How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America

[ApRyL]

[quote author=the color nine link=topic=22915.msg1424255#msg1424255 date=1256325850]
We don't and can't have anything extra.  I am amazed that some people can afford cell phones and car payments.  Home, electricity, heat, food and medications is about it.  Our entertainment is cable/internet and netflix.  We can't go anywhere or eat out.  The big treat is the occasional bottle of booze/wine or six pack for us and or soda/pop for the kids. If a event calls for a celebration.  Christmas is celebrated as far as any gifts go at tax refund time.  Every time I see something I want I bookmark it for then.
When we get an excess of something we have grown we give to those that need it.  
[/quote]

I do ALOT of my yearly shopping at tax times, I have been fortunate to have had a bit of monies left to me over the years to have some of the nicer things that I get to enjoy...I'm quite frugal, and refuse to shop at Abercrombie etc but instead do TONS of second hand and thrift store buying, my kids are able to have the name brands they want and my pocket book isn't empty afterwards. I am a bargain buyer, be it for home items, personal items, or entertainment items/nights. I have most surely been effected by the state of our economy, it has taught me some lessons about finance and future planning that I don't think I could or would have learned had our economy not gone through such a depression.....

[bowieluva]

[quote author=deliberate_misuse link=topic=22915.msg1424280#msg1424280 date=1256327484]
Most poverty is borne of lack of education.  Without education, people have children too young, never get themselves back on their feet, get stuck in low-paying, dead-end jobs, live in crime-ridden neighborhoods (poverty and crime are inextricably linked), and their children repeat the cycle.
[/quote]
I agree. I also think it's the cultural de-emphasis on the importance of education. When I was in high school, I'd say 90% of the student body was utterly disinterested in being there and had no idea why anything would be necessary to know beyond basic skills. I expected it to be different in college but I heard the same constant complaining there. It's like poor people raise their kids to think education is elitist and rich people raise their kids to think they already know everything.

[the color nine]

I was raised with money and inherited an obscene amount of money.  Horrible lifetime movie events happened and I ended up without money and fleeing to another state.  I actually chose this area to live because no one here has much and I thought my daughter wouldn't be as traumatized by her drastic change in lifestyles.  Most people in this area are what I would consider at or below the poverty line.  There are no high paying jobs in the area.  Those that do have money work in NYC and commute. My husband works at a high tech job that pays him at least 10 to 15 thousand less that he would make doing the same thing in another area.  In fact I am on workers comp and disability and bring in more than he makes.  Head hunters spotted him and want him but this would mean moving to New Mexico and we can't because of the kids. 

[dzovi]

[quote author=Peavey link=topic=22915.msg1423513#msg1423513 date=1256252456]
Whatever.  You aren't contributing to U.S. poverty by not contributing to the system. Millions of people can't make it despite their best efforts. 
[/quote]

Could you elaborate on the point that millions of people can't make it out of poverty? 

[g r ee n ey e s]

America is a Capatalist society. If the people who have most of the money and power wanted people to have enough just to live, they would have it. The constant need to be 'on top' and 'above' others means there has to be someone below taking the brunt. We make this an obvious choice by the way we try and keep ourselves Big Bad America. In order to tackle the issue of poverty period we have to change our priorities in life in general.

[deliberate_misuse]

[quote author=g r ee n ey e s link=topic=22915.msg1424319#msg1424319 date=1256331340]
America is a Capatalist society. If the people who have most of the money and power wanted people to have enough just to live, they would have it. The constant need to be 'on top' and 'above' others means there has to be someone below taking the brunt. We make this an obvious choice by the way we try and keep ourselves Big Bad America. In order to tackle the issue of poverty period we have to change our priorities in life in general.
[/quote]

Capitalism isn't bad; spending more than you have is bad.  If no one spends money, the economy comes to a standstill.  Items aren't sold, factories stop producing and raw materials aren't harvested.  Then people lose jobs and no one has any money to spend or save.  If you live beyond your means, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I posted something I saw on TV last year.  A news reporter was asking people in line at a food bank if they had cable tv (yes), heat and hot water (yes), and cell phones (yes).  I think this is what dzovi is talking about:  Our perception of poverty is different from the reality, and, as others have pointed out, people's priorities are messed up.

[ApRyL]

[quote author=deliberate_misuse link=topic=22915.msg1424328#msg1424328 date=1256331757]
Capitalism isn't bad; spending more than you have is bad.  If no one spends money, the economy comes to a standstill.  Items aren't sold, factories stop producing and raw materials aren't harvested.  Then people lose jobs and no one has any money to spend or save.  If you live beyond your means, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I posted something I saw on TV last year.  A news reporter was asking people in line at a food bank if they had cable tv (yes), heat and hot water (yes), and cell phones (yes).  I think this is what dzovi is talking about: Our perception of poverty is different from the reality, and, as others have pointed out, people's priorities are messed up.
[/quote]

This is sort of what I was getting at by saying according to the calculator I'm impoverished by some crazy standard, when I feel like The Jones's that people in my neighborhood are trying to keep up with. What I deem a necessity isn't what what most of the "entitled generation " would deem a necessity. I argue to the point of wanting to slap my family about the frivilous ways they want to toss money out the window.I grew up with money in our family, and had a crazy hippie dad that rushed me out of Rockford to Northern Ny to a wilderness campground to live in a commune setting, in no way shape or form did I have cable, or new anything.
I was joking in a sad way to my mother { who didn't make the NY journey with her family} about Halloween, how by god if I wasn't a dead hooker for 6 years in a row out of makeup and old clothes, now kids want a new store bought costume every year, even when there are plenty in the attic from years gone by....
It is a struggle for me to know how little others have and how much I feel I have and to be considered poor.I don't live in a mansion, I have a modest home and a rental that my parents rent , I don't drive a brand new car, but it isn't rusting out, my kids have medical insurance, they eat every day, they have clean clothes and clean bodies....and I'm grateful for that, but I could give in less and save more....


* I lost my train of thought, I got side tracked by the small people

[Peavey]

[quote author=dzovi link=topic=22915.msg1424310#msg1424310 date=1256330348]
Could you elaborate on the point that millions of people can't make it out of poverty? 
[/quote]

Of course.  The U.S. purports itself to be a meritocracy, based on a 'bootstraps' mentality.  If you are raised in a poor family, and (as others have mentioned) come from lower quality education, you can not make it very far.  Minimum wage jobs do not pay a living wage, and therefore people who are born into povery stay impoverished.  Of course, this has racialized and gendered implications.

Sure, there are people that are 'succes stories', but by holding them up as examples, one does little to break the cycle of systemic poverty.  There is a reason that very few children from the S. Bronx public school system go on to be middle class.  It has to do with a number of different socializing agents, but the deck, without a doubt, is stacked.

[nerysinci]

*bookmarking

[dzovi]

[quote author=Peavey link=topic=22915.msg1424489#msg1424489 date=1256340301]
Of course.  The U.S. purports itself to be a meritocracy, based on a 'bootstraps' mentality.  If you are raised in a poor family, and (as others have mentioned) come from lower quality education, you can not make it very far.  Minimum wage jobs do not pay a living wage, and therefore people who are born into povery stay impoverished.  Of course, this has racialized and gendered implications.

Sure, there are people that are 'succes stories', but by holding them up as examples, one does little to break the cycle of systemic poverty.  There is a reason that very few children from the S. Bronx public school system go on to be middle class.  It has to do with a number of different socializing agents, but the deck, without a doubt, is stacked.
[/quote]

I've always thought that education was cheap (or relatively).  In California a community college only costs $20/unit and is a great stepping stone to a university.  Community colleges offer remedial classes if needed and can bring a person up to speed if they want the education.  Even if a person didn't want to go the formal education route there's always the military (coast guard, army, marines, etc..) that will educate you at night while you work during the day.  Certain life decisions, like having a kid young, can make getting a education difficult but there are loans and programs to help people out.  Loans and scholarships are actually easier to get the less money your parents make.  I knew a guy in college that had a laptop, a motorcycle, a car and at out all the time because of the grants due to his family being poor.  There are opportunities if a person loos for them.

In my opinion the reason why the poor stay poor has more to do to than the availability of a quality education.  Some of the poor have a hard time teaching their children to be successful because they're not successful.  It's difficult to teach something that you don't know or don't have any experience in.  There's also the problem with personal connections and business opportunities that the poor don't always have.  What I've seen is that if a person who is caught up in a family that is poor because of their behavior (drugs, abuse, crime), the best thing for them to do is move away.  Helps break the behavior chain and gets them out of people dragging them down.

The middle class and the upper class teach their kids life skills and/or behavior that help them be successful.  I also believe that the expectation on the kids are different by different wealth groups.  For some middle and upper class families there is a ingrained expectation that you're going to go to college.  With the lower class that's not as much a influence or maybe a possibility in their opinion.  My wife was the first in both sides of her family to graduate college.  She did have a tougher path because her family didn't necessarily see the importance of college and didn't support her while she was going. 

[dzovi]

[quote author=Ron_NYC link=topic=22915.msg1423512#msg1423512 date=1256252234]
Dude, I'm on medicaid, get financial aid, and am trying to get food stamps. I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem.
[/quote]

My apologies if I'm making any assumptions but didn't you just get back from Europe?

[bowieluva]

Whaaaat you have some good points dzovi and Imma let you finish but the US has one of the most expensive education systems of all time.
Community college is generally a much lesser quality education, which is why it's a stepping stone, and the UC system is the only one I can think of that appears in University top twenty lists, and it's still very expensive for out of state students (upwards of ten grand). I would say most kids I know who went to college are between 40-150 grand in the hole. And let's not even talk about what an MA can run you, hence one of my motives to do it in the UK where the school is free/about $3500 for the WHOLE PROGRAM, not just the semester.

[dzovi]

[quote author=bowieluva link=topic=22915.msg1425125#msg1425125 date=1256412738]
Whaaaat you have some good points dzovi and Imma let you finish but the US has one of the most expensive education systems of all time.
Community college is generally a much lesser quality education, which is why it's a stepping stone, and the UC system is the only one I can think of that appears in University top twenty lists, and it's still very expensive for out of state students (upwards of ten grand). I would say most kids I know who went to college are between 40-150 grand in the hole. And let's not even talk about what an MA can run you, hence one of my motives to do it in the UK where the school is free/about $3500 for the WHOLE PROGRAM, not just the semester.

[/quote]

I should have evaluated further, the community college system is inexpensive relative to the UC system.  I went to a UC college and at that time it costs me approximately $9,000 a year.  I didn't get over to the UC system till I was 23 because I worked six days a week to save up enough money to pay for school.  Once at school I had to work around 24-30 hours to stay positive.  It wasn't easy but I came out of school a more developed person.  It helped me learn that there isn't a shortage of smart people in this work (my UC had around 20,000 people) but there was a shortage of people in the work force that work hard and have desire. 

As for the UC system not being in the top 20 list (I think only UCLA is in the top 20) it still is a quality education.  You can have great success if you just go to a state school (around $2,500/yr).  You don't have to go to a Ivy league school to break into the middle class. 

As for a MA, so many students are getting their MA right out of school.  Some never have worked a day in their field that they are going to school for but they choose to invest around $80K doing so.  Kinda foolish in my opinion.  A more resourceful way would be to get a job in the field you want to work in and have the company pay for your college (not that uncommon for tuition reimbursement once you're employed full-time).   

[Ron_NYC]

[quote author=dzovi link=topic=22915.msg1425103#msg1425103 date=1256412082]
My apologies if I'm making any assumptions but didn't you just get back from Europe?
[/quote]
Yea. I was there in June. France. Trip cost me about $750 or so, airfare and all. :-D

[nerysinci]

:lol: dzovi, you do make some good points, but the military educating you at night thing?  Yeeeeeeahhhhh, about that.  First, it depends on where you are stationed and what they offer.  Second, your schedule needs to allow for it.  I was working 12 hour shifts, and I switched from days to nights every two weeks.  I tried to do the college thing while active duty, but it was too much.  Missing classes really screwed me up.  Also, not every ship provides classes onboard, so there's that, too. 

The colleges that are on-base offering classes don't offer EVERYTHING, too.  I want to be a nurse.  None of the military college programs where I was stationed offered nursing.  So I started working on pre-reqs, but yeah, it was too much for my schedule.  To top THAT off, I actually wasn't allowed to get tuition assistance for over a year while I was in a training program at my job.  How bullshit is that? And right after that ended, I had less than a year left on my contract, and at the time, if you had less than a year left, you didn't qualify for TA (which is bullshit, I earned that and wouldn't people getting out need it even more!?).  Of course, after the registration period ended, enough people had complained to warrant them changing that rule, but it was already too late for me. 

So here I sit, a 25-year-old freshman.  Oh, and as for the GI Bill, you don't get to just do whatever you want.  Your degree program must be approved by the VA.  The VA only pays for classes required for my degree (no recommended), and they only pay the living stipend if I am in school full-time.  If I were staying at the school I'm currently at, I'd eventually need to pay out of pocket.  For my degree, I'd need to start supplementing my schedule with *recommended* classes in order to qualify as full-time as soon as this summer, because I wouldn't have met all the pre-reqs for some other classes yet.  It's boring so I won't get into it, but suffice it to say, it isn't as easy as you make it sound.

[bowieluva]

Unfortunately, a degree isn't worth shit anymore and is mostly just an excuse to keep people from overpopulating the work force. The new Time or Newsweek, I forgot which one, is running a story advocating universities create a three year system. I think that actually, people need to stay in college longer. That's why more people than ever are going back to grad school earlier: they have nowhere else to go.
But there are also a lot of other factors before college. The standard of education in the US is subpar and doesn't prepare people adequately. Especially in Cali, where we rank in the bottom alongside Alabama. And private schools aren't a better choice because you don't even need an education degree to become a teacher at a private institution. I couldn't believe how ill-prepped private school kids were to be in college. All that 'alternative learning' meant they didn't even know how to properly construct an essay. It was pathetic. They could quote Chaucer but didn't know anything practical. If you can't properly articulate your theories, it doesn't matter how smart you are.
And I fear for the public education system because so many morons are infiltrating it as the pay is shitty and the reward minimal at best. Teaching should be one of the highest-paid professions and it should be much harder to teach. When I was in high school, all the relics from the better days of yore were retiring and the replacements tended to be english teachers who spelled this wrong or didn't understand grammar, etc.

[nerysinci]

[quote author=bowieluva link=topic=22915.msg1425156#msg1425156 date=1256413968]
Unfortunately, a degree isn't worth shit anymore and is mostly just an excuse to keep people from overpopulating the work force. The new Time or Newsweek, I forgot which one, is running a story advocating universities create a three year system. I think that actually, people need to stay in college longer. That's why more people than ever are going back to grad school earlier: they have nowhere else to go.
But there are also a lot of other factors before college. The standard of education in the US is subpar and doesn't prepare people adequately. Especially in Cali, where we rank in the bottom alongside Alabama. And private schools aren't a better choice because you don't even need an education degree to become a teacher at a private institution. I couldn't believe how ill-prepped private school kids were to be in college. All that 'alternative learning' meant they didn't even know how to properly construct an essay. It was pathetic. They could quote Chauncer but didn't know anything practical. If you can't properly articulate your theories, it doesn't matter how smart you are.
And I fear for the public education system because so many morons are infiltrating it as the pay is shitty and the reward minimal at best. Teaching should be one of the highest-paid professions and it should be much harder to teach. When I was in high school, all the relics from the better days of yore were retiring and the replacements tended to be english teachers who spelled this wrong or didn't understand grammar, etc.
[/quote]

Word, homey.  For the longest time, I wanted to be a teacher.  Then I realized I don't want to deal with all that crap, only to be awarded with shitty pay AND having to pay for my own classroom items (pencils, crayons, etc).  I feel bad for teachers.  They're the foundation of pretty much EVERYTHING.

[dzovi]

[quote author=nerysinci link=topic=22915.msg1425155#msg1425155 date=1256413932]
:lol: dzovi, you do make some good points, but the military educating you at night thing?  Yeeeeeeahhhhh, about that.  First, it depends on where you are stationed and what they offer.  Second, your schedule needs to allow for it.  I was working 12 hour shifts, and I switched from days to nights every two weeks.  I tried to do the college thing while active duty, but it was too much.  Missing classes really screwed me up.  Also, not every ship provides classes onboard, so there's that, too. 

The colleges that are on-base offering classes don't offer EVERYTHING, too.  I want to be a nurse.  None of the military college programs where I was stationed offered nursing.  So I started working on pre-reqs, but yeah, it was too much for my schedule.  To top THAT off, I actually wasn't allowed to get tuition assistance for over a year while I was in a training program at my job.  How bullshit is that? And right after that ended, I had less than a year left on my contract, and at the time, if you had less than a year left, you didn't qualify for TA (which is bullshit, I earned that and wouldn't people getting out need it even more!?).  Of course, after the registration period ended, enough people had complained to warrant them changing that rule, but it was already too late for me. 

So here I sit, a 25-year-old freshman.  Oh, and as for the GI Bill, you don't get to just do whatever you want.  Your degree program must be approved by the VA.  The VA only pays for classes required for my degree (no recommended), and they only pay the living stipend if I am in school full-time.  If I were staying at the school I'm currently at, I'd eventually need to pay out of pocket.  For my degree, I'd need to start supplementing my schedule with *recommended* classes in order to qualify as full-time as soon as this summer, because I wouldn't have met all the pre-reqs for some other classes yet.  It's boring so I won't get into it, but suffice it to say, it isn't as easy as you make it sound.
[/quote]

Sorry to hear that you had a crappy experience.  I haven't gone the military route and didn't know of the restrictions that it posed.  My cousin is a lifer and he's got about two undergrad and three associate degrees because of the classes he has taken.  I've never talked to him about the restrictions though.

Hang in there.  Twenty five isn't old and you've got a long career ahead of you once you get out.

[dzovi]

[quote author=nerysinci link=topic=22915.msg1425159#msg1425159 date=1256414319]
Word, homey.  For the longest time, I wanted to be a teacher.  Then I realized I don't want to deal with all that crap, only to be awarded with shitty pay AND having to pay for my own classroom items (pencils, crayons, etc).  I feel bad for teachers.  They're the foundation of pretty much EVERYTHING.
[/quote]

My wife is a teacher and teaching a class is hard enough but also having to cater to the politics of teaching as well is annoying.  From what my wife tells me, she'd love to teach the kids things that are relevant to what they'll need in life but her career depends on her teaching the aptitude tests.  She's been teaching for two years and is getting pretty fed up with the situation.  All that after going to school for five years and passing about five other state test that are expensive.

[nerysinci]

[quote author=dzovi link=topic=22915.msg1425162#msg1425162 date=1256414412]
Sorry to hear that you had a crappy experience.  I haven't gone the military route and didn't know of the restrictions that it posed.  My cousin is a lifer and he's got about two undergrad and three associate degrees because of the classes he has taken.  I've never talked to him about the restrictions though.

Hang in there.  Twenty five isn't old and you've got a long career ahead of you once you get out.
[/quote]

Oh, I'm not saying it isn't possible.  I do know some people that have gotten a degree while doing MY job, but they had no life while doing it :lol:  Seriously.  They'd be working 12 hour days, and then be doing homework/going to class during their 12 hours off and their days off.  I decided to enjoy where I was stationed (Japan/Hawaii) instead of getting my degree.  I'd do it all over again too, haha.

[Circe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bObItmxAGc

[g r ee n ey e s]

[quote author=Circe link=topic=22915.msg1428526#msg1428526 date=1256665707]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bObItmxAGc
[/quote]

:lol:

+1