Re-Color the Poverty Line
In this compelling and broad-reaching article, the author ambitiously takes on poverty, race, and political representation in one great swoop. According to him, although 13% of the American population lives beneath the poverty line (about $11,000 a year for a single person & $22,000 for a family of four), 51 million more live in 'near poverty.' Altogether, that is 1/3 of the American population. But what does that mean: near poverty, poverty?
Imagine if you were exhausted, but getting a cup of coffee at Starbucks was so prohibitively expensive that it was unthinkable. Imagine if your child had a birthday, but the prospect of shelling out $50 to get him the LEGO play set he's wanted all year would throw off the whole month's budget. Imagine that you need new glasses, but your insurance doesn't cover it, so that means you have to postpone getting your child new shoes, because you have to have glasses to work. Imagine that if dad/mom falls sick and misses a paycheck, the family's finances may never recover. Poverty means a constant struggle to keep up with rising food, gas, and insurance prices. It means, even beyond the tangible consequences, that you must constantly worry about money, counting every dollar. Poverty doesn't just mean that you can't pay rent. It means that every small disaster -- like glasses getting accidentally stepped on, or catching the flu -- is potentially enough to ruin a family. To say nothing of what that kind of hard reality does to ambitions or dreams.
But this is not an article strictly on poverty. It's an article which protests the lack of political representation of the poor, based on faulty statistics. According to the author, we think, "The poor is a small constituency, and furthermore, the poor don't vote, so why should we cater to them?" But if we re-define the poverty line to reflect -- not just annual income -- but the real effects of poverty (especially in contrast to the kind of lifestyle that the other 2/3 of Americans so tenaciously hold on to), the numbers become astounding. 1/3 of the American population. And such a large percentage intuitively calls into question many of the race associations made with poverty.
Although it is true that black and Latino (especially youth) populations make up a disproportionate percentage of the poor, the majority are actually white families. Yet, as the author points out, not all of these people would self-identify as poor. They think of themselves as the middle class. They call themselves the middle class. A result, perhaps, of coloring the poverty line?
In any case, such self-identity calls into question the author's other point: that the poor are not represented in national politics, or this election. Based on the author's own argument, I must take issue with this idea. If I counted how many times President Obama has said the words 'middle-class', I would run out of fingers and toes before he finished 3 sentences. Furthermore, although both candidates stringently avoid using the words 'poor' and 'poverty' (Mitt Romney prefers low-income), the primary divide in this election is over policies that are for the poor and not for the poor. Obama wants to provide more welfare, better student grants, and a more comprehensive health insurance policy: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Governor Romney does not seem to understand why these programs even exist. He seems to regard them as flawed and outdated, primarily useful for the elderly. And of course, seniors do rely upon these programs. But they are primarily programs for the poor or the 'near poor'....that 1/3 of Americans who need health insurance to pay for their glasses...and loans to help their kids go to college.
If I may re-frame the question for Governor Romney, the real question is not 'Are these programs necessary?', but 'Do other Americans have the responsibility to pay for it?' And with numbers like 1/3 and 2/3, the stakes are raised much higher.
Note: The original article is unavailable, but Al Jazeera has undertaken a very commendable study on poverty, available here.
