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Writers' Post Network Blog: Poverty & Economic Justice - Entered Pope Francis Following the "Occupy Movement" & President Obama's Inclusive Domestic Agenda
Posted on November 30, 2013 at 11:20 AM |
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The Ultimate Authoritative Voice on Trickle-Down Economics & Income Inequality & Social Injustice Preceded by the
Occupy Movement & the Obama Agenda v. The Demonetization of the Poor by Tea Party Republicans This
week, a series of released reports converged to highlight the state of hunger
and poverty around the world, and in the United States. The release of these
reports coincided with Pope Francis’ written document and interviews on income
inequality, the dark side of capitalism, the damaging impact of unbridled free
market on the rest of society, and the destructive force of economic greed. The
data on poverty, hunger, and the poverty threshold, are issued by various governmental
agencies, policy research centers, and independent non-profit poverty watchdog
and service organizations. The combined
data from all of those sources are used to chart the state of the economy in
broad terms, and to determine economic growth, income growth, trends, and
statistics in various sectors of the economy and among different segments of
the U.S population. The data is also used to define the poverty threshold, and
economic equality in terms of shared prosperity. In addition to those
independent data sources some of which are headed by researchers and economists
from the nation’s top universities, data statistics are also compiled and flow
from The United Nation Momentum project and other UN anti-poverty programs,
such as AIDS and UNICEF, which monitor world poverty, conduct research, and
pursue policy measures to combat world poverty. In
the United States, the most widely used sources of data and statistics on
household income and income distribution are the “annual survey of households”
conducted as part of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), and
the Statistics of Income (SOI) data compiled by the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) using a sample of individual income tax returns. The Census Bureau also
publishes an annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage.
This data is converted into a shared file and made available to researchers.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) combines both the Census Bureau’s and the
IRS’ data in its own model to project household incomes. To be eligible to
receive government assistance, an individual or a family must be living at 130
percent below the poverty level. While studies have shown that poverty kills
millions of people in the United States and across the world, and leaves
millions more at risk of societal ills and diseases, the government’s
calculation of levels of poverty can leave even millions more in the cold. For
example, two households with an income of $29,000 are ranked at the same
poverty level on the income distribution ladder, even if one of the two
contains two children and the other is made of a single individual. In few cases, under certain types of
programs, the income is adjusted based on household size so that the larger
household is regarded as having a smaller income. While
we were asleep, the world population grew to 7.1 billion people, and given the
failure of governments to bring about economic justice and income equality,
poverty and hunger also rose with the increase in the number of people living
in poverty and children going to bed hungry around the world. However, while
poverty and hunger remain prevalent in poorer and less developed countries (98%
of the world’s people live in poverty), there is no excuse for the 15 percent of
Americans, or 46.5 million of the 330 million people who live in the United
State, to continue to live at or below the government-defined poverty line.
14.5 percent of U.S. households (nearly 49 million Americans, including 15.9
million children) do not have adequate access to food and nutrition. These
numbers do not account for those who may be working but are unable to
adequately feed themselves or their families, the homeless, and the unemployed.
At a time when the poverty rate was roughly 19%, President Lyndon B. Johnson
declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America,” in his State of the
Union Address on January 8, 1964. About
a decade later in the late 1970’s, following the implementation of government
anti-poverty policy program, the ranks of the poor and the hungry in the United
States decreased toward the end of the Johnson’s presidency and the percentage
of Americans living in poverty was on track to continue to decrease through the
1980’s. Today, the level of poverty in the U.S. is about the same as it was in
the middle of the Reagan presidency in 1983 and it remained steady through 1993
at the end of the twelve years of trickle-down economics under Reagan and
W.H.Bush. But
the data released this week from various research studies on economic
inequality, including data on poverty from the Census Bureau figures are
shocking. The consumer index and data statistics showed that the top 10 percent
of earners saw a 34% gain in their income, while the bottom 90% saw a gain of 0.4%
in earning. While some argue that capitalism is not a zero-some game where what
goes to one necessarily comes from another, and that income equality will not
derive from distributing smaller pieces of the pie but by growing the pie to
provide for more slices to be distributed to more people, the U.S. and the
world’s economy today may be operating more on trickle-down than capitalism.
Trickle-down economy, which was more precisely defined and widely practiced by
Ronald Reagan provides for the government to facilitate earning by top earners
relying on those top-earners to use a portion of their gains to invest in the
economy, thereby benefiting those at the bottom by default through new
investment. As an economic model trickle-down has failed miserably in two
decades of implementation under Presidents Reagan, George H. Walker Bush, and
President George W. Bush, leaving tens of millions of Americans living in economic
distress, insecurity, poverty, hunger, and sometimes, abject destitution. In
an article in the Institute for Faith – Work and Economics, Jay W. Richards
attempted to salvage what is left of the image of free enterprise as a socially
fair and just economic model. “Greed, miserliness, and hoarding are
rightly condemned in scripture [he wrote], but the greedy, the misers, and the
hoarders [Edit], these are the stereotypes of free enterprise. The real men and
women who live out the entrepreneurial vocation are often far different from
these caricatures. They save, they serve, and they take principled risk. This
is the essence of free enterprise, not greed.” The
truth is, these characteristics are not mere stereotypes when describing
today’s vulture-like model of free enterprise as it is practiced by modern
capitalists. Today’s free enterprise in the context of the capitalist society
is based fundamentally on greed, hoarding, extreme individualism bordering on
selfish gluttony, and everything that goes against the teachings of Christ and
his Church. This spirit has become pervasive in the U.S. government with the
dominance of the House of Representatives by Tea Party Republicans. The
following are just a sample of the insidious quotes made by Congressional
Republicans, using Bible passages to justify the decimation of food stamp and
why the government should pursue policies that take food away from the poor,
the weak, and the hungry, while continuing subsidies, tax cuts, and loophole
for the rich and large corporations: Photo_Minnesota Public Radio It
is economic journalist, Henry Hazlitt, as quoted by Richards, who captured the
contour of the problems that have helped to perpetuate poverty; the lack of
moral, compassion, and the short-sightedness of law and policy-makers to
advance policies that can benefit the population at large, thus advance social
and economic equality. To that effect, Hazlitt said, “The art of economics consists in
looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or
policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for
one group but for all groups.” This
week, Pope Francis put the matter to bed for those Republicans who seem
confused about their religion, Bible passages, and Jesus’ parables. In his
first “Evangelii Gaudium” (an 84-page
long document) or The Joy of the Gospel, the Pontiff exhorted the world to
Catholic values; He wrote: "Just as the commandment 'Thou
shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human
life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and
inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item
when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock
market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Some people continue to
defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and
inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the
facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding
economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic
system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." The
Pope’s admonishment was published almost simultaneously with multiple
scientific researches that showed the devastating and long-term effects of
poverty on people, particularly children. In addition to the severe impact and
the risks that poverty poses to those at the bottom of the economic ladder,
researchers have found that rather than being a factor of individual behavior,
morality, or traits, poverty is the net result of the economic inequality that
has been almost entrenched in an unbreakable social stratum. In this respect,
poverty is at once, both oppressive and pervasive. Contrary to old beliefs and
myths that poorer people have lower IQ, poorer judgment, or are lazy,
researchers have found that it is, in fact, poverty that hinders some of those
higher levels of thinking that people need to function effectively in a complex
social structure. Poverty and the minute-by-minute struggle for survival and
the struggle for basic human necessities, they found, consume so much of those
high cerebral functions nestled in the frontal cortex of the brain that poorer
people are left with little ability and brain power to spend on concentration, patience,
cognitive tasking, focus, and reasoning outside of money factors. That has led the
researchers to conclude that “All the data shows it isn't about poor people, it’s about people who happen to be in
poverty. All the data suggests it is not the person, it's the context they
inhabit [Edit].” The implications of this study are far-reaching and immense
in the arena of policy making and the implementation of programs that can
effectively lift people out of poverty. For instance, No one knows what poor
people need to survive or to improve their lives than poor people. The fact
that a person who is poor does not take the effective steps that can get help
to lift that person out of poverty, such as education, training, and know-how.
is more a factor of resources that it relates to a lack of recognition on the
part of the individual of what it will take to break the cycle of poverty. And
most poor people, many of whom happen to be children, are not poor because they
are alcoholics, immoral, criminal, or drug addicts. Poor people know best what
they need to survive, and will use any money they have to meet their basic and
immediate needs. A poor family who cannot pay the rent does not need donations
of clothes, shoes, or other items of the sort, which may not prevent them from
being evicted and being out in the cold. Even a household with food, clothing,
and other basic items, needs cash to survive. In a logical world, government
would use this data to structure anti-poverty programs to win at least one war
since World War II, the war on poverty. After all, the United States considers
itself the world’s wealthiest country, greatest power, “exceptional” nation.
So, let that “exceptionalism” be put into practice to uplift those who have
been left behind due to the actions of others. This is one area that new and
innovative thinking, as much as comprehensive actions and immediate attention. If
approached earnestly and seriously, without the indignity, stereotyping, and
the usual humiliation toward the poor, success in reducing poverty could have a
domino effect, which could help improve the broken and disreputable criminal
justice system, and education, and could
further heal many of other social injustices that continue to plague America
through the 21 century. Sources - References & Information Links Anandi
Mani, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Jiaying Zhao |
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