Poverty In America: As Make-Believe As Elves, Gremlins, and Eskimos

First off, I'm sorry for the tables being all weird, when I transferred the site to BlogSpot, it went all crazy on me and I can't seem to fix it.

I'm tired of being told that poor people are becoming more and more destitute as rich people buy themselves a lot full of Aston-Martins. By no means do I condone rich people and their frivolous ways, I am as sickened if not more so by malevolent rich people as the next guy, however, I also am also repulsed by these bleeding heart liberal types trying to convince me that we need more welfare in this country. So I write today to try and dispel some major myths about American poverty.

Myth #1: Poor people in America are living in the projects, where the apartments are so small, kids have to sleep on the fire escape.

Bullshit. According to a report I read, in 1995, 41% of all households technically classified as poor owned the place they lived in. The same report, an updated version published in January 2004, shows that when it was published, 46% of technically poor households owned the place they lived in. To me, this casts some doubt on the assertion many liberals make when they say "the poor are getting poorer." If that is true, then why are there more and more homeowners classified as "poor?"

In that same report, there is a table on page 14 which references the condition of the American poor to the average citizen in many international cities. I've taken the liberty of copying some of the statistics and putting them into a smaller table for your convenience.

Group	Average square feet per person
American poor people	440.00
American poor people who live in apartments	320.00

City	Average square feet per person
Stockholm	430.56
Vienna	333.68
Tel Aviv	266.95
Amsterdam	256.18
Tokyo	169.96

The point is that the average poor person in America has a bigger place to live than the average person in many of the larger cities of the world. Again, the common conception of poor people living on top of each other in shitty apartment buildings, although in some cases true, is grossly exaggerated.

Myth #2: Poor people are just getting by on welfare, we need to work harder to give these people a hand

Bullshit. Yes, there are some destitute people out there who need help. I'm not disputing that. But anyone under the current poverty line ($18,850 for a family of four) is eligible for federal funding. And of course, who would refuse federal money being offered to them? So let's assume that everyone who is eligible, or nearly everyone, is accepting money from the government. The government's purpose in giving out welfare is simple: to give people who can't provide for themselves and their families enough money to get through tough times and get back on their feet financially. I don't think many people would dispute that as being the purpose of welfare.

But that's not what is happening in America. I direct your attention to a report released by the Department of Energy. If you look closely at the tables, you should be startled. America's poor are not really that poor, especially in light of the conditions in other parts of the world. Examples abound. For one, 64% of America's poor have air conditioning. Just 30 years ago, only 36% of Americans had air conditioning (ref: the report mentioned in the previous section). Not only that, but according to another Department of Energy report 30% of all poor Americans have central air conditioning. Central air is too expensive for my family to install, and I'm pretty far from the poverty line! Furthermore, fully 97% (!) of America's poor have a color TV set, and 63% of poor people (not 63% of those with TVs, 63% of all poor people) have cable television or dish service.

My question to people who want to enlarge welfare is why? So people can buy a big screen to watch ESPN-8 on? So poor people can have a carp pond installed in back of their house? So they can have neon tubing installed in their cars? I don't understand this... we all want to help the less fortunate get back on their feet, but buying a TV or Central Air in no way helps you get back on your feet. I could understand if this money was being spent on an Armani suit to go to your next job interview in, or on a second car so your spouse could get a part time job, but there are no reinvestable dividends coming out of a television! It blows my mind to hear people say we should increase welfare spending so long as the welfare checks are being spend on frivolity.

Myth #3: Poor people are minorities. The white man is keeping poor people down.

Bullshit. I reference again, the Department of Energy, but a different report, which gives the racial backgrounds of people below the poverty line. Of the 15 million technically poor Americans, 7.7 million are white, 3.3 million are black, and 2.8 million are Hispanic (the rest are "other"). As you can see, there are more poor white people than there are poor blacks and hispanics combined. Cutting welfare payments would hurt just as many white people as it would minorities - so next time you think cutting welfare would be another step in the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, kill yourself.

Myth #4: Everyone deserves to eat. In a country where rich people can blow thousands of dollars on things like big-screen TVs, we have people who are too poor to eat.

Okay, now I can't entirely say bullshit to this. I'm sure there are people too poor to feed themselves, but again, poor people in America are by no means malnourished. The following tables are from a USDA report detailing the intake of necessary vitamins in several income brackets. On the top row you will see several nutrients commonly considered most important to adequate nutrition. Down the side you will see the % of the poverty level of income (for example, 150% poverty would be the poverty line level of income plus half). In each cell is the percent of recommended daily value of each nutrient consumed by an average person of that income bracket.

	Food Energy	Protein	Vitamin A	Vitamin C	Vitamin E	Calcium
Under 131% Poverty	88	176	116	184	89	88
Over 350% Poverty	88	155	124	185	99	96
All Americans	88	161	121	179	94	93

Where are the huge swings between the different income brackets? Where is any indication that poor people are significantly worse off, nutritionally speaking, than the rich, or for that matter, the rest of America? As has been noted by many, America is the only country in the world with fat poor people. Our poor are not malnourished - and we're giving them money to buy food because we believe they can't afford it on their own. People on the welfare rolls today use their food stamps and then use the money they would have spent on food to pay their Dish Network bills. Absolutely astounding.

Conclusion...

I'm not saying poor people don't exist. I'm not saying that we should abolish all welfare. We are a compassionate nation, we don't like to see our citizens suffering needlessly when we can do something to lend a helping hand. Government should help out those who are truly needy. The problem is that we have some misguided notion of what need is. A person who can afford to pay a cable bill is not needy. A person who owns their own house is not needy. A person who has only one car when he wants two is not needy. Need is not want - just because you want a bigscreen and you don't have enough money to buy one does not make you needy. Need is not being able to feed yourself. Need is not being able to work because of a serious disability. Need is having exhausted all your resources looking for a job and not being able to find one. Welfare should be a last resort, not a crutch.

People don't realize that there are no hordes of starving homeless people roaming the Great Plains. I can't fully verify this statement, but one of my fellow students once wrote to me that in fact, only 3% of people under the poverty line remain there for more than 10 years. The cycle of poverty that people talk about seems not to exist. Another aspect of this issue worth exploring is this - who are these impoverished people? Think about it - after I graduate from college, it's very likely that I will have to rely on my savings for a while before I can get a job. There will be several million of my classmates in a similar situation. During this time, I will be poor, despite the fact that it won't be for very long, and I have savings. And I will be counted in the ranks of the impoverished while I am not making any money, despite the fact that I will inevitably have a good job eventually. Second of all, savings are not taken into account when calculating poverty. An old guy receiving a small pension may have millions in the bank, but because his only income is Social Security, he is technically impoverished, even if he patented the friggin' Easy Bake Oven and has millions stashed away. So my only request to my readers out there is that you think before you go crying wolf to your Congressperson. Watch the news and you'll realize that poor people in America don't have it all that bad.