baby daddy." I hate it when my girls use it, and I hate it even worse when my guys use it. I agree. And if single mothers aren't a huge portion of the impoverished population, why are so many articles on the subject of poverty profiling noble single mothers, trying to eke out a living? Lots of stuff about how hard they struggle. Few words about who and where the fathers are. One article showed a woman with 4 kids who was a widow. Husband drowned 3 years ago. Youngest kids were 9-month old twins. Another woman was arrested trying to steal shoes for her kids in Wal-Mart. She was shown in a picture with two little kids. She had 4 others. Where are the fathers? Why are their kids living like that? Name them and shame them.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Oct 16, 2016 21:37:29 GMT -5
I agree that the concept of poverty is too complex.
In my city..it's closely correlated with race...
I haven't seen anyone address employment yet, here in this discussion.
On our campus, they can't find enough people to do hospitality type work (cleaning conference center rooms) because they can't find employees that will 1) pass a drug test or 2) can't pass a background check.
These aren't minimum wage jobs. These are jobs that pay 12-14/hour, with university benefits (including family health insurance with almost full coverage for $200/month.) Two parents, working a hospitality job would make enough to reasonably support a family of 3 or even 4.
Schools generally do not teach kids how to be good employees. I don't ever remember being taught not to do drugs because it will limit your ability to find jobs. Same thing with choosing to do things that might give me a record.
I avoided this sort of behavior, largely because of my parents' consequences. Since I wanted a roof over my head and to be able to sit pain-free..well, I avoided poor behavior.
We actually are frank about the consequences of poor choices with our kids..I don't feel that threatening to kick my kids out of the house is useful, say when they get to be 23. I think, by then "Because I told you not to do it." loses it's effectiveness. Yet, I still want them to make good decisions...
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 3:23:19 GMT -5
How can you teach your children good decisions when they are surrounded and raised by those who make bad decisions?
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Oct 17, 2016 6:09:37 GMT -5
This article is based on this list of 10 myths about poverty:
1. Single moms are the problem. Only 9 percent of low-income, urban moms have been single throughout their child's first five years. Thirty-five percent were married to, or in a relationship with, the child's father for that entire time.*
2. Absent dads are the problem. Sixty percent of low-income dads see at least one of their children daily. Another 16 percent see their children weekly.*
3. Black dads are the problem. Among men who don't live with their children, black fathers are more likely than white or Hispanic dads to have a daily presence in their kids' lives.
4. Poor people are lazy. In 2004, there was at least one adult with a job in 60 percent of families on food stamps that had both kids and a nondisabled, working-age adult.
5. If you're not officially poor, you're doing okay. The federal poverty line for a family of two parents and two children in 2012 was $23,283. Basic needs cost at least twice that in 615 of America's cities and regions.
6. Go to college, get out of poverty. In 2012, about 1.1 million people who made less than $25,000 a year, worked full time, and were heads of household had a bachelor's degree.**
7. We're winning the war on poverty. The number of households with children living on less than $2 a day per person has grown 160 percent since 1996, to 1.65 million families in 2011.
8. The days of old ladies eating cat food are over. The share of elderly single women living in extreme poverty jumped 31 percent from 2011 to 2012.
9. The homeless are drunk street people. One in 45 kids in the United States experiences homelessness each year. In New York City alone, 22,000 children are homeless.
10. Handouts are bankrupting us. In 2012, total welfare funding was 0.47 percent of the federal budget.
*Source: Analysis by Dr. Laura Tach at Cornell University. It's highly unlikely that "everything we know about poverty" is wrong. Single moms? Marriage and the nuclear family bring stability. And, when that unit breaks up or doesn't form in the first place, many of these families are now under a lot more financial strain. Absent dads? Sorry you aren't a dad just because you SEE your kid from time to time. There is a big diff between visiting someone and actually being engaged in their day to day care and welfare. Lazy poor people? Having a job doens't mean having a FULL time job. Often , they are underemployed, working part time or less than 40 hrs a week. But, i agree, there is a complete lack of good jobs due to piss poor policies of our govt who have allowed our industries to pack up and move overseas to pay even less than we pay here. But, funny, these same people also want to flood our country with illegals who will presumably even work for LESS so tell me how that make sense? Uh huh. We aren't winning the war on poverty, not because their isn't poverty, but because simply taking the approach of giving handouts does nothing to change the culture of poverty. If we focused on creating jobs, and allowing people to have the dignity and pride to take care of themselves and their own families, then we could change the culture of poverty. But, since Hillary will support TPP and Nafta and continue handing over our economy to the entire world, then you can expect this country to soon look like a third world nation of people living in squalor.
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Oct 17, 2016 6:16:18 GMT -5
You can't teach a man to fish if there is no pond and no poles. Abusive govt regulation and unfair trade practices have decimated our pond.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Oct 17, 2016 7:14:55 GMT -5
I think I've told the story here about the young woman I worked with at my first job out of college. She was one of three girls and her parents had to cut ties with both sides of their respective families because they were both married to each other, had jobs, and insisted their daughters get educated and not pregnant out of wedlock. She said it was strange to realize that in the very same city she lived in, Detroit, she had grandparents, aunts,uncles, cousins, that she will never know about. That took guts for her parents to do that. I always have said to remove children from these parents, in one generation the ghetto mentality would be erased.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 7:37:13 GMT -5
Schools generally do not teach kids how to be good employees. I don't ever remember being taught not to do drugs because it will limit your ability to find jobs. Same thing with choosing to do things that might give me a record. Dad, who worked in the steel industry and had to have a security clearance to work on government projects, drilled it into us that you do not do anything that would impede your ability to get a security clearance. (My brother, a mechanical engineer, eventually did need one to work on making components for submarines.) Just another one of the subtle ways we were brought up with greater expectations. It was assumed that we'd get a college education and a responsible job, and that might entail a security clearance. Sometimes I take it for granted.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Oct 17, 2016 8:28:46 GMT -5
While I agree there are misconceptions about poverty, some of that data seems very narrow in scope and cherry picked, particularly the 0.47% figure. I think that only fits a narrow definition of welfare, and doesn't include Medicaid and WIC.
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grits
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Post by grits on Oct 17, 2016 8:45:53 GMT -5
Our society is in major decay. Our economy has been destroyed from within. Our government wants to control our every move, and even gets search warrants for what they don't even know is on the premises. No wonder people are in poverty. I do know of multiple families that work hard to break the cycle of poverty, and do get out. I know others that never intend to lift a finger if they can help it. They are in their fourth generation of welfare, and like it. It is a sad situation. The government can require you to work for your benefits. Cities need help cleaning, mowing vacant lots, tearing down condemned buildings, and cleaning up graffiti. Our local workforce center had many jobs that couldn't be filled because none of the applicants could pass a drug test. The elderly are a fast growing section of those living in poverty. The cost of their medical care along with exhausted pensions, and escalating cost of living have put them there. Also, they have lived past an age their savings could sustain.
No one major cause exists for the poverty in the USA.
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swamp
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THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS!!!!!!!
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Post by swamp on Oct 17, 2016 8:55:31 GMT -5
That is a really good point. Carl has talked about the pressure to help his family. I can see how that takes away a little of the joy of hard work resulting in monetary reward. There is also the flipside to this where the families and friends actively hold a person down. I watched a documentary that profiled several young successful women who came from rural poverty and how they struggled to break out of the status quo of their upbringing. In all cases they were either shunned by their family or had to minimize their accomplishments to keep the peace. They all said the same thing, they risked their family for success. I went to college with a woman like this. She was from a city, and was white, was born to a 14 year old mom and 15 year old dad. Nobody in her family ever went to college. She went to college on a full scholarship to an expensive private liberal arts school.
When she went home on vacation, her peer group would make fun of her and tell her she was getting uppity.
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swamp
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THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS!!!!!!!
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Post by swamp on Oct 17, 2016 8:57:19 GMT -5
Schools generally do not teach kids how to be good employees. I don't ever remember being taught not to do drugs because it will limit your ability to find jobs. Same thing with choosing to do things that might give me a record. Dad, who worked in the steel industry and had to have a security clearance to work on government projects, drilled it into us that you do not do anything that would impede your ability to get a security clearance. (My brother, a mechanical engineer, eventually did need one to work on making components for submarines.) Just another one of the subtle ways we were brought up with greater expectations. It was assumed that we'd get a college education and a responsible job, and that might entail a security clearance. Sometimes I take it for granted. It's normal for me and you and most of the people here.
It's not the norm in a lot of families, including some branches of my own family.
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grits
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Post by grits on Oct 17, 2016 8:59:16 GMT -5
I have worked in the poor sections of town for over 31 years. I do disagree with some of the statistics quoted. I have seen way too much of what they say doesn't exist. There basically is no government incentive to get off the system.
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grits
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Post by grits on Oct 17, 2016 9:03:38 GMT -5
A female coworker got a job delivering the mail. Some of her own relatives say the same thing to her. Oh you think you're better than us. Really? You come bust your hump every day, in all kinds of weather, putting up with jerk coworkers, and disgusting perverts on the street. It will really make you feel uppity. NOT!
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Phoenix84
Senior Associate
Joined: Feb 17, 2011 21:42:35 GMT -5
Posts: 10,056
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Post by Phoenix84 on Oct 17, 2016 9:05:14 GMT -5
I agree that the concept of poverty is too complex. In my city..it's closely correlated with race... I haven't seen anyone address employment yet, here in this discussion. On our campus, they can't find enough people to do hospitality type work (cleaning conference center rooms) because they can't find employees that will 1) pass a drug test or 2) can't pass a background check. These aren't minimum wage jobs. These are jobs that pay 12-14/hour, with university benefits (including family health insurance with almost full coverage for $200/month.) Two parents, working a hospitality job would make enough to reasonably support a family of 3 or even 4. Schools generally do not teach kids how to be good employees. I don't ever remember being taught not to do drugs because it will limit your ability to find jobs. Same thing with choosing to do things that might give me a record. I avoided this sort of behavior, largely because of my parents' consequences. Since I wanted a roof over my head and to be able to sit pain-free..well, I avoided poor behavior. We actually are frank about the consequences of poor choices with our kids..I don't feel that threatening to kick my kids out of the house is useful, say when they get to be 23. I think, by then "Because I told you not to do it." loses it's effectiveness. Yet, I still want them to make good decisions... Yes, I think for many, simple things like not being able to pass a drug test a criminal background check, or a driving record check keeps a lot of people from gainful employment.
Dropping out of high school is another thing. Even though more kids graduate high school now than ever before, there are still far too many that don't. Not graduating high school virtually garantees a life of poverty.
Poverty is complicated. As Thyme4change said, it's hard to separate correlation from causation, and the symptoms from the root cause. And poverty just has a way of looping back in on itself.
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MJ2.0
Senior Associate
Joined: Jul 24, 2014 10:27:09 GMT -5
Posts: 11,049
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Post by MJ2.0 on Oct 17, 2016 9:08:58 GMT -5
handouts may be more than what's quoted in Chloe's post, but I don't think they are bankrupting us. Getting ourselves involved in other countries' squabbles and problems probably costs more than the aid we are giving to our own citizens.
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