I recently read an article published by the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor)
regarding poverty and came away with how subjective poverty is based
upon the individual’s social lens. I read this article not only as a practitioner,
but also as someone who has an academic interest in the subject matter as well. Therefore, the following is my reaction
to the information I read.
The term poverty as the authors’ uses it is subjective when
the idea of what it means to be poor in this country is far more complex. Simply put poverty in the U.S. can have
negligible and legal consequences that do not exist in other countries. Therefore, to look at poverty through
the lens of the nightly news and a late night infomercial and determine what
passes for acceptable poverty levels domestically are rather shortsighted, if
not naïve.
It seems to me that the authors’ define poor simply in terms
of access to goods and services. However,
at the very onset of the article they acknowledge that the cost of goods goes
down considerably following a products introduction into the marketplace. Therefore, cost and access are relative
depending upon where we are in the products market cycle.
The authors identified a combination of at least 10 of the
following items as an example of an improved lifestyle that contradicted what
“liberals” define as poor. As if
to say if you own any of the 10 you are no longer poor, you simply lack
comforts. The list are as follows:
- · Microwave Oven
- · Air Conditioner
- · Car or Truck
- · VCR
- · DVD Player
- · Cable or Satellite TV
- · Cell Phone
- · Video Game
- · Personal Computer
- · Internet Service
- · Dishwasher
- · Stereo
- · Big Screen TV or LCD
- · Video Recorder
Going back to an earlier point depending on where the
product is in its life cycle consumers can obtain the aforementioned at
relatively inexpensive prices.
Case and point with a microwave oven. You can purchase one for as low as $38.00 from Wal-Mart
brand new. Also, both a DVD Player
and a VCR can be purchased for basically the same price with the later not
available in some cases.
Also, you would be hard pressed to find any well meaning,
social conscious advocate to consider items like cars and trucks, personal
computers and internet service as examples of “luxury” items.
Depending on the city access to adequate transportation is
absolutely vital in terms of functionality. In Jacksonville, FL dependable transportation can be the
difference between employability and being unemployed because of our lack of
investment in an adequate public transportation system. Furthermore, the suburbanization of job
opportunities makes access to a car far more important to those who live in
core communities than it ever has been in our country. The lack of investment made in
core communities regarding jobs and the infrastructure associated with jobs
continues to be a leading indicator regarding generational poverty, which leads
me to my next point and that being technology.
Technology or lack thereof can be a major factor in terms of
lifting up or keeping people in generational poverty. I would question if the authors have ever had to fill out any
public assistance forms. To merely
apply for “help” requires you to have online access. Given the Internet as an access point to even get services I
would question if you could still consider a computer or the Internet as a “luxury”
amenity. In some cases it is
actually a cheaper proposition to access services online because of the fees
associated with talking to a live a person. Therefore, creating a codependency on the part of poor
people who cannot afford to be with or without ample technology.
Computer and Internet access is all-together a different
story when it comes to children, particularly children from poverty stricken
families. Research is very clear
regarding technology and child development, those who have access achieve and
those who don’t simply fall behind.
Furthermore, given our country’s propensity for testing technology is
simply a must have access. In the
State of FL starting this year certain aspects of the statewide assessment will
be done solely online. Can you
imagine being a student who only has access to a computer in school or at the
neighborhood library, who by the way have limited access and only allows you up
to an hour per session? This is
not to even mention that here in Jacksonville the library and its hours are the
1st targets for cuts in at least the last 2 different mayor’s
budget.
The final category in which I take particular issue with is
the authors’ lack thereof “evidence” regarding poverty-induced malnutrition. They suggest that overconsumption of
calories is a major problem within the U.S. in general and not germane to poor
communities. As evidence the
authors’ sited the nutriment intake of adult women in the upper middle class as
resembling that of poor women and suggesting the same evidence was consistent
across the board despite the ethnic or gender subset. However, the one glaring issue that is overlooked is
choice. The lower subsets of
people have very little choice based upon access. In poorer communities’ access to healthier food options is
limited at best and simply not available worst case creating terms like “food
desert,” which mean an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or
good-quality fresh food.
Therefore, foods that are high in calories become part of an unhealthy
diet out of necessity rather than a life style choice. All of this combined leads to run away
medical bills, which can have a crippling effect even on the best-managed
households.
What this article does is it makes the issue of poverty simply
an issue of choice, particularly regarding marriage and work ethic. I have coined this the “urbanization of poverty,” which means if
poor inner city black and brown people would simply make better choices socially, get married
and get jobs their social and economic condition would change. This approach not only simplifies poverty to fit in a nice explanative social commentary box, but it also adds a level of racial stereotyping while ignoring the social conditions that create poverty. At the same time it further de-humanizes
people based upon the idea that somehow poor people, particularly those from
inner city communities’ somehow make poor decisions, don’t get married, have
out of wedlock children as a result of some cultural norm and neither have the
aptitude or attitude to work.
However, all of those statements are over generalizations and inaccurate
regarding poor people.
Finally, what I do know as a practitioner first and an
academician second is poverty is less about choice, although it does play a
small part, but more about the environmental circumstances that create the
conditions that lead to poverty.
And it is those environmental circumstances, which are created through
the vessel of public policy that allows politicians and
policy makers the ability to inflict their social will.
No one wakes up in the morning and decides that today is a
great day to be poor. Nor do they
wake up and decide that I want to be educated in the worst schools, or eat the
unhealthiest foods and find a job that’s the furthest away from my home. However, this is the reality many poor
people find themselves in yet the expectation is to somehow simply pull
yourself up by your bootstraps and make it without any social safety nets.
That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking to it….
I AM
Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen
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