When reading the true/false statements in the beginning of the article I thought true for almost all of them. I perceive poverty like the 1960’s. The book also contradicted itself and later stated some of those false statements as truths. For example it stated that a majority of those who receive welfare (AFDC) are single mothers with children. This is true, that proportionally to those that are poor it is a small number, but Mrs. Blank worded her statement to her point of view.
People who retired in 1980 received back what they paid into the program in less then 4 years. The government increases in SSI successfully decreased the number of elderly that are poor but will run out in the early 2000’s. Many people including myself have a misconception that poverty is synonymous with welfare. Welfare goes primarily to single mothers with children which is approximately 65% but that is only 25% of the poor. There are more white people in poverty but this is only because whites are a bigger proportion of the population. African Americans are more likely to be chronic poor. Two-thirds of all black people are poor for at least one year. Africans are more likely to be and stay poor. Tax payers don’t like the chronic poor. They believed that there money is being used on lazy people or people that are taking advantage of the system. Most poor only remain poor for one to three years. A majority of poor don’t live in ghettos. Poverty is almost invisible unless you’re talking about panhandlers and homeless. Since these people are most visible we assume most poor live here. The article gave the example of guessing teenagers income levels inside shopping malls. 90% of poor people and 75% of African American poor live outside of ghettos. Most people are never poor. For those who do become poor there are many reasons how/why people get in and out of poverty. The largest for in and out is the earning of the head of the household. There isn’t another large factor for why family fall into poverty. Minorities still face discrimination that limits wages and employment opportunities.
What Does it Mean to be Poor in America? – Maya Federman
There are seven categories that define poverty including: income sources, spending patterns, housing, consumer durables and utilities, crime and neighborhood, education. Poor children have a limited number of books. Children five to seven years old with less then 10 books are considered poor. The poor are more likely to repeat a grade and three times more likely to be expelled from a school. 96% of nonpoor students continue education and 90% are expected to graduate compared to poor student rates of 90% attending college and 83% graduating. The percentage of students of poor families attending college is a lot higher then I expected. It’s common sense that families and individuals with more money spend more money. Families make a substantial amount more then singles do ($8,501 vs. $55, 394). Most people regardless of income have the same access to utilities. For example 98% to 99.5% poor people have access to refrigerators and stoves. Only 3% of students in poor families have computers at home. Nonpoor families are three times more likely to own the house they live in. Only 51% of families that live in houses with two-parents own them. Poor families have a five times higher chance of eviction on their housing. Individuals that live in poor neighborhoods are twice as likely to be victims of violent crime. Poor mothers have 5.5 per 1,000 more infant deaths within the first year. This is related to poor prenatal care. Children under 18 years old have no noticeable difference in how often they go to a doctor per year.78% of nonpoor have insurance compared to 24% of poor.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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One thing that I noticed in both “The Changing Faces of Poverty” and “What Does it Mean to be Poor in America” is that like Jon mentioned, the stereotypes (some of which were listed) that we are made to believe by what we see on TV and in the media are false. We think that the elderly are the poor ones or that the poor are mostly single mothers with a bunch of kids. What I picked up from the readings was that you really cannot even tell who is poor and who is not at a glance today. Everyone seems to think the very poor are black and/or single mothers that live in the ghetto but really its more likely to be your next door neighbor and it isn’t just single people either, its married couples, middle aged people, young people, black, white… Anyone.
ReplyDeleteI think these articles are especially relevant today with everything that is going on with the economy. People who had decent incomes 15 years ago are now flirting with the poverty lines. The face of poverty really is changing. You can pretty make take a walk down any street in any city and see a foreclosure notices on a door, even in well-to-do neighborhoods. You just don’t know anymore who is poor and who is not.
Something else I was thinking about while reading this which was demonstrated in “40 Acres and a Mules” as well was that once you get in that cycle of poverty its really hard to escape. One of the readings said that the poor are more likely to have their utilities turned off at any given point in a 12 month period, they are more likely not to make payments, they are more likely to be victims of crime… which makes them even poorer and puts them in an even worse position. A lot of people blame poor people for being poor but its such a vicious cycle that I think they just have a really hard time getting out of it regardless of how they got their in the first place. At some point they probably feel hopeless and just give up.
There was a lot of good, statistical information in these two articles, as Jon said. We learned a lot about what poverty is, who is poor, and a little bit about why. One thing that I found interesting was the fact that “the poor” generally aren’t chronically poor, but only live in poverty for a little while. I have often wrongly grouped the poor into a group of their own, much like racism or sexism, and subconscious discriminate against them, but different from sex or skin color-people don’t stay in poverty.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the articles and comments were quite subjective, very specific and cut and dry. Especially in the second piece: “What does is mean to be poor in America?” I got the distinct feeling of there being a distinct line between poor and nonpoor. Everything in the article was divided into “the poor have this and the nonpoor have this.” But to me, I don’t think there is a line as much as a grey smudgy area. Being poor is defined as “having cash income below the poverty level” and resulting from this lack of income, there is also a lack in education, housing, health care etc. Personally, I think being poor is more subjective and shouldn’t be reduced to a dollar amount. Emotions, feelings, and more also need to be taken into consideration. Someone could make a lot of money and still be considered poor and someone could make next to nothing and consider themselves rich. This is personal evaluation needs also to be taken into account, along with the income level, before labeling a person to be poor or not.