Poverty American Style

[undergroundpanther]

What does it mean to be poor in America?

"It means having to do without basic needs. It means being last, forgotten, judged wrongly by others."
Male, 44, Delaware, household of three, income less than $8,860

"To me, it is not being poor in itself that holds any meaning; it is seeing all the wealth in others, and of our nation, that makes your feel poor -- like living within many states of hopelessness."
Male, 40, California, household of nine, income less than $8,860.

"Hopeless."
Male, 58, Delaware, household of one, income less than $8,860

"Being unseen and unheard."
Female, 70, Washington, household of one, income of $8,860 to $11,939

"You are voiceless and somewhat powerless to change your situation, because you are too busy trying to survive to make the changes you need to improve your situation."
Female, 40, Washington, household of one, income less than $8,860

"I'm a senior, disabled, all alone, no money, sit in front of T.V. all day - why? Too poor to socialize. Poverty is like being in prison. Why even try to stay alive? For what?
Female, 62, Oregon, household of one, income less than $8,860

"You are treated as a second class citizen."
Male, 47, Oregon, household of one, income less than $8,860

"Heartbreaking. I worry about when I become elderly, sometimes I feel that my concerns, my voice isn't heard."
Female, 44, no state, household of two, income less than $8,860

"It's unbearable. It's like you have no reason to exist. Everywhere you go you get turned away."
Male, 45, Illinois, household of five, income of $11,940 to $15,019

"It feels as if you are the lowest creature on earth and rich people look down at you over their noses."
Male, 66, Pennsylvania, household of three, income of $15,020 to $18,099

"Struggling to pay bills, constant disconnection notices, not having money to wash and purchase clothing to work in because bills and household needs have to come first. Listening to your children say they are hungry, but not knowing what you are going to be able to give them before your food stamps come."
Female, 32, Missouri, household of five, income of less than $8,860

"I am poor so I know poverty. It's wearing tattered clothes and shoes and having to bow my head in the face of injustice and oppression."
Male, 55, Florida, household of two, income of less than $8,860


"People look down on you, thinking that you're nothing, like not one poor person tried in their life."
Female, Kansas, 16, household of three, income of less than $8,860

"Not having the American Dream."
Female, 49, New York, household of three, income of less than $8,860

"Not having enough money to have a nice Christmas. Not being able to have nice things for birthdays."
Female, 23, Michigan, household of one, income of less than $8,860

"Feeling like you always owe everyone either an apology or an explanation or both."
Female, 52, Kansas, household of four, income of less than $8,860

"Being poor in the U.S. today is very rough and scary."
Female, 36, Kansas, household of two, income of less than $8,860

"Looked over by most (due to fear), forgotten, seeing the richest people in the world while hungry and cold, feels alone and invalid."
Male, 31, California, household of six, income of $8,860 to $11,939

"It means I lost life as I knew it."
Male, 36, California, household of one, income of less than $8,860

http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour.htm

Where is the RAGE in America, on DU, about this?
Where are all the "good" rich people ,that everyone holds up as examples. Poster philanthropists on pedistals,to tell the poor and angry.."LOok! See all rich people are not greedy bastards" Here's ONE rich person that helps the poor! Hey! lets all rah rah about ONE or three rich people doing good deeds and pretend the other majority of rich greedy bastards who don't care don't matter? After all middle class people are who give more money to the poor and social welfare than the rich ever do. Why is that? The tight fists and hard hearts of the majority of the super wealthy DO hold it all to themselves. Are there just too many greedy rich people that the few rich that care cannot overcome the effects of the greed?

Is there something toxic about the culture of wealth and winner takes all? Why does it have to BE like this? And why do so many people who are not wealthy,fear limiting the obscene amounts of wealth that ONE person can hoard all to themselves,weath they will NEVER touch? It's so SAD.

http://www.g-r-e-e-d.com/GREED.htm
ttp://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/content.view/catid/68/cpid/415.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=230&topic_id=285&mesg_id=437

[kineneb]

1. I get it.

We are living on somewhat more than those folks, but not by much- two people on $14K/yr, in California. My family gives us gift ceritificates so we can buy food.

I AM outraged.
Outraged at a System that says: Earn just one dollar over a pitiful limit, and you pay for all your own medicines.
No sliding scale, no incentive to increase one's income, no ability to save anything (as if there was any money left to save).

Oh, yes, I am outraged.

Hubby and I are caught in The System. The only way he can leave it is by dying.
But my energies are taken up in caring for him: the visits to the dialysis clinic, the three doctors he visits, and the other medical stuff.

I am outraged, but really tired.
I think I will go talk to my pet chicken for a while.

[Sailor for Warner]

3. Bravissimi n/t

[undergroundpanther]

4. I wish I could help..

I get $579 a month.Fun.
I hope he isn't in hidious pain.
I'll offer you a furry purry hug anyways..
If ya want it?

[kineneb]

19. hugs are always welcome

Hubby is not in pain, but his future is one of spending three days per week, three hours per visit, sitting in a large chair, attached to a dialysis machine. He does not seem to be a good candidate for a kidney transplant due to heart/circulation problems.

Our meager income ($1199/mo) from his SSDI just covers our expenses. I can imagine the difficulty of trying to live on less. As it is, things get put off due to lack of funds. We have to keep our car going so he can get to dialysis and to all of the medical appointments he needs.

My heart goes out to all the poor in the US. For them, and for us, the "dream" is dead.

For me, it is back to relying on the lessons I learned from my grandparents, who lived through the Depression.

edited to add:
and feathery hugs from us and the chicken

[BuelahWitch]

2. Giving this a kick

It's sunk too low...

[upi402]

5. yeah, it needs to stay up top and personal

:grouphug:

[undergroundpanther]

6. Maybe get it on greatest than it won't go pouf?

[BuelahWitch]

7. I gave you a nom and another

:kick:

[blues90]

8. It is truely a sad situation

I did ok until oct of 2004 but since I lost that job i am just at the lest possible level of staying alive . I have sold most everything i had and don't ever see getting this back and that's ok , really . Oh sure it's a loss but it was just things .

I see many people who have absolutely no talent and have to wonder how on earth they have a job that pays well enough to live in a $1600 per month apartment , drive a new car and have new clothes and the latest electronics .

I never went to college perhaps I should have but then after 32 years would what I learned even apply now ?

I keep searching for the job that will allow me and my wife to feel secure but the roll down the list of jobs is a short and depressing one indeed .

Gone are the days where you could walk into a place and fill out an app and get an interview , no more signs outfront of companies with help wanted written on them .

Most of it is online and hope and wonder if ever someone will call . I can easily see why many people feel the loss of life is the only way out when there is no way up .

I am glad I don't have a family to care for or children to raise because I would not want to fail them or take them on the same road to hell .

At times I see in the future people having to resort to two or three family dwellings just to be able to afford housing and then most places have their rules about how many can occupy the same residence .

[frogbison]

9. We need to take care of each other

[ContraBass Black]

10. Is there a full-time job that pays less than $8000?

What jumped out at me is that the 62 year old called herself a senior. In the land of hope and opportunity, that's the age when the near future should promise rest and opportunity for decades to come.

[sandnsea]

13. 30 hrs a week

That's what they do, minimum wage at 30 hrs so they don't have to pay health insurance. They won't raise the wages and then they get mad when people need govt help to get by. That's the part I will never understand.

[eridani]

11. The worst of it is that poor is a minority here

In a place like Bolivia, where poor is the majority, they have even less, but they have the community and solidarity to fight back. (See kicking Bechtel out of Cochabamba, for instance.)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

15. And scattered

The so-called revitalization of some urban communities has left a serious dearth of low income housing. Poor people are increasingly forced into nomadic existences where it's impossible for them to form the communities that would lead to activism.

[bobbolink]

17. It's that lack of community that's the killer.

We're isolated from each other in many ways, the "progressives" don't have "time" for us, and the church has completely forgotten us.

After seeing the suffering on TV of the people at the Superdome and Convention Center in NOLA, I thought for sure that something would begin to break. An activist I knew, who had no interest in poverty issues, after seeing that on TV said, "Bobbolink, I get it now. I get it." But, of course, it was soon forgotten.

Then as the news hit that those same people were killing themselves because they had nowhere to live and noway to survive, I thought surely that would get a response. But...........

**crickets**

I'd like to do some organizing, but finding people who are suffering in this way is very tough. And, mostly, they're too scared and beaten down to speak up.

WE need a Bobby Kennedy so badly! We're so fractured, and we need a great leader to bring us together. Cuz we sure ain't getting nowhere with liberals today.

[XanaDUer]

12. K'd & r'd

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. Thanks for all the good posts undergroundpanther

I can always count on you for something unexpected and thought-provoking. Where IS the rage? And where is the there but for the grace of God go I that people should instinctually feel when confronted by poverty? Why do so many Americans persist in their illusions of infallibility, sustained by credit lines and second mortgages?

Bill Gates. I am SOOOOO tired of him being heralded as the shining example of opportunity. Other than the fact that he alone is richer than several COUNTRIES, I've got no animosity toward the guy, but geez. I am surrounded by guys here at work (high tech industry) who are convinced that the social safety net must be thrown out immediately in order to facilitate their attainment of a similar fortune. Like that's what's holding them back :eyes: They have no idea how badly the deck is stacked against them, nor do they comprehend how much closer they are to the people quoted in your post than they are to Mr. Gates.

I blame news and entertainment in large part for this. For every portrayal of poor people or poverty, there are like a hundred of rich celebrities or business tycoons. This skews the viewers' sense of proportion and reality. Poor people are depicted using negative stereotyping; they are invariably shown as stupid, lazy, and disreputable. Wealthy people are industrious, intelligent, and moral. But in reading those quotes it's obvious that there are a lot of smart and articulate people who are down on their luck.

One of the best books about this is Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. Her description of life among the working poor convinced me that it takes 10 times as much fortitude, creativity, and ingenuity than the average CEO possesses just to survive on a meager wage. Bill Gates couldn't hack it.

[madokie]

16. I know about poor, growing up in the '50s 13 kids total

no more than 8 at home at any one time. A dad unable to work largely due to self-imposed poor life choices which rendered him unemployable, a mother bless her heart who spent the days taking care of us kids, making our shirts or dresses on a pedal sewing machine, washing our cloths on an old maytag washing machine, the gasoline powered type. Picking blackberrys for a dime a gallon so as to maybe get a single pair of jeans or dresses as it may apply for the start of the school year. Trying to stretch the beans and if lucky, potatos for a few more days until the check came in, to the total of around 60 bucks a month. Getting up before daylight in the winter to run our, my bro and me, rabbit traps, or in the summer to go squirel hunting to see if we would have any meat to eat that day. I could dress a rabbit or squirel by the time I was the age of 5. I know about lye soap and how to make it, how to turn corn into hominy or how to make saurkraut, white ashes from soft wood to make the lye to make the soap or the hominy. Mom would spend weeks canning every summer on a wood cookstove as that was what was all we had. don't remember seeing a fan, hell we didn't even have electricity until I started school, no electric lines to hook up to. I remember getting a tonka toy truck with something like 8 wheels, that was disassembled immediately for the wheels so we could make two play cars instead of one truck as we had to make our own toys. How Mom would dress us up in our Sunday go meeting clothes for church, the church only a hop, skip and a jump from the house. The Baptist church my dad started and built in '52 that still has services today. The last time I was in the church was my dads funeral back in '77, they had a total of 45 member then, proudly displayed behind the pulpit. All I have known my whole life is work, and then more work. We had to cut our firewood with a crosscut saw and an axe, we were lucky to have a horse to pull the wagon loaded with the wood to the house. I still remember the day when I was 14 when we went from the old wood cook stove to a gas stove and how the food just wasn't the same, still to this day I can tell you if the food I eat was cooked over a gas fire. Thats why we are total electric now I guess.
Yes I know poor and I don't like it, no one should have to live like that, no one. The greatest freedom I ever enjoyed in life was to not have to spend this weeks paycheck this week. I remember mom saying that poor is not how much money you have but how you live, didn't really understand that until later in life. I never felt poor as a kid because there was always love and plenty of it.
peace
madokie
I say no one should have to live hand to mouth, period, no one anywhere in the world.

[bobbolink]

18. Thanks so much for your quotes! This is so important to hear!

I could also share my circumstances, which is very scary. However, on a forum like this, it does no good.

What I really would like to know is, why is this issue of poverty in the U.S. of so little interest?

Why do the liberals and progressives not put poverty on any of their lists of important issues?

What will it take to change that?

Why does the suffering of fellow citizens not seem to matter anymore to either liberal activists, or the church?

I'd really like to hear some thoughts on this!

Really!