Facts about poverty vs. myths

[moc]

I posted about this in another thread, and someone requested that I start a separate thread about it. In light of what is going on in New Orleans, it appears that there are a lot of myths being bandied about by our friends in freeperland regarding characteristics of the poor.

Poverty stereotypes is one of my hot buttons, and I hope that anyone spouting these stereotypes could be confronted with the following facts.

Myth: Poor people are lazy and spend their days hanging around and collecting checks from the government.

Fact: The majority of individuals living below the poverty level are working and not receiving any government assistance.

The following data are from The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University. The publication is entitled "Early Childhood Poverty: A Statistical Profile (2002)" and the full text version can be found at http://www.nccp.org/media/ecp02-text.pdf.

In 2000, there were approximate 2,134,000 children under age three living below the federal poverty line.

Of those, approximately 1,272,000 (59.6%) lived in families where at least one parent worked, and the family did not receive public assistance.

An additional 328,000 (15.4%) lived in families that had income from both employment and public assistance.

232,000 (11%) lived in families whose income was from public assistance alone.

302,000 (14.2%) lived in families with income from neither employment nor public assistance.

In other words, the vast majority of families of young children living below the federal poverty line (more than 75%) live in households in which a parent is earning wages. The vast majority of those (60% of the total) are not receiving any public assistance at all. Only a very small fraction are subsisting solely on public assistance. I think this should put to rest one prevailing stereotype, that is, that poor people are sitting around living off the government when what they really need to do is get off their butts and work. The vast majority of them ARE working, but despite that work, they are unable to pull themselves above the federal poverty level.

FWIW, I’ve seen similar statistics for the poverty population as a whole, not just those of families of very young children. The fact is my primary interest is in childhood poverty, especially early childhood poverty, so most of the resources I have on hand are specific to this particular population. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the statistics for families without children is actually higher (that is, the proportion below poverty that are working) because many of our entitlement programs are tied to families with young children.

NCCP has a new publication out on low income children. "Low income" children are those who are living below 200% of the federal poverty level. This report is entitled "Basic Facts about Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 18" and the full text version can be found at http://www.nccp.org/media/lic05_text.pdf. The report is dated July 2005.

According to this report, in 2003, 55% of children living in low income families had at least one parent who worked full time year round. Another 28% had at least one parent who worked full time or part time year round.

[Beearewhyain]

1. Kick

You might have to post this at a later date as everyone is understandably preoccupied with Katrina but nonetheless, good stuff there.

[Hav]

2. .

Good infos and recommended.

[Bob3]

3. The lazy poor is an important stereotype

It keeps anyone from thinking about any of the other causes of poverty: history, culture, economics (having a large number of poor people around keeps wages down for the kinds of services the well to do require: waiters, nannies, doorman and the like) It's part of the raise yourself up by your bootstraps myth that is so important to this country. How one is supposed to raise yourself up by the bootstraps while someone is standing on your neck is never addressed.

And it has been this way for a long time. During the Irish Potato famine a concern of the British government was that they not make relief too easy to obtain, since the Irish were naturally lazy and once they got on the dole they would never get off it.

I suppose in a 100 years time the Chinese rulers of the world will be talking about how lazy the Americans that work for them are.


this was my 1,000 post

[SoCalDem]

15. reagan fine-tuned the stereotype to get welfare stigmatized

The "Welfare Mom with a fur coat and a fistful of food stamps..driving away in her caddy" was his invention.. People like Rush and his ilk drove the message home for 25 PLUS years on talk radio..while D.W.M. (dems with money) sat on their asses and laughed at rightwing radio...and did NOTHING to counter it..(until AAR)

Propaganda works..

These myths are perpetuated, made into comedy routines and people actually come to accept them as fact after hearing about them for their whole lives...did they ever hear condemnation of the story..?? with the same emphasis?? nope

[Just Me]

4. First of all, it's heartless to persecute the poor and disaffected.

Secondly, the two main reasons folks seem to be compelled to thump on the poor are: (1) they are frustrated with their own struggle to make ends meet and acquire material wealth; and/or (2) they are greedy, heartless, "takers" who have NO belief in the notion that we each have an obligation to reach out to the weakest among us in order to strengthen our whole society.

[Zuni]

5. kick

[Cleita]

6. People can be born into poverty and remain there

because society often prevents them from getting ahead because of class, race or gender. It has nothing to do with how hard they work or don't work.

[Pacifist Patriot]

7. The pithy phrase "poverty runs in families"

is too often spot on true. It is a terrible trap from which it can be extremely difficult to escape.

[Beearewhyain]

8. A good article on that very topic

http://www.fguide.org/Bulletin/mythmob.htm

"Too bad that in the supposedly meritocratic U.S.A, a good predictor of a person's future earnings is the income (and earnings) of his/her parents. Caste and class still stalk the American economic landscape."

[EC]

9. I've been arguing this for ages...

and the catch phrase of "entitlement programs" really gets my goat, since that only accounts for maybe 3% our national budget...besides helping the poor isn't an "entitlement" it's help...

This is a good argument for raising the minimum wage...the arguments I get back, are well then "they" should go to school and improve themselves...excuse me? Just how do they afford that, and find time for that? The working poor are on shoestring budgets, they can't afford to pay for credits, books and childcare (and of course those are "entitlement programs" that have been cut so extremely, they are left useless. And of course there are fewer and fewer living wage jobs. The conscience (on edit: and understanding) of the right is non-existent.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. kick

[wildeyed]

11. Good topic.

Thanks for posting.

[wli]

12. it's a bit late to get this news out to rethuglicans

They've already destroyed the country.

[ck4829]

13. Kick

[[email protected]]

14. Key Data Likely Absent

or Obscured in U.S. Census Income and Poverty Release

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Tomorrow's release of the 2004 income and poverty data by the U.S. Census will likely continue efforts by the Administration and Congress to mask and ignore the problem of poverty in the United States. The bottom line-poverty and extreme poverty have increased substantially during the past three years, while social programs that help low-income Americans have been cut or eliminated by Congress and the Bush Administration.


"The effort by the Administration to understate the extent of economic hardship in the U.S. serves their broader and extremely troubling agenda to reduce or eliminate social programs that play a positive role for low-income Americans, while pursuing egregious tax cuts for the wealthy," said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.


The evidence:


-- More people live in poverty! In 2003, there were 35.9 million people living in poverty-up from 32.9 million Americans in 2001. The numbers living in extreme poverty, below 50 percent of the poverty income level, hit 15.3 million in 2003, steadily increasing during the Bush Administration. We expect tomorrow's numbers to show a similar trend.


-- More children living in poverty! By the Census' own admission, 12.9 million children lived in poverty in 2003, more than 18-64 year olds and more than that of seniors 65 years and older. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty03/pov03hi.html


-- Less information is better! In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the Senate floor a bill with inadequate funding to continue the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). They also recommended slashing the sample size used for the national poverty data, the Current Population Survey (CPS).


The ACS is a survey that provides income, poverty, housing quality, and other important data for states. Without these data, detailed information on income and poverty by state will only be available every ten years-severely limiting the ability to plan for funding for critical social programs like TANF, food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, child care subsidies and energy assistance. This will not only effect federal funding levels, but state and local community planning that depend on this data.


-- Less help is available! $35 billion dollars in cuts have been mandated from low-income programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans in the FY 2006 budget that Congress will consider in September. Another "reconciliation" bill to be considered in September includes more than $100 billion in new tax cuts for the wealthy.


-- Less public attention is better! For the second year in a row, the U.S. Census Bureau has released the poverty data in August-notoriously the slowest time of the year in Washington, D.C.-when Congress, President Bush, and many reporters are on summer vacation.


"With the release of the poverty numbers tomorrow, we can expect the trend to bury data to continue that might challenge overly optimistic policy statements by this Administration. Rarely has this behavior to mask the poverty problem in this country been so blatant," says Bhargava. "What America does not need is political leaders who pretend that families are not struggling everyday to sustain a dignified standard of living, because their struggles are very real for too many Americans."
------ The Center for Community Change is a social and economic justice non profit that works to unite urban and rural low income grassroots groups to become a national force for social change.


http://www.usnewswire.com/




http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usnw/20050829/pl_usnw/poverty_is_rising___someone_tell_census__congress__key_data_likelyabsent_or_obscured_in_u_s__census_income_and_poverty_release1

[Just Me]

18. Why does the Republican party HATE the poor and oppressed so much?

Why do they HATE fellow Americans who need help?

:shrug:

[SofaKingLiberal]

16. kick

[MissWaverly]

17. I grew up poor, the hungry poor is more like it

we had no car, no public assistance, both my parents worked, we had
heat only in the kitchen (space heater), cold running water only in the summer, and I remember eating supper with my dad who was a ditch digger.
My sister, myself and my dad shared 1 can of Dinty Moore stew and 2 pieces of bread with peanut butter for each of us, my dad had 2 cups of coffee with that. He was a big irishman, he was almost 6 feet tall and weighed 174 pounds and you can imagine how hungry he was after working on a road crew back then with no machines, only picks and shovels.

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. Excellent--thanks for this post

[seasat]

20. I'd also be that the 11% on Gov subsidy alone are mainly disabled.

I'd bet that if they broke down the type of assistance that they'd find that the majority of the 11% that recieves all their family income from government programs are disabled and unable to work. They are probably on social security disability. To me that is not an entitlement but a federal insurance program that we all pay into to support the unfortunate folks that become too disabled to work.