The Poor

Community Media Workshop encouraging the media to tell the stories of the other Chicago, the oft-neglected neighborhoods and back streets of Chicago, where the problems are felt most deeply and where solutions are most likely to be born
Debs Quote, Eugene
Economic Policy Institute focuses on the needs of America's working people... seeks to expose the myths behind the supposed success of the neoliberal economic paradigm
Global Exchange promotes alternative trade for the benefit of low-income producers; helps build public awareness about human rights abuses
Poverty Net reports and data on poverty produced by the World Bank
Southern Rural Development Center
Windows on Urban Poverty "documents the geographic dimension of poverty in the United States... The tendency of poor persons to be clustered in high-poverty neighborhoods is often referred to as the "concentration of poverty." The severe economic deprivation of such neighborhoods exacerbates the problems of having low income. Understanding how the spatial context of poverty affects individuals and limits opportunities has become an important theme in recent research"
World Food Situation UN

The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America's singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America's culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population (Amazon.com book review of Categorically Unequal, by Douglass Massey). "In general, the data show that people living in lower-income, nonwhite communities must travel greater distances to reach well-stocked and reasonably priced food stores than people living in higher-income areas. Healthy food is also more expensive on a calorie-for-calorie basis than junk food. According to the Institute for Agriculature and Trade Policy, the real cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has risen nearly 40 percent in the past twenty years, while the real cost of soda, sweets, fats and oils has gone down" (Mark Winne. "A New Idea Grows In Alabama." The Nation, Nov. 27, 2006: 18-20.) "Here's how Barbara Ehrenreich tells it: "..When you enter the low-wage workplace -- and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well -- you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip your lips for the duration of the shift.. large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hours in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship.. the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers -- the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being "reamed out" by managers -- are part of what keep wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth." "..the working poor are "the major philanthropists of our society," writes Ehrenreich... While most civilized nations provide low-wage earners with such public services as health care, child care, and affordable housing, "the United States, for all its wealth, leaves its citizens to fend for themselves."... "Economic justice begets dignity. Not the other way around" (Rips, Geoff. "For Whom the Phone Rings." The Nation, 8/1/03, 8-19). "Signs of trouble are everywhere... unsustainable growth of international indebtedness... At the current rate, liabilities will double again over the next five to seven years, taking the United States into banana republic territory. At some point foreigners will cease holding dollars and instead buy the alternative world currency--the euro. The dollar will crash and interest rates will jerk upward in response... "From cars to aerospace, industrial gases to cell phones, American companies lag behind their European competitors in technology, production savvy and rate of innovation. Ford and GM are a decade behind Volkswagen in the sophistication of their production techniques. Nokia has 39 percent of the world mobile phone market, more than twice that of Motorola, its nearest rival--despict Nokia's being based in the highly taxed, highly unionized, generous welfare state of Finland. Boeing's government subsidies through its military contracts, grants and tax breaks comfortably match the diminishing support proffered Europe's Airbus, but it is Airbus that is pioneering the next generation of civilian aircraft and whose market share is larger. British Rolls Royce is the trail-blazer in aero-engines. And so on. Beyond the sheltered world of America's defense industrial complex, where fat Pentagon contracts helped create outstanding technological leadership in weapons and the Internet, there is scarcely a high-tech sector where US companies can claim systematic leadership over their European competitors... "America's once proud culture of business building has given way to.. a cult of the takeover.. and.. some companies resort to straight fraud... Yet the evidence is that takeovers fail to raise shareholder value... "American productivity measured as output for every person-hour worked is now lower than in France, the old West Germany, Belgium and Holland... Europe's growth in productivity out-stripped the United States during the 1990s... "..Of course, America is home to some great companies, but not so many to justify the fawning acceptance that the American Buseinss Model is better in every respect than the European one... "..Unemployment is lower in seven European Union countries than in the United States... This economic strength pays for a social contract that offers most individual Europeans opportunity, mobility and security that is beyond the compass of most ordinary Americans... "..the consequences: lower life expectancy than in Europe, vicious inequality and desperate lack of social mobility... "America is richer than Europe not because it works smart but because it works long. Americans work, on average, 300 hours more a year than people in Britain, France and Germany, a sixth more American women work than European women, more American old people are at work and fewer young Americans get to study. Americans have to work this hard because their productivity at work tends to be lower than in Europe, and that is because American companies tend to innovate and invest less.." (Hutton, Will. "The American Prosperity Myth." The Nation, September 1/8 2003, 20-24). ""I have no heart for somebody who starves his folks" --George W. Bush discussing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (January 2, 2003). "Washington no longer feels it ought to insure that everyone has enough to eat... "Food is the expendable item in a poor person's budget... "We can feed the world but not our own." "...33 million people live in households that aren't sure where their next meals are coming from... with poverty on the rise--the United States experienced the biggest jump in poverty in a decade in 2001, nearly 12 percent of the population... At the end of 2002 the US Conference of Mayors reported a 19 percent increase in the demand for emergency food over the previous year... "They are America's dirty little secret... They are hardworking have-nots who cannot pay the rent, medical bills, and still feed their families." "Food and hunger are a lens through which we see what America has become: a country indifferent to the basic needs of its citizens... the damage inflicted by a twenty-year campaign waged by right-wing think tanks and conservative politicians to defund and delegitimize government... the right's assault on public programs.. has used the old-fashioned notion of personal failing as the vehicle for accomplishing its political goals. Indeed, few politicans now advocate for the hungry... "Food programs for the elderly have suffered a steep decline in federal appropriations... Twenty years ago Washington funded 80 percent of the program... Today the federal government provides less than 20 percent... "..after the Heritage Foundation attacked [food stamps] in the early 1980s, enrolling more participants was no longer encouraged... Participation also depends on how hard states make the application process... California, New York, and Texas have practically criminalized the process by requiring applicants to be fingerprinted, an action that automatically brands them as potential cheaters. It's hardly surprising that only about half of all eligible residents in those states get food stamps... "One in three children living in the District of Columbia doesn't get enough calories and is poorly nourished... Often they have no evening meal... "The elderly, too, are turning up at food pantries in record numbers... the percentage of old people who are poorly nourished--some 40 percent, according to the federally funded Institute of Medicine--will increase. "Hunger, of course, is symptomatic of a deeper problem--inadequate income... feeding people through special programs rather than dealing with their lack of money became the palatable political choice... "..no one in Washington talks much about living wages, increasing the minimum wage, indexing it for inflation or expanding the earned-income tax credit. But living wages are the only solution if people are ever to move toward the self-sufficiency and personal responsibility that politicians and the public demand of them..." (Lieberman, Trudy. "Hungry in America." The Nation, August 18/25 2003, 17-22). "Hidden in a Census Bureau report... poverty has expanded to the suburbs. Today, 13.8 million poor Americans live in the suburbs -- almost as many as the 14.6 million who live in central cities... "In the last year alone, 1.3 million people fell below the poverty line, bringing the total to 35.9 million... "After World War II, moving to the suburbs was a key component of the American Dream of upward mobility... "...the poor are not randomly scattered across the suburban landscape; they are concentrated in inner-ring suburbs close to cities, as well as in the surburban fringe -- former rural towns swept up by suburban sprawl... "...the number of "rich" suburbs.. has also increased... Meanwhile, the number of middle-class suburbs has declined" (Peter Dreier. "Poverty in the Suburbs." The Nation, Sep. 20, 2004: 6-7). "In 1996, President Bill Clinton enacted legislation that ended 61 years of federal aid designed to lift families out of poverty" (Phillips, Peter, and Project Censored. Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2003: 103). "..the effects of "welfare reform," no longer masked by the 1990s economic boom, are finally becoming clear: more homelessness, more hunger, and lessened ability to escape from poverty" (Phillips, Peter, and Project Censored. Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories. NY: Seven Stories Press, 2003: 106). See.. Center for Law and Social Policy advocacy related to economic security for low-income families with children Center On Budget and Policy Priorities "working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals" Welfare Made A Difference "the personal experiences of current and former welfare recipients to illustrate the value of a reliable, adequate, and non-punitive welfare system" Information For Decision Making "clearinghouse of information and technical assistance resources to support decision-making that produces and sustains good results for children, families, and communities" "For the past six years the G8 has been preaching relief yet maintaining vicious trade sanctions against Africa and Asia. It has denied them markets for their produce and flooded them with surpluses... destroying local industries and impoverishing populations. This has nothing to do with the corruption or lethargy of 'ungovernable Africa.' It is economic warfare by the G8 against the poor" (Simon Jenkins. Sunday Times, June 5). "The European Union and the United States are paying out billions of pounds in secret subsidies to their farmers as they exploit every available loophole to avoid real concessions to the developing world in the current round of global trade talks, Oxfam said last week. "In a report designed to put pressure on rich western countries in the build-up to next month's G8 summit at Gleneagles, the campaign group accused Washington and Brussels of using creative accounting and the "Enronization" of their accounts to continue with their protectionist regimes... "Oxfam said, however, that the US and the EU were using the rules of the World Trade Organization to disguise the real level of their payments to farmers. The US was paying 200 times more in export support than it declared, while the EU was paying four time more... "Oxfam says rich countries have been redefining rather than reducing subsidies at the WTO. As a result, overall farm support in developed countries has not changed since 1986, and still stands at more than $250bn a year in real terms" (Larry Elliott. "Oxfam accuses West of concealing farm subsidies." Guardian Weekly, June 24, 2005: 31). "There are those, not the least in black Africa, who fear this massive debt forgiveness will produce the same circumstances that have followed smaller, piecemeal debt write-offs... Venal or incompetent governments have merely run up a pile of new debt, squandering the money on unrealistic projects while creaming off spare cash into Swiss bank accounts. In the end, a fair degree of responsibility rests with the lenders" (Editorial, Saudie Arabia. Arab News, June 12, 2005). "Doubling aid and cancelling Africa's debt are theoretically very attractive proposals. They fail because they are based on a misguided faith that you can rely on human altruism to end human misery... "Tony Blair and his... partners would do the continent a ton of good if they promoted... trade and investment relationships, [rather] than this claptrap of kindness and generosity through more aid, debt forgiveness and rmoval of agricultural subsidies" (Andrew M. Mwenda. Sunday Monitor, Uganda, June 12, 2005). "Africa is not poor. As [Mr. Blair's] Africa commission report has noted, Africa is rich in human and natural resources... The problem is that Africans have been forced to live in nation states whose raison d'etre was not to enrich the lives of the people within them; rather, they existed to transfer the resources abroad... "The struggle of Africa is the struggle to share resources both within and without the continent. Africa must be a part of a world economic order that is built on mutual respect and not exploitation. Africa needs the rest of the world as much as the world needs Africa" (Ken Wiwa. Observer, June 12, 2005). "Rejoice! The world is saved! The governments of Europe have agreed that by 2015 they will give 0.7% of their national income in foreign aid. Admittedly that is 35 years after the target date they first set for themselves, and it is still less than they extract from the poor in debt repayments. But hooray anyway. Though he does not become president of the EU until July 1, Tony Blair can take some credit for his insistence that next month's G8 summit in Scotland makes poverty history. It is inspiring until you understand the context. "Everyone who has studied global poverty--including European governments--recognises that aid cannot compensate for unfair terms of trade. If they increased their share of world exports by 5%, developing countries would earn an extra $350bn a year, three times more than they will be given in 2015. Any government that wanted to help developing nations would surely make the terms of trade between rich and poor its priority. "This, indeed, is what the UK appears to have done. In March it published the most progressive foreign policy document ever to have escaped from Whitehall. A paper by the departments of trade and international development promised that: "We will not force trade liberalization on developing countries." It recognized that a policy that insists on equal terms for rich and poor is like pitting a bull mastiff against a chihuahua. Unless a country can first build up its industries behind protectionist barriers, it will be destroyed by free trade. Almost every nation that is rich today used this strategy. But the current rules forbid the poor from following them. The EU, the paper insisted, should, while opening its own markets, allow poor nations "20 years or more" to open theirs... "...a double game [is] being played. Before the election, Blair makes a tear-jerking appeal for love, compassion and human fellowship, and gets the anti-poverty movement off his back. After the election he discovers, to his inestimable regret, that love, compassion and human fellowship won't after all be possible, as a result of a ruling by the European commission... "Britain has made its own contribution to the poor world's misery by tying aid disbursements to the privatisation of essential public services" (George Monbiot. "Europe's game of double bluff." Guardian Weekly, June 10, 2005: 33).