The President and the Poor

Contrary to much popular media reporting, almost no public leader talks seriously about poverty in the U. S. these days. 

Think about it.  When was the last time you heard any political leader or policy maker enter into a serious discussion about domestic poverty? 

No one should expect us to make much progress in low-income, impoverished neighborhoods if none of our leaders are calling attention to the needs or suggesting serious public strategies for attacking the life-destroying realities of poverty. 

I've been thinking about this for some time now.   As a result, the essay below caught my attention.  Read it and let me know what you think.

Hard-Knock (Hardly Acknowledged) Life
The New York Times
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: January 28, 2011

President Obama made history on Tuesday.
It was only the second time since Harry S. Truman’s State of the Union address in 1948 that such a speech by a Democratic president did not include a single mention of poverty or the plight of the poor.

The closest Obama got to a mention was his confirmation for “Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear” that, indeed, “the world has changed. The competition for jobs is real.” I’m sure they appreciated that.

The only other Democrat not to mention poverty in the speech was Jimmy Carter in 1980, but even he was able to squeeze in one reference to at least a portion of the poor and disenfranchised, stressing the continuation of jobs programs to “provide training and work for our young people, especially minority youth.” (Carter did mention the poor in a written version that he submitted to Congress.)

John F. Kennedy didn’t say the specific words “poor” or “poverty” in his first State of the Union, but he talked at length about providing “more food for the families of the unemployed, and to aid their needy children,” securing “more purchasing power for our lowest-paid workers by raising and expanding the minimum wage” and of a new housing program to address the problem of “cities being engulfed in squalor.”

So how is it that this Democratic president has the temerity to deliver a State of the Union address that completely neglects any explicit mention of the calamitous conditions now afflicting his staunchest supporters: the poor?

(In 2008, Obama won 73 percent of the vote of those earning less than $15,000 a year, 60 percent of those earning between $15,000 and $30,000 and 55 percent of the vote of those earning $30,000 to $50,000. Those were his widest margins of victory of any income group and helped to propel him to victory.)

He talked at length about education (the most inspiring part of the speech) and about civility and his repackaged bromides of global competitiveness and investments in the future. And, of course, there were cautious mentions of programs that benefit seniors and the need to protect and secure them. Can’t forget the plea to the old people.

Protecting programs for seniors strikes the right chord morally and politically, but the data show that seniors are not the ones feeling the majority of the pain these days.

According to data from the Census Bureau, the percent of people ages 18 to 64 who were living in poverty in 2009 was higher than it had been in any year since 1959, while the percent of seniors living in poverty was lower than it had been in any year since at least 1959. (By the way, voters over 65 were the only age group that Obama lost in 2008.)

I, for one, refuse to believe that this is an either-or proposition. We can make smart choices about protecting seniors and supporting younger Americans in need at the same time. We don’t have to ignore the Annies among us to court the Miss Daisys.

For the poor, this is the Obama Conundrum. He was obviously the best choice in 2008. And judging by the current cast of Republican presidential contenders, he could well be the best choice in 2012. But does that give him license to obviate his moral responsibility to his electoral devotees? Can and should they take his snubs as a necessary consequence of political warfare as he makes every effort to tack back to the middle and reconnect with those whose opinion of him vacillates between contempt on a bad day and sufferance on a good one? Does keeping him in the White House dictate keeping them in the shadows?

And things could get even worse for the poor if the president feels the need to cut too many deals with the new Republican-led House in order to appear more centrist.

According to Brian Miller, the executive director of the nonpartisan and Boston-based group United for a Fair Economy and co-author of the group’s report entitled “State of the Dream 2011: Austerity for Whom?” released earlier this month, “austerity measures based on the conservative tenets of less government and lower taxes will ratchet down the standard of living for all Americans, while simultaneously widening our nation’s racial and economic divide.”

As Miller put it, deficits that tax cuts for the rich helped to create “are being used to justify a host of austerity measures that will harm Americans of all races but will hit blacks and Latinos the hardest.”

According to Miller, “With 42 percent of blacks and 37 percent of Latinos lacking the funds to meet minimal household expenses for even three months should they become unemployed, cutting public assistance programs will have devastating impacts on black and Latino workers.” (Obama won 95 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008.)

Even as my respect for this president as a shrewd politician has begun to rebound, my faith in him as a fervent crusader for the poor and disenfranchised has taken yet another nose dive. One’s tone-deafness — or blatant indifference — to the poor has to be at Black American Express status to brag that “the stock market has come roaring back” and “corporate profits are up” and not even mention the unemployment rate or the continuing foreclosure crisis.

I want to believe that President Obama’s speech omissions were oversights, not acts of arrogance. But I’m not sure.

President Truman wrote in 1953 that, “ultimately, no President can master his responsibilities, save as his fellow citizens — indeed, the whole people — comprehend the challenge of our times and move, with him, to meet it.” But, it is sometimes hard to follow — indeed, to chase — a president who appears to be moving, often at a full sprint, away from the people who once carried him.

Practical justice, oft hidden reality. . .

A common, social truth observed:  "The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends." Proverbs 14:20

A hard community fact:  Over 34% of the households in Dallas, Texas live below the federal poverty line (a bit ovr $22,000 annual income for family of four).

A building block for community renewal:  "Those who dispise their neighbors are sinners, but happy are those who are kind to the poor."  Proverbs 14:21

A harsh result of much very hard work:  "The field of the poor may yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice."  Proverbs 13:23

A building block of community and economic development:  "Where there are no oxen, there is no grain; abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. . . .Honest balances and scales are the Lord's; all the weights in the bag are his work. . . . Differing weights are an abomination to the Lord, and false scales are not good."   Proverbs 14:4; 16:11; 20:23

Why I'll walk today with my immigrant friends

Recent legislative action in Arizona prompted renewed conversations about immigration policy, national security and immigration reform. 

It's about time.

News reports out of Arizona over the past couple of days link the new law, giving police the authority to arrest residents without proper documentation, to Mexico's "drug wars" that threaten to spill over into the United States.  Making that connection doesn't stand up under even a cursory investigation. 

The vast, vast majority of immigrants in the United States and in Arizona have no connection whatsoever to the illegal drug trade.  Such unfair, unproven rhetoric does not advance an honest discussion, but promotes bigotry, hatred and division in our communities.

The hundreds of immigrants I've known and talked to over the past 16 years came to the U. S. seeking a better life, work and hope for themselves and their families.  This is the story for almost all of the 12-14 million immigrants in this country without the proper papers.  And, this has been the story of all of us immigrants who came to the U. S. or whose ancestors arrived before us. 

And, we've all taken good advantage of their  presence. Businesses, homeowners, contractors, restaurants. . .the list is practically endless.  The economy in Dallas would be hurt severely by the exit of the folks who are here without documentation. 

So, I'll walk with thousands of others today. 

I'll walk because I believe in the people who need to be included in our national life. 

I'll walk because I believe in the promise of our nation.

40 MILLION IN POVERTY

Just in from Daily Finance. .  .

Living in Poverty: 40 Million Americans, Including Children and Working Poor

By SAM GUSTIN
Posted 6:15 PM 03/17/10 Economy

If the word "poverty" conjures up starving children in Africa, prepare to be shocked: nearly 40 million Americans, or 13.2% of the population in the richest country on the planet, lived at or below the official poverty level in 2008, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's an increase of 2.5 million over 2007.

What's more, that figure includes 14.1 million people under the age of 18, or 19% of all children, up from 13.3 million and 18% in 2007. In other words, nearly one in five American kids live in poverty.

One of the fastest-growing impoverished segments is the "working poor," adults who spent at least 27 weeks either in the labor force or looking for work. Of the 39.8 million Americans living at or below the poverty level in 2008, some 8.9 million adults were defined as the "working poor," an increase of 1.4 million from 2007.Additionally, 4.5 million families were counted among the working poor in 2008, up from 4.2 million in 2007.

The new data reinforce the toll the Great Recession has taken on working families and the poor across the United States. After three years of annual income increases, the real median household income declined by 3.6% between 2007 and 2008, from $52,163 to $50,303, the Census bureau found.

Read more here.