My proposal is simple and effective. At present, poverty as a problem is dealt with by a bewildering array of government entitlement schemes, small, medium and large NGOs, and corporate social responsilbility programmes. All of this is highly fractured, confusing and so filled with niches (this or that programme is only for black women within X area), loopholes, and favouritism, that it doesn't work at addressing the problem.

What is needed is a central warhouse for advocacy, information, resources, etc. Why are these inequalities less in other developed countries? It is because there will be an agency somewhere that will go out there and fight for the rights of consumers (notice the language) that gets changes to how businesses behave. By stigmatising these initiatives with the poor label, barriers go up. It is more useful to instead lump everyone together and instead talk about consumer rights.

This has worked very well in the UK for example when it comes to banking charges and accounts. Discounts for all spread the risk and bring everyone in on the benefits. It makes it a lot harder to take away when the middle class benefit as well.

Right now, the US leads the world in stigmatising poor people. By choosing to address this problem by a fractured patchwork of charity initiatives, poor people are treated as life's losers and thus are a nice target for the powerful. In fact the best thing for the poor is to be invisible and to be able to access universal benefits that give them a leg up in life.

I worked myself out of poverty based on universal benefits. I witnessed, however, in the 90s, the diminution of these benefits and the rise and rise of charities. No wonder no progess is being made. What is even sadder about this is that this is exactly what the left and right are peddling as the solution to developing world poverty. It won't work.

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and it presents another aspect to this seemingly unsolvable dilemma. In a way I am glad she went into the project and studied what those of us who have been there know are major obstacles. Just when someone thinks they have a solution an exception will present itself.
To have a truly scientific look at it, one would need to have dozens of people embarq on this project, all agreeing to live on 7/hr. Because everyone will have very strong preconceived notions and different backgrounds, the amalgam of results could be telling.
For example, a recently or even presently poor person who agreed to enter the study would have an entirely different take on it, and different coping strtegies than a middle calss choosing to schuck the conveniences and "rough it" for a little while. After all, we can all go a few days w/out a shower while camping yes? The time frame would need to be at least a year.
I think such an endeavor would shed tremendous light on a serious problem that stays under the radar of detail, that being the working poor who are not on welfare. I had written elsewhere that govt assistence cannot be "deserved". I correct myself, those working poor indeed deserve help.

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One of the messages that enlightened African-American leaders have delivered is that, since we live in a capitalist economy, having capital is a necessity of survival.

"The Other America" told us a long time ago that our capitalist economy only works so long as there is an underclass.

Neither of those sage bits of advice prompts anyone (or very many, anyhow) to try to change the system. "Socialism" is the word that none dare speak in the US. It would help to ameliorate structural penalties as described in this article. But it would require a big change.

So long as the preponderant majority of Americans are opposed to change--and so far we have been--equality of opportunity remains an empty slogan. That, despite the fact that our schools teach it as a realized truth in America. Instead, being poor is a crime. Our prisons already are debtors prisons--don't kid yourself.

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If we stopped the movement of money, goods, and services for 48 hours, during which we were able to take a complete finacial inventory of everyone, we could take those who have no money, and share with them from the abundance we uncovered and solve the poverty problem instantaneously.

But the problem is with the dynamic, not the static. Question. Is there an amount of money, that if it was handed in a one time payment to every poor person in America, would permanentlysolve the problem? If $500,000.00 was handed to each family below the poverty line, one time, and walk away, including everyone living on the streets etc., would it not solve the poverty crisis once and for all?

Now lets say we take every family with an income between 70 and 100k per year, took away all the money they have, and handed them 500,000.00. What would happen there?

The same situation, starting with nothing and handed the same money, vastly different outcomes. Please dont deny that it would be.

Why though? What is it about those below the poverty line that would make them unable to stretch the 500,000 as far as those in the other catagory? Sure some from each wouldnt make it, but what is it that defines the difference and why? Before we discuss how 500K is or isnt enough, assume your own amount that you feel is enough.

This highlights a problem that confounds the whole solution to poverty. If a handout of a huge sum of money would sustain some and not others, and if a pattern emerged as to who is and isnt sustained, therein is a comparison and data even hypothetical from which conclusions can and should be drawn as to why handouts as they are currently and historically structured do little to nothing to lift one segment to another level. It gets to the root of responsibility for ones own actions, likley an unpopular notion.

There exists data on this already in a strange way, that being through the tracking of lottery winners. The less money and net worth a winner has at the time they win, the more liklely to be broke within 5-10 years regardless how much money they win. Why? And how can this be used to fight poverty? I'm not blaming anyone or trying to insult any of those unfortunate enough to be invloved, just trying to ask what can be done.

Obviously some eduction would be helpful, to the point where perhaps it should be mandatory for those receiving assistence and who are able bodied and mentally able. Yes of course with childcare and transportation and any other barriers overcome. But throwing money year on year into the black hole of poverty is not working.

Solve this and these prices and expenses will not be a problem.

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There is a new book out the title of which I forgot but it's reviewed by emeritus economics professor Mike Yates of the June 2006 edition of the Monthly Review Journal to which Ms. Erhenreich has frequently contributed. The name of the piece is Capitalism is Rotten to the Core! He truely makes the case and I recommend the peice to all those interested in this topic.The key focus of the discussion is the Payday loan outlets which number in the tens of thousands nationwide and has become a primary source of income for a growing number of working poor and well as the Buyhere/payhere used auto dealerships where the poor pay more interest and overpay for the quality of product they receive. These industries make billions off the poor, especially when they default and the same car is resold to another poor person for over 50% of the selling price it went for to the original defaulter. These businesses make way more money off the poor than the rich and middle class (which is shrinking). Having poor credit means paying 500% apr on payday loans. It also means that Credit card companies try to encourage small minimum payments on purchases for billing cycles on ""high risk" cards in order to glean as much interest as possible over time. Many of these high risk cards are secured by high initiation fees, annual fees, service fees, and, of course, interest annual rates. All this keeps the poor on a financial treadmill that they can never leave. The rich don't just profit from the poor's low wage work but at the consumption end as well. The vast majority of the poor are workers who work over 40 hours a week and have no savings. They often need to supplement their earnings with private charity. It is often necessary to lie or exaggerate certain problems like depression or some physical ailment in order to qualify for charitable help with a basic need you can't afford like subsidized housing, a free meal, health care at a free clinic, or transportation. Currently there is no general help for the working poor because the system doesn't recognize the problem and the old social safty net has been shredded! Ehrenreich is right on! The problem isn't only the poors' lack of money but the parasitical industries that emerge to exploit their vulnerabilities. It is a sad commentary of US society that instead of recognizing the proliferation of poverty as a problem to solve with the vast resources available in part provided by the labors of the poor, we instead see this as an opportunity for rampant exploitation.

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http://www.livableincome.org

"People have been advocating for a guaranteed
income since 1785 when Thomas Paine proposed it. "
http://pacificcoast.net/~swag/clhirondellespeech06.html

That was also the recommendation of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Canada's Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

Women's Economic Justice Report on Guaranteed Livable
Income
http://pacificcoast.net/~swag/swcproject05.htm

23% of years of life lost for people under 75 can be attributed to income differences. (Stats Canada)

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I have long thought this exact thing: It's expensive being poor.

I have experienced the frustrations of food stamps, food banks, temporary homelessness, trying to prepare inexpensive food without electricity, bathing in an icy stream, trying to find a job or a rental without a phone, trying to get "on top" of expenses by buying in bulk or while things are on sale, lack of health insurance, skipping medical and dental care until problems became more expensive, car problems that could have been avoided with routine maintenance or repairs ... and so many other expenses and indignities.

Lest some folks out there think otherwise, most of these things occurred while I was employed at least part- if not full-time.

Fortunately, I was able to make the tremendous financial and emotional leap, at age 27, to enter college full-time. My resulting education -- as well as hard work, dumb luck and my good fortune at being born into a white, middle-class, literate family -- have allowed me to reach a place in life where I rarely have to worry about grocery money and utility bills. (Just don't ask about my student loan balance.)

Thank you, Ms. Ehrenreich, for this article and all your efforts on behalf of women and the working poor.

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A good piece! I spent six years living in "the hood", primarily A-A, some illegals. I'm white and well educated. I also spent six months six years ago living in a transient motel. I enjoy watching people and finding patterns and links. Here are a few:

1. The poor often make bad decisions, period. Having a TV seems to be a priority, and it better be big and with cable. Expensive Nike's, high alcohol consumption, and drug usage are way too often part of the lifestyle. As someone notes here, they buy cars that both buyer and seller know will be repoed within two months, wasting incredible amounts of money that could go towards necessities.

2. Once upon a time if you had $25 or $100 you could walk into a bank, open an account, and pick out your check pattern. For 25 years now almost all banks have a minimum creditworthiness to become a customer. Once, when I worked for a bank I was refused an account! This is the real reason all those payday loan and pawn shops have popped up like mushrooms after a rain.

3. Rent to owns are a rip, even the customers know that. But ego and desire overwhelm common sense. No RTO store has ever forced a poor customer to sign a contract, it's all voluntary.

4. I have had low income people ask me if they could have a computer free (I was rehabbing them) at the very same moment a cable installer was there to start a $60/mo habit.

5. Boy, how true about no grocery stores or gas stations nearby! Where I used to live has lost the one gas and repair station for miles around. And my insurance dropped $200 a year when I left the hood!

I guess I'm saying that there are some issues which are the poor's fault, and there are some issues that they can't help. Like so much in life, it ain't simple. As The Duke said, "Life's difficult, and being stupid makes it more difficult." Sometimes it is no more than that.

pzo

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The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they manged to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, where they were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the carboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kinds of boot Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
--Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms, pg 35

And consider how the megastores like WalMart exploit poverty to keep people living in poverty: they pay dirt poor wages to sweatshop laborers to turn out cheap junk that the North American poor have to buy because they can't afford better, and that, in turn, fuels the economy of poverty in sweatshop promoting countries.

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I would put myself in the category of working poor (less than $20k/yr) and so I can relate to this.

Going to check-cashing places is just a bad idea. You could probably pay less in potential overdraft fees if you just had a checking account. There are plenty of fine used cars out there for $3-5k. Finance charges on a car are just another huge liability, so don't buy beyond your means. Nobody needs to rent-to-own a TV. If you need a TV that bad, get one for $30 at a pawn shop. Honestly. Otherwise, do without. Televisions are electronic income reducers anyway. A huge factor is that the working poor and "middle" class often haven't learned how to manage money. Who can blame them? Nobody taught them and the way our economy is designed puts intelligent money management against the grain.

Now, to the stuff that's really a problem. CAR INSURANCE. Government owns a huge portion of available stock in insurance companies. Might that have something to do about why it is "legally required" you take on the liability of auto insurance premiums? This is a bad law and it siphons money off of the poor. The biggest problem of all is our infaltionary monetary system. How do I know? Because GETTING OUT OF US DOLLARS was how I made sure my savings prospered until I could have enough money in one place to invest beyond what I would get in one paycheck. I went to bulliondirect.com and bought silver like it was my savings. I put money in, the price of silver went up, and my savings' value increased. I put more and more in, a little at a time, until at last I was able to invest in non-confiscatable numismatic gold, which will appreciate even faster. This huge sum I had to save up to? $1,000.

Because Dollars are perpetually depreciating, it forces the economy into a system of debt. Instead of simply saving money until we can purchase item X, we lease, mortgage or otherwise finance it because there's no way to save enough money to buy it before the price goes up. Even saving your money in the stock market or savings account will lose you money, because inflation is sure as hell higher than 4.5%.

Inflation is the insidious hidden tax that hits the poor, who have no investments to hedge against it, the HARDEST. Inflation is not a "natural" part of the economy. Money does not "naturally" come from governments or central bank printing presses. In its natural form, money is a common commodity with universal intrinsic value. Gold and silver have been history's best money. The supply of it only increases (inflates) when actual effort is put into the economy by mining it. This bastardized version of money printed out by fiat by the Federal Reserve is just debt notes. Would you accept someone's phone bill as payment? You're effectively doing the same thing when you accept a government debt receipt as payment.

The Federal Reserve's play money is robbing Americans--espeically the poorest ones--for the sole profit of the central bankers.

If you doubt the horrifying effects of inflationary money, check out libertydollar.org or read some articles at kitco.com

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I have been poor. I was born on a share cropper farm. I got a job at a co-op for 45 cents an hour. I decided I didn't want to do that. I enlisted during a war. I got out and went to school on the GI Bill and then I worked a full time job until I was 74 years old. You just have to be smart enough to figure a way out and have the will. If you let the "system" roll over you and don't take the dole--you will be OK. If you cave in and take that first FOOD STAMP -- you are doomed.

I picked up bones in a large hog lot. The bones were ground into rose fertilizer ingrediants. I got 2 dollars a ton. I forked lots of bones into a dump truck. Just do it and stop whining.

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I've heard so many men give the same type of story. What about all the caregivers out here? The single moms who have to leave jobs or neglect their businesses to take care of the children and grown men who are sick or injured? The million errands that I've had to deal with simply to put my children in school, the bureaucracy that keeps me running in circles for a million different reasons that only bureaucrats can fathom...When it comes to the very necessary but unpaid work that needs to be done, women do it, yet there is no compensation from society for this contribution. Is there a solution? NO, because there will always be a man out there like the previous poster who says, "I did it, so you should too, so stop whining". Well, sir, I hope you never need someone to take care of you, because if you get what you deserve for that last comment, you'll find yourself either alone, or having to spend your every last penny to pay someone to change your diapers in a few years.

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My wife and I were driving through a poor section of town a few days ago. She noticed that gas there averaged about $0.25 more per gallon than other parts of town. I can't imagine any legitimate reason for this.

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once while driving around with my husband in the low-income areas of Boston trying to find a place to do our grocery shopping while we waited on a friend. We eventually found one, one of those discount Food Master type places, and it was the sorriest damn sight in the world. The meat selection was pitiful, everything was old looking, bargain basement with brand names I'd never even heard of, and forget about actually finding produce that was edible. I mean, I'm not one of those snobbish foodies - I do not shy away from generic food products and I don't die if I have to eat non-organic produce - but even I could see that not even Jamie Oliver on his best day could make enough nutritious, healthy food for an entire family. We ended up leaving without buying anything, but during the fifteen minutes we were there, my heart broke about a half dozen times for all of the people who had no choice but to get their food from such a place.

Later I realized that most large grocery chains don't bother to build near low-income neighborhoods, period. Considering that the poor tend to suffer from higher rates of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and lots of other completely preventable health concerns, I find this absolutely repulsive and immoral. Not to mention it's just bad business sense, as food is hardly a luxury item - unless you are one of those Trader Joe's/Whole Foods types - and almost everyone needs it. It's not like they'll be starving for business. It's just that good old unspoken classism and racism that masquerades as 'free market principles' rearing its ugly, tired head again.

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ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE. The oppressed underclass will never be free until we, the middle- and upper-classes, demand it. Our own daily consumption is the foundation of this system. Join a union, start a boycott/walkout, ride a bike, protest, harass your jackass of a representative at the federal, state, and local levels. For goodness' sake, make it known LOUD AND CLEAR to the corporate and political elite that you personally will not cooperate in this travesty. Just ORGANIZE.

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The Corporate politicians don't mind giving the super rich a few extras. I read recently that the IRS has stopped auditing the tax returns of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those subject to gift and estate taxes, when transferred parts of their fortune to their children or others. BUT..........they are now going to concentrate on those Americans making more than one million dollars a year.

Millionaires are the "new poor"... for them there will be fines and confiscation of property, because those CONSERVATIVE [ha ha] Repubs have given the farm away.

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isn't the same as being nickel and dimed in today's economy. I am poor. I'm also on food assistance, as are most of my friends and family. Where I live, in Eastern Kentucky, there is only one place in town to make more than $6 an hour, and that's the tire factory (not counting the university).

Gas is $3 a gallon. It's not unreasonable to assume that one could spend say $6 a day going to and from work. That's one hour. Now car insurance might cost you say $3 a day, that's a half hour.

Rent here is cheap, only about $400 a month for a shithole, so in a day that's about 2 hours of your time. Quite often your boss is also your landlord, which is to the fortune of your landlord not the renter.

A gallon of milk is $3. Fresh vegetables are very hard to come by and very expensive, unless you have food stamps. You can see where this is going, my hours are almost used up, my $48 before taxes almost gone.

Want health insurance? Give me a break, I haven't had it in my entire adult life. There is just no way I could get health insurance on the wages available here.

But the kisser is really the food prices. I know it's not been in the news or on the beloved almighty television or even the always balanced NPR, but here I would say that food prices have almost DOUBLED in the last two years or so. Gas and food are the only inflation that matters to the working class.

Nickel and Dimed is an out-of-date experiment Ms. E., and living in a trailer really isn't so bad. You lack the perspective required to truly turn things around for the poor. You engaged in a bourgeois experiment, which you openly acknowledge. Yet you don't advocate socialism, the working class liberating itself.

We create the wealth that every member of the upper and middle class live on, you included. Good-hearted liberals like yourself simply cannot make capitalism rein itself in, we have to do it. Reformism is a dead end, and has always, always prevented the working class from getting want it deserves.

Once capitalism is overcome in this country it will become overcome in the entire world. This is what we (you) need to be working toward, internationalism, socialism, cooperation impossible under this system. Not moralising, appealing to the inherent good nature of politicians and the powerful.

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You say "So let's have a little less talk about how the poor should learn to manage their money, and a little more attention to all the ways that money is being systematically siphoned off." right after listing some of the idiotic things "poor" people do that demonstrate their inability to manage money.

Who's forcing these people to avoid getting an account and cashing checks at a bank? Who's putting a gun to their heads to get them to rent a motel room rather than find shared housing and save up for a down payment? Who's making them sign rent-to-own contracts rather than shop at thrift stores? NOBODY. These are clear-cut cases, using you own examples, of poor money mangement. Please try to remember that "poor people" don't start out as "poor people" in this country. Even with as little as a public school education, anybody can easily make it to a middle-class lifestyle. Anyone who thinks differently needs to wake up to the actual facts; this country is still a fountain of opportunity to anyone who chooses to be successful. It makes me sick when people spout this kind of self-contradicting nonsense.

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I live in Canada, there has recently been a proliferation of payday loan shops.I checked the differences between US and
Canada, they are substantial. The first thing the Canadian cunsumer affairs page on payday loans tells you it is the most expensive forms of credit you can get, it gives examples of the diffence between payday, credit card and overdraft costs. The second is that the fees, both for interest and initial fees
are strictly controlled. That is one of the difference when a
parliament writes the law vs. a corporation writing them.

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1) Do whatever you can to get access to a high-quality education, even though other poor people will tell you that if you want to go to college, you must think that you are better then everyone else (really!). Maybe you need a new social circle?

2) If you must have a credit card, only use it for the most dire emergencies, as when you car breaks down 500 miles from home. Pay it off immediately. Better yet, never get one.

3) Understand that the 'professional world' is more cutthroat then your crime-ridden alleyway. People who flatter you are generally looking to rip you off and aren't to be trusted. If someone tells you you can invest your hard-earned money with them and double it in a year, understand that you are about to be robbed.

4) Save every cent you can, and get out of the consumer mentality. Learn to cook - you can go far on rice and beans - and save your money for important things that you can then use to make more money (like an education).

5) Most importantly, cancel your cable service and throw out your television. Use your time to improve your chances in life - help your friends out, take some night classes - anything is better then slackjaw TV watching.

6) Form a union at your job.

Finally, let's consider what inherited wealth and persistent poverty have in common - people in both groups typically hate hard work.

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Up rooting every few years, harassment and random ticketing by the police and adhering to new pricing structures at local restaurants and shops is quite pricy.

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that so many people posting here, who claim to "understand" being poor, have no clue.

It's even more of a shame that they all have remedies - just sock away $50 a month, open a checking account, save up for a down payment, yada yada yada.

I am 50 years old, the divorced mother of two teens, and I work three jobs to make a whopping $16,000 a year. No health insurance, of course, medical bills out the eyeballs, lousy credit because of it. After paying all my bills every month, I have a grand total of $100 left, which I would certainly bank as long as there are no trips to the doctor, the dentist (one day I'll actually be able to afford having that abcessed wisdom tooth removed), no need for eyeglasses for the kid who can't see the blackboard, no car repairs (this month it was $428 - so of course I didn't pay the electric bill or the car insurance or the heat bill to make sure I had a car to get to work). We live in a rural area, where it's 10 miles to the only grocery store around (not a discount one, mind you). I am finishing my master's thesis, which should be cause for celebration, but after I graduate that will mean another $200 per month in student loan bills. My oldest teen is in college, the youngest a senior in high school, and the monies they need are just not there. There is no public transportation here so I don't have a choice but to have the car and the insurance and repair bills that go with it - never mnd that the only car I could afford eats gas and is always on the brink of not running. I rent, of course, since no one will give someone in my income bracket a mortgage. The price of the oil to heat our home doubles in the past year, meaning I keep the house at a lovely and balmy 60 degree s all winter, and still run out of fuel at least three times a winter. If I were to try and "save for a down payment" on a decent place it would take me ... oh, let's see: first and last month's rent and security deposit on a place that costs $500 would be $1500, and it would take 15 months of no extraneous expenses to get it. That would also mean no birthday presents, no new clothes, no school supplies, etc. And no health insurance means that the surgery I am scheduled for tomorrow, for possible breast cancer, will take me about 20 years to pay off.

So take your pomposity and temper it with a little bit of common sense, please. I'm tired of all the "we know what's best for the poor, they just aren't trying" routine.

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Right now, all I see are comments on how people are just poseurs acting poor, people with ideas that aren't effective, and people complaining.

If we're going to reduce poverty, we need practical ideas. Revolution will never come and will just make everyone poor. A living wage will just cause a severe shortage of jobs and eventually lead to massive inflationary pressures that will kill any possible relief. I don't see any good ideas here.

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An excellent book on the subject is David Caplovitz's 1967 "The Poor Pay More". Worth reading if you're interested in the subject.

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Poverty is often a problem of trying to live the way you think others live. Poor people sometimes learn to live in ways that others have never considered. Marriage and children are a fast road to poverty as is a nice apartment or home.
So if you can learn to desocialize yourself and find a path that actually works then the next trick is to realize that want or poverty are in part assigned to you rather than a consequence of one's actions or abilities. So make that poverty a weapon. Make sure you find a way to not pay for that medical care. Make sure that you find legal ways of collecting every penny you can from the government and be proud if you can find ways of costing the public money or throwing a wrench into the system. Think of a system that wants to pressure you or control you as an enemy and act accordingly. For example emergency rooms must treat you. But if you arrive by ambulance you save cab fare or even bus fare to the hospital and you will be helped quicker. So how do you want to arrive in the emergency room? Obviously in the way that is best for you. There are thousands of tricks that will enable you to keep your money. Use them.

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I do have a comment. I can tell that many of those who have posted here do not understand the psychological pain of being surrounded by people who have everything they need and take it for granted while you are barely getting by. I did have a few years of being among the working poor, although I will admit that in my case it was partially because of poor choices I made. The welfare system, rather than helping people get on their feet, is designed in such a way as to keep its subscribers trapped within the system. My personal experience was that when my husband and I both lost our minimum-wage jobs within the same week while I was pregnant, we finally got desperate enough to go apply for food stamps. It was nice knowing that we were going to have food, even if we didn't have electricity or gas or a phone. But when I started looking for jobs, I found that if I took a part time job and reported it, my food stamps were cut, a lot. So we were then stuck with not enough to pay our expenses and no food. So I called back and turned the job down.
My opening paragraph about the psychology of poverty stems from that time period in my life. I worked at a JC Penny, making $4/hour. Minimum wage was $3.35 - I was moving up! I took potato soup to work for my lunch almost every day because that was what I could afford. It was so hard watching people around me eating left-over fried chicken or other good food from home, and sometimes even throwing it away, or going to buy their lunch out in the mall. I remember wishing I could ask them for that food they were going to throw away, but being too embarassed to do so. Of course, most of these people had spouses making good money, had been working long enough to make more or had parents who had been able to help them get their start. Some of them were retirees from other jobs who just needed to supplement their retirement incomes. It was depressing and demoralizing. I believe that it's that feeling that causes some poor people to make so many bad decisions. It's so hard to be surrounded by people who have so much when you are just a few dollars away from living on the street. Some people are able to climb out of the poverty hole by determination and self discipline, but even the most determined, smart, and disciplined person can have their plans and goals sidetracked or derailed by an unforeseen event beyond their control, like a lay-off, a serious illness, a car wreck, or some other event. To say that a person just has to do this or just has to do that is to say that it's that person's fault that they are poor, and that isn't always the case. If your parents are poor and can't afford to pay for an education or help you get your first apartment or help you pay for car repairs, etc., that's not your fault, but it can make it very difficult, if not impossible, to make the climb out of that hole.

I can't offer a solution, but I can say that before a solution can be found, people who have never really faced the hopelessness of feeling that no matter what you do you will never be able to do more than exist must stop acting like poor people could just stop being poor if they really wanted to. Many of the people who have been able to overcome their povery were able to do so because they got some kind of a break, even if that break was just something as small as NOT having an unfortunate event like a debilitating illness. It's very hard for someone who has never really wondered how they were going to eat or pay their rent to understand.

I think it would help if all members of congress were required to live on a minimum wage income, with no outside help aside from the welfare or private charity system, for just three months. Of course, I'm not foolish enough to think that's going to happen, but if it did, I think poverty would be a much higher priority among our legislators.

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" Mr. Speaker, the corporate media does not talk about it too much, and we do not discuss it terribly much here in the Congress, but the United States of America is rapidly on its way to becoming three separate nations: An increasingly wealthy elite, a small number of people who have incredible wealth and incredible power; a middle class, the vast majority of our people, which is shrinking, where the average person is working longer hours for lower wages; and, at the bottom we have a growing number of Americans who are living in abject poverty, barely keeping their heads above water...

...Mr. Speaker, the Nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, which constitute 1/100th of 1 percent of the population, receive almost as much income as the bottom 20 million families in the United States. One one-hundredth of 1 percent, more income than the bottom 20 million families. That, to my mind, is not what America is supposed to be. "

Read the rest at http://weblog.ohpinion.com/sanders_feature.html

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This piece hits the nail right on the head. As someone who has recently gone through bankruptcy, I found it particularly galling to have to sit through the bankruptcy judge's lecture on "fiscal responsibility"--as though I had to declare bankruptcy because I'd squandered all my riches on gourmet restaurants, luxury cars and pricey vacations, rather than on (steadily rising) rent, daily transportation costs, groceries and such. The comfortable middle (and higher) class(es) truly don't get it--that's why writers like Ms. Eherenreich are so valuable.

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When I got out of college I didn't make very much, my rent was similar to what I pay now on my house payment, yet somehow I had lots of money to spend on beer and music. Now I spend money on nothing non-essential, don't drink beer or buy music, and somehow I'm losing money every month. I have noticed however that at my small business the costs continue to increase, while the sales stay flat. I'll try to come up with some innovative solutions, but it is interesting to note the squeeze. We're being wrung out like an old washcloth, in my opinion. Get every last drop?

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The real culprit is consumerism beginning at too early ages now. Children should be taught the meaning of money and materialism as early as pre-school. At the very least Kindergarten. But no...the goal of most public schools is to educate kids so that they get "good jobs" that earn them the "right" to buy into this destructive capitalism all they can. If they learn early, they won't freak out when they find out they cannot afford that Mercedes or that Mega-Mansion. They might really feel good about living with practicality. They might even be able to help others and REALLY contribute to community. Not to mention they won't act greedy and self-centered--social ills that are also real culprits.

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The simple truth is the elites have made us into a hateful, competitive society where we simply cannot believe that we can work together to make life better for all of us rather than making it a competition to see how many people's lives we can ruin.

By framing the argument as a choice between "freedom" and "communism/socialism" the entitled right wing has stopped Americans from even talking about our hate for each other. Must we wait until the poor are put into Halliburton's work camps before we begin to rebel?

There needs to be another DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. There needs to be a national CALL TO ARMS. We need to literally hunt down the rich and take from them what they have taken from us for these oh so many years. We need to send them to the countries where their factories now extort slave labor and never let them come back. We need to pry open the mouths of their children and drizzle in the environmental poisons they heap upon us. The time for niceties are over. We need to FIGHT BACK. We need to vote for us rather than for retarded social issues like abortion, flag burning, and gay marriage that they use in their bait and switch campaigns.

Some will ask, "If you are against Americans hating Americans, why do you hate the rich?"

Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT AMERICANS!!! By their behavior they show that they reject America. It is okay to hate the slaveowner. It is okay to foment a rebellion against the taskmaster. In fact, it is your DUTY AS AN AMERICAN!!!!

RISE UP AMERICA. RISE UP AND TAKE BACK YOUR LIVES, YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS. RISE UP AND CRUSH THE ELITES.

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Absolutely true, know this well from living in NYC and working in some very poor neighborhoods. Barbara, we are trying to reach you to give you the first Betty Friedan Women and Work award August 26 in NYC. I sent a message to the moderator of one of the sites where this story appeared. Please get in touch with me via this email address. Sidney Abbott

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Classes in personal finance should be curriculum requirements in all of our nation's schools.

Many people in impoverished areas do not automatically know basic financial skills such as balancing a checkbook, or even how to open an account. How are these individuals expected to raise themselves out of their current financial conditions without any knowledge of money or finances? In the middle and upper classes, quality financial information is usually passed along through family members or friends. However, in poor environments, people don't have access to this information.

If high schools were required to teach all students things like the importance of maintaining a good credit score and how to open an IRA, the playing field would be evened out a little bit. It has been noted above that poor people tend to waste money on expensive cars and TVs. This is because they don't have the basic money management skills that we all take for granted.

I find it illogical that this information isn't currently being taught in schools. I mean, they make kids learn European history and trigonometry in order to graduate. How about a class that's actually useful in the real world?

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an article by Terese Tritch,7/19/06, some may want as a reference. Just one point she made that some inequality serves as a motivator but extreme inequality is dangerous socially, economically, and maybe politically. Researchers feel that extreme inequality may be self-reinforcing.
"Self-reinforcing" what does that mean in the real world in re to inequality financially?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206F.shtml

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If you want to know the truth and I mean the truth go to this web site www.conspiracyarchive.com and you will find the master plan for all of us in this world. As the title says it is a war against us from the "elite".
Your main problem will be DENIAL because truth forces us to accept the facts and commit to action. We will have to risk everything including our lives to change this war against us.
Not to mention we will have to care about someone else beside our own greed- like our children and grandchildren. Think of this world in 20 years!!!!

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I think all people who go to Las Vegas- entertainers, gamblers, tourists, truckers, and anyone who spends money in that city need to boycot it.
I see an action towards a police state- you mean if I feed someone whos hungry and homeless I can be fined $1000 and go to jail for 6 months? I know I will never go to Vagas ever.

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Where oh where do I get the move to 'improve' myself by moving, etc.? I lost my job and am now struggling with a $6.00/hr part time job. I look daily for different/better work. I have a great work ethic, have had interviews, but no job yet and I've been searching for 5 months. I'd leave the area with my family if we could but where do we get the money to leave? Like the person in Kentucky, where does this money come from? I would love to move to Canada ideally. People can't just leave areas without something especially if they have families. Even single people--who in Hell would pay for their relocation, etc.? If you haven't got $15.00 to spare, where does the money come from?

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This issue like so many will have liberals passing judgement on solutions suggested that do not involve enough "compassion" as they define it. Maybe in recent decade the budgets have stagnated for programs, but for 40 years we have had the war on poverty. Agree with the terminology or not, it has involved the every increasing size of govt handouts, and the addition of more and more new programs with massive administrations. The cost of administrating just about anything in govt far exceeds the benefit of the program itself. Instead of harping on the "rich" how about the rows and rows of middle managers in government shuffling paper and consuming tax money that could otherwise be used elsewhere, including in the pockets of the poor. This is an issue where the left and right should agree, that bureaucracy is enemy number one.
Not only does it screw up efficiency and consume resources, it is consuming the soul of the country. Children from the time they arrive in school are indoctrinated in it for bureaucracy sake, and it gets worse and worse through college and finally the worst place is in corporate America.

Floors of people duplicating work, reports generated with the same info, but one has the months down the sides and another the months across the top, silly redundancies like that.
Useless corporate self help seminars about moving cheese and change is going to happen so embrace it blah blah blah.
Otherwise intelligent people left w/out the ability to make a tangible decision, finding new and creative ways to say exactly what the boss said but in a different way, and the endless reading, adding, and forwarding of emails to stay noticed and get a raise.
Spending millions to "create" a mission statement, something like "We will be the best, and the safest, and make money".
All these things cost big time, and all the cost rolls right doen to the consumer. The govt does the same crap. And millions of dollars are wasted in feel good initiatives that do nothing but perpetrate the administrations growth.
This is an issue without a party, and could be fixed just like that. It is ruining our country, creating a whole class of people who are no better then welfare recipients, they are so dependent on the corporate paycheck that if they found themselves in an office without someone delivering mail that is their daily work, they wouldnt have a clue what to do all day.
We've all grown dependent, its sad and ugly.

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Not to say that poor people (just like all people) don't do stupid stuff sometimes, but I have to wonder what type of poor people you're talking about. Single men, it sounds like.
Most of the poor people I know and live around spend most of their money on one thing: their car. The car is the most vital necessity for getting back & forth to the job, grocery store, laundromat, etc. We usually are spending too much (relative to both our incomes and the value of the car) on car payments, too much on gas and insurance, and since they are used, they fall apart frequently so we have to spend even more money that we don't have fixing them.
Public transportation would go a long way toward solving this.

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Based on the pompous posts I've gagged over throughout this thread, I can see why so many people have such a problem with poverty and getting along in society, and it's this:

There are way too many self-righteous people out there that think you have to make the same decisions they would in their infinite wisdom, and do things just the way they, our shining beacons of correct decision-making, would do them before you are worthy of anything other than a life of struggle.

Someone I know likes to say, "Stupid people don't deserve to live," and he's got a very strict criteria for stupid. And now I find, to my horror, that there is an entire section of our population that thinks the same way. And THIS is the source of many of our problems. We have way too many people out there coldly passing judgment and acting accordingly.

If you can't do anything to help, then at least just keep your arrogant snobbish opinions to yourselves.

Thank you, Ms. Ehrenreich, for your article. One feels less like a complete loser when things like this are recognized and acknowledged.

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poverty is possibly the biggest evil in the world today
follow this link to ODE, the magazine for positive change, to read a few fascinating articles on microcredit, and how it's helping poor/low income people work their way out of poverty
http://www.odemagazine.com/searchResults.php?q=microcredit

one article states that the repayment rates for poor/low income people are actually HIGHER than those for high income people worldwide

explore microcredit as the way to end poverty!

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The author presented so many great challenges to the standard Econ 101 thinking that prevails that response is difficult; the large number of postings also gave good feedback
The idea behind the marginal propensity to spend (or save) is:
1. Watch what a rational consumer does when they get an extra dollar
2. Start graphing that: The marginal propensity to save (MPS) refers to the increase in saving (non-purchase of current goods and services) that results from an increase in income. For example, if a family earns one extra dollar, and the marginal propensity to save is 0.35, then of that dollar, the family will spend 65 cents and save 35 cents. This page gives a mathematical formula for tracking that.

Now, let's cut to the chase-the wealthy people in this country have a very high marginal propensity to save. Suggestion- have them bear their fair share of the expense burden of transportation, education, housing and other expensive infra structure items so that the bone shattering landing that a person makes when thrust out on to the street is not quite so, well, bone shattering. A progressive tax system (if we dare dream of a political system populated by folks wise enount to design, implement and monitor said system) would yeild trillions for social spending.
Let's hear it for the poor rich person, how they won't be able to buy the wife that second fur coat, or that villa in Spain, or the cruise to Tahiti.
Some guidelines:
Low income folks are those who live on less than $30k/yr,four person household.
Weaalthy folks are those who are beyond $225k, four person household.
So, let's hear it for mass transit-so low income folks aren't forced to choose between necessary food on the table or gas in the car. The average cost of a car is way beyond the means of the $30k/yr; we could have a mass transit system for maiking urban areas more liveable.
Let's hear it for a one payer medical system so low income people will have more time to spend at work, less time being sick or on the way to the doctor's office, or the welfare office.
Our present system leaves public policy making over to the car and oil companies for transportation; those companies get what they want and we all pay their prices for it while we are left with a antiquated system that strangles the economic growth of our cities.

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On the playing field of life in the U.S., people born into and living among poverty are not given the rules of the game, the field is uneven for them, and the opposition cheats. “Education” and “Information” are simplistic solutions for people born into a place where the game simply isn’t made for them and they are beset by oppressive obstacles. The public education and service delivery system, efforts to level the playing field, are overwhelmed when addressing the needs of neighborhoods bereft of social, spiritual, emotional, and economic vitality. “Goal setting”, “life planning”, and “investment” are rules totally inapplicable to these circumstances. The rules of a “work to live” society require that a person produce something of “economic value” just to validate their existence, not to mention put food on the table. Unfortunately, in rewarding those who maximize their own interest, the opposition (managers, employers, white collar workers) takes far more than they need (grossly overinflated salaries) and leaves blue collar workers with less than they need. The “personal investment” concept – sacrifice some immediate want to ensure greater future resources - is a rule totally foreign to most low income families yet spoon fed by the parents of middle and upper class families through allowances, examples of their own savings, plus time and money spent on preparation for college. Finally, a predator class (the cheaters) makes its living entirely on exploiting a low income population that isn’t given the rules of the game and often doesn’t have alternatives to the inferior products and services offered by the predators. These predators have many manifestations, several of which Ehrenreich mentioned, including check cashing businesses, higher-cost “convenience” stores, and predatory lenders.

This can be applied to Falternet’s example of poor people losing their money and rich people growing their money if everyone were given $500,000. Smelling blood in the water, predators would establish all manner of ways to cheat, rob, and bilk people out of the $500,000. Those who were able to hold on to their money would still find it hard to make sound decisions on investments that actually would help them improve their situation. Not to mention that some of those investments just aren’t appealing: what low income person of color wants to go to a preppy white university where they’ll constantly be asked “Why do you talk like that?” and questioned (albeit non-verbally in these PC-times) about their “right” to be there. And finally, why make the sacrifices required of such investments when the struggle of being poor is a daily emotional, social, and spiritual sacrifice. I’d want to live it up too.

Until the rules of the game are equitably distributed (or the game is changed entirely), the playing field is leveled, and the cheating opposition damned to the hell they relegate their victims to, the outcome will always be the same.

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What an interesting discussion. I have a fruitful retirement account and worry daily about the ups and downs in the market. The Bush/Cheney regime doesn't make it pleasant to read the business section of the newspaper or my quarterly statements. However, I am one of those bleeding heart liberals (and the word "liberal" denotes freedom) who feels strongly about reciprocity. It is what Native Americans valued, but their values and culture were stripped from them by ethnocentric white supremists. And the same has happened to the decendants of African slaves.

Germany paid billions to the survivors of the holocaust and continues to repudiate that scar on its past. Where or when has America ever faced its responsibility to the genocide and blatant discrimination it has perpetrated on Native Americans or African Americans? Reparations would be preferable, but a formal apology would be a good place to start.

To those of you who dare to wallow in your "white blindness," and ignore the facts staring you in your pretty white supremist faces, I say, shame on you. Read a little bit of history. Get the facts. Stop blaming the poor for their inabilities to catch up to the mainstream. Institutional racism will someday creep into your lives as well.

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Poverty is one thing and one thing only. It is the lack of spendable income. The only thing that cures poverty is money. The war on poverty was a declaration of war on poor people. People are poverty-stricken and therefore the war was to eliminate people who need money to survive. By giving people less than they need to pay the rent, eat, health care and buy the necessary things it takes to live, they die. It is a slow miserable death and it is absolutely intention and premeditated. The government whose sole job and function is to take care of people and whose job it is to know what people need, have made being poor a crime.

Congress knows what is going on. The President knows what is going on. The courts know what is going on. Knowing what is wrong and ignoring the fact is the act of a corrupt and dysfunctional government. Why does the richest country in the world, have 1 in every 5 families go to bed hungry? Food cost money. Why is 1 out of every 3 males in the United States going to die from cancer? Because a cure doesn't not need a million dollar treatments. It is not that we can't afford to fix these problems. It is not because we do not know these problems exist. It is simply and purely a choice by Congress, the President, and the courts to promote, defend, and protect profits and profitability.

The modus operandi of our now totally corrupt government is to ignore deny anything and everything that does not make money. Poor people, health care, children, environment, education all cost money. America has changed. We started out as a one for all and all for one country. We have ended up every man for himself. We are not better off. We are the worst now than we have been in our entire history. Congress has put a price on every man women and child and declared that this country is a for profit organization.

If we are to survive we must change our minds and our hearts. We must vote our conscience and elect people that share our values as kind, caring, loving human beings and not moneymaking machines. I would make a conscience effort to not elect a politician. Moms, grandmothers, students, nurses, teachers, maids, farm workers, waitresses, computer nerds, all know more about what is right and wrong than any politician. I promise that any one of you could do a better job of running this country than a politician. It is time to change our thinking and get back on track to being a real democracy.

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In reading through all the comments, the underlying thread is that jobs are the only solution to poverty. When the concept of a Guaranteed Livable Income was raised it was quickly dropped as being unrealistic. However, just how do people who advocate jobs as a solution to poverty intend to address the following:
1) THE NAIRU (The Non-Accelerating Inflationary Rate of Unemployment): Interest rates are raised to "cool down" the economy when it gets too "hot." When there is not enough "slack" in the labour market, interest rates are raised to create unemployment to stop inflation. See Unemployment heartwarming to economists
2) EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN'S UNPAID WORK: Everyone with a job relies on women's unpaid work to produce the consumers. No consumers, no jobs. That is the reason for articles such as: "Not enough babies: new threat to economy" (Wall Street Journal article printed in the Globe & Mail, Aug. 23, 05), "Why have children?" (Eric Cohen, Commentary Magazine, June 2006) and "Where have all the Children Gone?" (Public Interest Magazine, Spring 2005) and books like "The Empty Cradle" by Phillip Longman. There has been no declaration to end the human species. This means that women pay the externalized costs for all jobs. Many "working people" worry that a guaranteed income would mean a bunch of "lazy" people free-riding on their hard work. However, the opposite is true. Everyone is "free-riding" on the unpaid work of women. Housework under the Market (A generous targeted benefit to mothers is also not a solution to this exploitation as women would then face pressure to have babies for economic reasons.)
3) JOBS FOR ALL = ECOCIDE: "It will be impossible to even begin to save other species and the world's environment as long as billions of people are desperate to escape poverty. People are forced to take any available job regardless of the impact that more production and more consumption has on other peoples, other forms of life and the earth as a whole. Without a GLI people won't have a means to stop destroying nature. See Costs to Environment from Jobs
4) BAD HEALTH & SOCIAL BREAKDOWN & WAR: Millions of jobs rely on the continued consumption of products that are harmful to health (especially impacting children's health). "The attempt to produce fuller employment by inducing people to consume more products such as fast foods, tobacco, alcohol, soft drinks, donuts, caffeinated drinks, sugared foods, processed foods etc. has caused widespread ill health. " See Health Costs from using jobs to solve poverty
Millions of jobs depend on the continuation of war.Paying for War or Paying for Peace
5) Massive WASTE of time, energy, natural resources and people's lives: See Jobism
6) ECONOMIC GLUTS & OVERCAPACITY: “global oversupply of commodities is a direct consequence of the decline in purchasing power and rising levels of poverty” (The Globalization of Poverty by Michel Chossudovsky, 2003) “The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of its employment not its increase.” (Economics in One lesson, Henry Hazlitt, 1946) See also GLUTS of GOODS See Glut of Goods
7) FREE WILL: Another problem with using consumption (economic growth) to solve poverty: people do not have to consume to give other people jobs. See Consumption sole purpose of production
From: Livable Income For Everyone

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