I live in the Chicago land area, and when i walk downtown I see way too many homeless people and housing projects. I understand that sometimes it is a lack of good choices that puts people in these situations but it is my opinion that rather than sending things like money (that we dont have) and weapons overseas, why aren't we doing more constructive things on our own soil such as maybe helping find these people decent jobs and fixing up our inner cities? If we have millions of dollars to send to foreign countries to help them win a war that has no concern to us, why don't we have the money to help the starving children and single mothers at home? I think that we, as a country need to be a little bit more isolationist and make more of an effort to help the people who are struggling here in the U.S. especially since our lower class is growing at a rapid pace. In addition, with the way the economy is going, it is almost impossible for these people to survive and make it in society today. I would consider myself as part of the middle class, but if the economy stays the way it is, i don't know how long it will be until i'm considered part of the lower class.
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When looking at the issue of poverty, I myself view it as mainly a moral issue. Sure some are there because of bad choices, but many are there because of the cycle they are caught in. We need to stand up for those that are oppressed and lend them a hand in any way possible.
But for those out there that could care less about anyone but themselves, they would be doing themselves a disservice if they failed to look into the affects of poverty on our economy. With children growing up poor and crime being attractive we have to be honest, we may all be born equal, but that doesn't last for long. Each of us is victim to circumstance and American's as a whole are not on a level playing field, so the poor do what they need to do. Not only is this bad for them and their future, it is bad for the well being of our country.
I agree, this is America's problem and given the state of the economy and the growing number of those in poverty, we must treat it as that. Hopefully because we are good human beings that care for the well being of others, but if not, even the selfish have reason to participate in the fight.
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"Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe"-- St. Augustine
I don't think anybody likes poverty. The disagreement is over how to fix it.
One political party believes that the answer is a hand-up and the other political party believes in a hand-out.
One political party believes in school choice and school competition via vouchers and letting the market fix failing schools. The other political party believes in throwing ever more money at the same teachers union that gave us the failing schools in the first place and has no intention of changing anything except paying themselves better.
To a very large degree poverty is a matter of personal choice. There are ways out of poverty for those who work at it. And largely those who remain tend to live where there is poverty and they keep voting for the same political party that has been running the inner cities for 50 years and giving them crappy school and failing to provide adequate law enforcement to attract employers and generally keeping them poor and ignorant.
My personal solution is to quit importing unskilled labor in the form of illegal immigrants and let the market drive the wages for poor unskilled people high enough where those that choose to work will be part of the middle class.
Good point. The only thing worth discussion is how to fix it.
I would start with our welfare system. Some sort of welfare is needed, but it must provide the tools and opportunities for the poor to be given a chance to provide for themselves, their family, and move forward economically. Currently, we offer nothing but a trap, a system that offers just enough footing to make recipients able to fall again.
Next or equally we should focus on educating our youth, no and making it as much of a priority to the underclasses as it is to the middle and upper.
Until we fix these two things the third and most important aspect (in my mind) will not improve, that is the family institution. Unfortunately, poverty enslaves for generations. Other than rare exceptions, poverty is often times inherited and we should be looking at the economic and social policies that have contributed to our current situation.
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"Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe"-- St. Augustine
Why is Poverty so rampant?
I did a little research on poverty and according to Wikipedia somewhere between 10 and 15% of our population lives in poverty. In a population of 300 million that translates to 3o to 45 million people. Interestingly, I frequently here that there are about 40 million people in the USA wihout health insurance. I bet there is a very large overlap between the two groups.
We have somewhere between 12 and 25 million illegal aliens in America and most of them are living at very close to or below the poverty line. We could go a long ways towards fixing both our poverty and our uninsured problems by rigorously enforcing our immigration laws.
And if we made a huge reduction in the illegal workforce, there would be a mismatch between the demand and supply for unskilled labor that would cause wages to rise and a lot of our native born and legal immigrant poor would climb out of poverty too.
I agree with all of your statements. But it seems that rather than actually doing the research and making efforts to fix the problem, our country's leaders are only arguing about it and really not getting anywhere. And I do think that there are things we can do to fix it, its just not convenient and thats why it doesn't get fixed.