The War On Poverty

[Listening]

I am seeing in many threads efforts to promote certain points of view by redefining the definition of certain words. In this thread the push is to explain that what used to be poverty fifty years ago is not the same definition of poverty today. A previous thread which may still be up spent many pages claiming that intolerance is really not intolerance as Webster defines it but something different. As one poster has it the goal posts are forever being moved by guerrilla posters who continually lose the battle but will never give up the war. In my opinion the biggest reason for these eternal arguments is the lack of recognition of absolutes. If there can be no agreement on what is an incontestable truth than the ball can never be moved forward. Going into many of these thread rooms I just find a bunch of alpha thinkers chasing their tails.
Products - Data Briefs - Number 88 - March 2012

Old fart( of) I must take issue with your take on things even though you seem to be an eminent numbers cruncher. There is an old joke my accountant told me which I want to pass on to you with a slight change. A man asked a teacher what 2 and 2 was and she responded by saying 4 . Then he asked a psychiatrist what 2 and 2 was and he said it depends on what the meaning of 2 was.then the man asked a statistician what 2 and 2 was and the statistician replied, what would you like it to be?

Sometimes I get the impression OF that you determine what poverty is by looking at your computer screen and that there are millions of people warehoused in high rises in NY or wherever that conservatives refuse to admit even exist. I feel it doesn't matter to you what my eyes see or what my experience is if govt stats say something else. Having lived for forty years with fishery scientists I have a healthy skepticism and very little faith in the numbers that the govt puts out.
And I find your dismissal of details in a Heritage article at least in part based on your political bias. If you can't concede that many if not most of the poor live in conditions that don't even approach poverty than you are being unrealistic. Poverty is not having a roof over your head. Poverty is not having running water. Poverty is not having a refrigerator. Poverty is not having a school to go to. Poverty is exhibiting severe malnutrition. Poverty is having no shoes to wear. Poverty is having no access to medical treatment. And as one who has traveled extensively in this country this kind of poverty is few and far between.

So let's talk about absolutes that your numbers can't argue with. Life expectancy has continued to rise every year since 1935 and has risen even more dramatically in the last fifteen. So things have gotten dramatically better in this country period! You can't argue with this so your negative views of the underclass are more about the degree of improvement than whether the lot of the poor has become remarkably better. Are you going to argue that people are trying to get into this country so they can die earlier? Or will you be ready for an honest debate about whether some govt entitlement programs have actually contributed to poorer health and a decrease in life expectancy for some at the bottom.and I don't think it is fair to talk about death rates when you are comparing countries with homogenous pop to the massive mongrel diversity of the US. We are also victims of our own excesses because of our many successes. And still our life expectancy increases.

So the question remains, are you going to believe what the govt tells you or yor own lying eyes? I will base my judgement on my life experiences
America 10. Poverty 0

I take exception to the statement bolded above. Let me go back and restate what I thought I said in the OP.

There is another thread that was dealing with this issue. It claimed the war on poverty was a failure. It is in a forum where people can flame each other (as I do) and I thought it was worth asking a question over here.

It has more to do with clearing the smoke you describe and trying to get at something people can agree upon (not the "truth" since that seems to be as elusive as anything).

I quoted the Heritage article only in an attempt to show how some think that the term poverty has lost most of it's meaning. I do not ascribe to it. If I came across that way, I am sorry.

I asked the question at the end. Does the definition change and does that affect things. I am not pushing to change anything. Just to understand what, if anything, should be done to better understand what we call poverty so we can further discuss it.

One think I should have posted is to say that the definition itself should be examined to make sure people agree that represents true poverty. Until this is agreed upon, you really can't define the success or failure of a program in a way people will agree to. Those will be the moving goal posts you referenced in your post.

I hope this helps. This is the CDZ. When I want to flame I go to other forums. This really was looking for some good dialogue on this very significant topic.

 

[Listening]

Understanding the conditions and images in which people live, commonly referred to as poverty, is definitive in recognizing our social ills and to know how to respond. Indeed, recognizing poverty as real, although tricky to define accurately, is a very helpful tool. I don't think the definition matters as much as the simple coverage and display of images, real faces, real days, and expounding on the lifestyles people are forced to live due to lack of money. Just like porn, you know it when you see it.

I'd also like to note that America has the greatest wealth disparity globally and is in the top 3 countries who have the worst social mobility. That means America is the worse place, ironically, to be poor and to have hope. Being poor without hope is much more accurate. See second edition of Bloomberg Businessweek in Dec for article and chart on disparity and mobility.

This is a significant claim and one I have read about before.

The question is, how could such a condition exist in what is supposed to the land of the American Dream. I am not going to suggest we take this up in this thread, but would instead suggest you or I start another thread on this topic.

 

[oldfart]

I am seeing in many threads efforts to promote certain points of view by redefining the definition of certain words. In this thread the push is to explain that what used to be poverty fifty years ago is not the same definition of poverty today. A previous thread which may still be up spent many pages claiming that intolerance is really not intolerance as Webster defines it but something different. As one poster has it the goal posts are forever being moved by guerrilla posters who continually lose the battle but will never give up the war. In my opinion the biggest reason for these eternal arguments is the lack of recognition of absolutes. If there can be no agreement on what is an incontestable truth than the ball can never be moved forward. Going into many of these thread rooms I just find a bunch of alpha thinkers chasing their tails.

I am familiar with the thread you are referring to. My participation in it was minimal. I'm not sure what you mean by "the biggest reason for these eternal arguments is the lack of recognition of absolutes". Are you speaking of "facts" or some metaphysical "truth"?

Old fart( of) I must take issue with your take on things even though you seem to be an eminent numbers cruncher. There is an old joke my accountant told me which I want to pass on to you with a slight change. A man asked a teacher what 2 and 2 was and she responded by saying 4 . Then he asked a psychiatrist what 2 and 2 was and he said it depends on what the meaning of 2 was.then the man asked a statistician what 2 and 2 was and the statistician replied, what would you like it to be?

I plead guilty to being a statistician and economist. Please point out any specific examples where I have misused statistics. I have been diligent in reading the methodological notes and the actual papers, which usually makes me the only one to do so in many of the threads.

Sometimes I get the impression OF that you determine what poverty is by looking at your computer screen and that there are millions of people warehoused in high rises in NY or wherever that conservatives refuse to admit even exist. I feel it doesn't matter to you what my eyes see or what my experience is if govt stats say something else. Having lived for forty years with fishery scientists I have a healthy skepticism and very little faith in the numbers that the govt puts out.

My view of poverty is informed by a lifetime of living with one foot in the black community, especially the 40 years I spent in Mississippi.

I'm sorry you have such a negative attitude toward government statistics. Perhaps if you took the time to find out how specific measures are developed you would make a better argument. You could start with the article I linked from Current Population Reports.

And I find your dismissal of details in a Heritage article at least in part based on your political bias.

I have a bias for honest inquiry, peer review, and good research. I laid out my three objects to the Heritage Foundation article, and you and other posters never responded to it. XXXXXXX

If you can't concede that many if not most of the poor live in conditions that don't even approach poverty than you are being unrealistic. Poverty is not having a roof over your head. Poverty is not having running water. Poverty is not having a refrigerator. Poverty is not having a school to go to. Poverty is exhibiting severe malnutrition. Poverty is having no shoes to wear. Poverty is having no access to medical treatment. And as one who has traveled extensively in this country this kind of poverty is few and far between.

I impatiently await your "true" poverty figures. Perhaps in addition to merely writing a critique of the government statistics you could persuade the Heritage Foundation do actually develop a standard and crunch the numbers for a peer reviewed article.

So let's talk about absolutes that your numbers can't argue with. Life expectancy has continued to rise every year since 1935 and has risen even more dramatically in the last fifteen.

XXXXXXX Life expectancy in America is declining for those with less than a high school education; most prominently white females. So yes, let's have a discussion about life expectancy. This time read the actual tables. But then again, you don't believe government statistics, do you? Or do you pick and choose which you think agree with your ideology?

So things have gotten dramatically better in this country period! You can't argue with this so your negative views of the underclass are more about the degree of improvement than whether the lot of the poor has become remarkably better. Are you going to argue that people are trying to get into this country so they can die earlier? Or will you be ready for an honest debate about whether some govt entitlement programs have actually contributed to poorer health and a decrease in life expectancy for some at the bottom.and I don't think it is fair to talk about death rates when you are comparing countries with homogenous pop to the massive mongrel diversity of the US. We are also victims of our own excesses because of our many successes. And still our life expectancy increases.

"massive mongrel diversity of the US." Now we get to the reason for your diatribe. I have upset your white supremacist feelings. My bad.

And you really think things are improving for everyone in this country?

So the question remains, are you going to believe what the govt tells you or yor own lying eyes? I will base my judgement on my life experiences
America 10. Poverty 0

XXXXXXX

 

[BobPlumb]

Is the war on " poverty" a misnomer? Could it really be a war on wealth?

 

[gnarlylove]

I don't know how you could construe it a war on wealth. US policy has led to the 95% of income gains to the top 1% since 2009 (see Business Insider). There may be a cultural dissension going on with how lavish the wealthy live, but in no way is America taking heed to this in policy--yet.

Listening, I'd suggest the American Dream is a conception for immigrants but mostly died with Americans in the 80s. Only now has it caught up with us. There is a cultural lag that sometimes takes decades for the populace to recognize things.

Metlife Study of the American Dream, released in 2011 notes we still believe in hard work as a key to success but “Americans no longer seek to become wealthy; rather, they want to achieve a sense of financial security that allows them to live a sustainable lifestyle.” This promotes the idea that the American Dream is not what it use to be.

 

[BillyZane]

I don't know how you could construe it a war on wealth. US policy has led to the 95% of income gains to the top 1% since 2009 (see Business Insider). There may be a cultural dissension going on with how lavish the wealthy live, but in no way is America taking heed to this in policy--yet.

Listening, I'd suggest the American Dream is a conception for immigrants but mostly died with Americans in the 80s. Only now has it caught up with us. There is a cultural lag that sometimes takes decades for the populace to recognize things.

Metlife Study of the American Dream, released in 2011 notes we still believe in hard work as a key to success but “Americans no longer seek to become wealthy; rather, they want to achieve a sense of financial security that allows them to live a sustainable lifestyle.” This promotes the idea that the American Dream is not what it use to be.

I don't know that the American Dream was ever to be wealthy. Certainly , we've never had a time where EVERYONE in this country wished to be wealthy, or where immigrants moved to this country specifically looking to become wealthy, in relative terms I mean.

I think the American dream has always meant a nice suburban house, 2.3 kids, 2 vehicles, and a dog. I other words, comfortable, but not necessarily rich.

I also believe that the reason immigrants tend to reach this goal more often than poor Americans is because poor is relative.I know a guy who came from Korea with a small child, a pregnant wife, and $10. He ate one meal the entire trip over by cargo ship. He is by almost any measure quite comfortable now, some 6 years later.

Americans, for the most part, don't start with so little and so aren't as incentivized to work hard to reach higher levels.

 

[gnarlylove]

I agree, and don't see where we conflict. Admitting Americans start of better today is a result of so many having worked from poverty into a stable, comfortable environment. This happens over generations, and really boomed after WW2 thru the 60s and 70s alongside industrial advancement and production expanding, just like it had since 1800s but in a never before seen fashion. Once the 80s rolled around, policy changed and took programs from the poor (not all but important ones nonetheless) and aided the rich thru tax breaks and other policy changes. As a result, upward mobility has slowed, even to this day.

Personally I think most parts of the American Dream is a failing. Humanity was not born to be in a cycle of wake, work, produce, consume, sleep...repeat. It's rather shallow and concentrates almost entirely on physicality aspect of life..."time is money." Missing out on the benefits of silence, meditation, prayer, love, forgiveness and a path that leads to real inner peace. I'm not saying people miss out on that, only that if you followed secular capitalism, you have little room for love and the inner self--unless you pay a pyschologist to tell you whats wrong, again it goes back to money.

One can never find peace in the rat race, its only when you step outside and realize money should not be your driving force all the time. Unfortunately it's essential to survival hence we see crime on every level. If living well was more important than money crime might cease or at least retract. Capitalism doesn't help you decide living well is more important than money, only introspection can tell you that.

 

[Listening]

I agree, and don't see where we conflict. Admitting Americans start of better today is a result of so many having worked from poverty into a stable, comfortable environment. This happens over generations, and really boomed after WW2 thru the 60s and 70s alongside industrial advancement and production expanding, just like it had since 1800s but in a never before seen fashion. Once the 80s rolled around, policy changed and took programs from the poor (not all but important ones nonetheless) and aided the rich thru tax breaks and other policy changes. As a result, upward mobility has slowed, even to this day.

Personally I think most parts of the American Dream is a failing. Humanity was not born to be in a cycle of wake, work, produce, consume, sleep...repeat. It's rather shallow and concentrates almost entirely on physicality aspect of life..."time is money." Missing out on the benefits of silence, meditation, prayer, love, forgiveness and a path that leads to real inner peace. I'm not saying people miss out on that, only that if you followed secular capitalism, you have little room for love and the inner self--unless you pay a pyschologist to tell you whats wrong, again it goes back to money.

One can never find peace in the rat race, its only when you step outside and realize money should not be your driving force all the time. Unfortunately it's essential to survival hence we see crime on every level. If living well was more important than money crime might cease or at least retract. Capitalism doesn't help you decide living well is more important than money, only introspection can tell you that.

That is quite a philosophical statement.

However, I am not sure how it applies to the OP.

I'll only say that I see many in the rising generation who really don't seem all that ambitious. Could they be spoiled or do they see something we don't ?

 

[BobPlumb]

I don't know how you could construe it a war on wealth. US policy has led to the 95% of income gains to the top 1% since 2009 (see Business Insider). There may be a cultural dissension going on with how lavish the wealthy live, but in no way is America taking heed to this in policy--yet.

Listening, I'd suggest the American Dream is a conception for immigrants but mostly died with Americans in the 80s. Only now has it caught up with us. There is a cultural lag that sometimes takes decades for the populace to recognize things.

Metlife Study of the American Dream, released in 2011 notes we still believe in hard work as a key to success but “Americans no longer seek to become wealthy; rather, they want to achieve a sense of financial security that allows them to live a sustainable lifestyle.” This promotes the idea that the American Dream is not what it use to be.

It's a war on wealth in that when people become confortable with the government taking care of them through entitlements (the nanny state), they no longer seek the American dream through hard work and perserverance. Thus instead of being wealth creatures, people become content with receiving a paycheck from the government. The super wealthy will find ways to protect their interests. The war on weath is being fought on the bottom through dependence.

 

[gnarlylove]

Fair enough, Bob. Having lived several years of my life depending on food stamps, I can assure you it had little influence on whether I worked or not or whether I wanted to work or not. I won't speak for the rest but I will say this: removing swaths of the social safety net results in increased poverty. There are not enough full time jobs available to support those who rely on social programs. For every job there are about 3 unemployed people. If they all were determined to work they would not be able to find it, and would thus do without that 3rd meal of the day or being able to provide their family with basic comforts. I can't see how reducing social programs could benefit those in poverty unless you ALSO undertake serious efforts to create enough full time jobs to fulfill the demands put on them: "earn your way!" If you cannot provide full time work, people cannot earn enough to do better: they would be caught in a perpetual cycle of indebtedness.

The funny thing about wealth is the more you get the more you want. So it puts you in a cycle of needing to earn more just to keep up with your desire.

Moreover, seeking wealth as the prime objective is not a healthy ideal. It is very narrow in scope and leads to materialism and often times hedonism: seeking personal gains without concern for your fellow man. That is very individualistic and does not build communities. It encourages continual consumption without demanding any good reason for it, whether it erodes moral values or not. And the market is indeed crowding out morals: see Micahel Sandel's book What Money Can't Buy

 

[Shrimpbox]

Now OF let me try to address your responses to my posts. First of all my main point is that I don't see anyone in real poverty in real life here in one of the poorest counties in fl. Therefore I tend to reject efforts to expand the definition of poverty and I would tend to agree with some of the points the heritage article makes that the so called poor have many of the creature comforts we consider middle class. Also in my county there is a large underground cash economy that never makes it into your stats.

I am sure that you would admit that stats can be slanted if for no other reasons than omission.

My point with the heritage article is that you seemed to dismiss everything in it and then purposefully decried the heritages as wanting to deny people health ins, kick them out of their homes and have them die in the emergency room doorstep. Course there weren't any of your universally accepted facts to back up that statement. Can you not admit there is a kernel of truth in some part of it. You basically claim that you know better and dismiss the heritage article as bad science, which is hard for me to argue since you have vehemently advanced your superiority in this field.

I do not believe we have poverty in America as I have defined poverty. And I don't believe you can hold up the poorest life expectancy state in the union as the norm.( and also the one with the most black elected politicians in the nation.) Forgive me if I have not acquiesced to your assessments but I thought that that is what debating is about. Statements about the inadequacies of the poster seem to be more of a dodge than an discussion about the salient points.

And, alas in textbook fashion, when a poster runs out of steam he reverts to playing the race card.( which seems to be the chip on your shoulder) . As smart as you are you'd think you wouldn't even need it, but pulling out the race card to engage in personal destruction is unbecoming of the clean debate zone. I thought the " massive mongrel diversity" was a great line describing the melting pot( is that a better PC word for you OF?) that is America. You need to check that knee jerk reaction thing of yours, and address the context of the post instead of cherry picking to deride the poster.

OP you have a lot to contribute. XXXXXXX try some subtle persuasion to persuade people like me of the error of my ways. A sense of humor is helpful. Good luck.

 

[Where_r_my_Keys]

LBJ's War On Poverty was not a war on poverty. It was a massive wealth redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the blacks for the purpose of enslaving them to welfare, thus insuring their loyalty to the Democratic Party. Guess what? It worked.

Indeed.

LBJ is immortalized on his own tape system, stating his purpose for the program was to 'keep those N*&&ers voting Democratic for 200 years'.

Thomas Sowell detailed the results of the Progressive 'war' in his book, Visions of the Anointed. The picture is pretty. With the decay of the black culture, as a direct result of socialist policy, being something far worse than a crime.

 

[Listening]

LBJ's War On Poverty was not a war on poverty. It was a massive wealth redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the blacks for the purpose of enslaving them to welfare, thus insuring their loyalty to the Democratic Party. Guess what? It worked.

Indeed.

LBJ is immortalized on his own tape system, stating his purpose for the program was to 'keep those N*&&ers voting Democratic for 200 years'.

Thomas Sowell detailed the results of the Progressive 'war' in his book, Visions of the Anointed. The picture is pretty. With the decay of the black culture, as a direct result of socialist policy, being something far worse than a crime.

Sowell is a very good one.

 

[gnarlylove]

XXXXXXX

The numbers of people abusing welfare system are hardly enough to account for cutting or dismantling it. Having been on welfare and seen my family be supported by it in hard times I can assure you those scaming the system aren't "doing nothing" in order to get it. There are several steps in a process of meetings and interviews before you get it and maintain it.

Take the power of money away and you reduce crime related to acquiring money/scamming. What I mean is we should pay people more for the work they do at the bottom and it will entice more people to work within the system for money instead of having to decide between going into major debt on minimum wage or making cold hard cash selling dope. Also I encourage subsidizing markets that create jobs/train people for those who need it. The scope of those subsidies are currently slim. Scamming/crime often pays a lot before the person is caught. That's because it's so essential to make working legally more enticing and worthwhile: raise the minimum wage and create jobs somehow

 

[Katzndogz]

What we should do is not allow in low or unskilled immigrants. Reduce regulations and taxes on business that force companies out of the US, and eliminate welfare for all but the most needy. Agriculture needs workers, there is no reason why prisoners should not serve out their sentences by working in fields.

 

[RKMBrown]

S.J.

I understand this claim.

But when it comes to economics, the one thing that is missing in all these discussions is numbers and standards.

Are those in poverty really as bad off as those who were in poverty 50 years ago ?

I don't know. That is what I am asking.

We see these charts on % poverty, but it seems the standard for poverty is changing.

Looking for some clean discussion (trying to break the flame habit....in a week or two

Poverty in America is pretty much defined as the bottom quintile. The only way you can eliminate the bottom portion of five portions is to no longer have portions. IOW you can't eliminate poverty without ensuring that every single american is earning the exact same income as everyone else, then and only then will you win this nutty war against individual freedom.

 

[BillyZane]

What we should do is not allow in low or unskilled immigrants.

agreed

Reduce regulations and taxes on business that force companies out of the US,

which regulations would those be?

and eliminate welfare for all but the most needy.

agreed

Agriculture needs workers, there is no reason why prisoners should not serve out their sentences by working in fields.

So you believe that companies ought have access to FREE labor via prisoners?

 

[RKMBrown]

What we should do is not allow in low or unskilled immigrants.

agreed

Reduce regulations and taxes on business that force companies out of the US,

which regulations would those be?

and eliminate welfare for all but the most needy.

agreed

Agriculture needs workers, there is no reason why prisoners should not serve out their sentences by working in fields.

So you believe that companies ought have access to FREE labor via prisoners?

So you believe prisoners should have free room and board?

 

[hazlnut]

Currently, there is a thread in the political forum on the failure of LBJ's war on poverty.

I've tried to keep up, but to many people are like me...prone to flame instead of debate.

One reason is the frustration of getting an agreeable set of definitions.

I want to know more about what it means to be in poverty.

In a new report, Heritage’s Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield lay out what the U.S. government’s own facts and figures really say about poverty in the United States. The results might surprise you, especially if your view of poverty is the conventional one, perpetuated by the media–namely, destitute conditions of homelessness and hunger. In reality, though, the living conditions of those defined as poor by the government are much different than that popular image. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau:

80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television
Two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR
Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers
More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation
43 percent have Internet access
One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television
One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo
As for hunger and homelessness, Rector and Sheffield point to 2009 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food, 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless, with 42 percent of poor households actually owning their own homes. Want an international comparison? The average poor American has more living space than the average Swede or German. You can read even more of those facts in their report, “Understanding Poverty in the United States.”

https://www.askheritage.org/what-does-it-really-mean-to-be-poor-in-america/

**************

I assume that Heritage mixes poor with "in poverty". I've heard some of this before.

So....just how do we define the poor. And have we changed he defintion of poverty such that LBJ's war was on a moving target. Did it really do a good job ?

I'll be looking to flesh this out some more.

I just wanted to comment on the stats -- it appears that the "poor" have access to televised, streaming, and video game entertainment. These are all forms of escapism or distraction from reality.

I think it is interesting that we make sure the poor have ample access to video entertainment and gaming -- perhaps to keep them complacent and distracted.

Just a thought.

 

[oldfart]

agreed

which regulations would those be?



agreed


So you believe that companies ought have access to FREE labor via prisoners?

So you believe prisoners should have free room and board?

Nice try at a deflection but I in fact never said anything such thing. You said PRECISELY what I asked you about but now want to deflect..

Actually until the mid 60s prison labor in much of the south was leased out. It was what made places like Angola and Parchman self-funding. There's even a scene about it in "Cool Hand Luke". Needless to say, such arrangements were more dangerous and less tintillating than the scene Paul Newman was in.