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Why Poverty Persists in America

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#61

Post by dfxm12 »

humanrebar wrote: post #44
dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Despite absolute dollars per person spending increasing since the Reagan years, Americans remain in poverty because: 1. Raising health care costs 2. Very little poverty spending actually goes to the recipients' pockets 3. Decline of union membership 4. Home ownership is out of reach and the rent is too damn high 5. Banking is expensive for poor people Most of these issues can be traced back to corporate lobbying. The…

Eh... you have some valid points, but poverty has existed under every single policy regime so far. Ever. In history. So why should I accept that the root problem is bad policy instead of something else?

The article shows how poverty has gotten worse from certain policy choices (a little financial system deregulation here, a little union busting there, lack of housing almost everywhere, giving money to fund abstinence-only sex ed instead of to the poor, etc.).

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#62

Post by rcme »

_fat_santa wrote: post #35
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #3

> The deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s heightened competition among banks. Many responded by raising fees and requiring customers to carry minimum balances. In 1977, over a third of banks offered accounts with no service charge. By the early 1990s, only 5 percent did. I would think that increased competition would improve conditions for customers?

> I would think that increased competition would improve conditions for customers? It did improve conditions for customers! As an example I currently bank with Ally, free checking account, no ATM fees (on any ATM, in/out network doesn't matter) and pretty sure they have good overdraft protection though I've never checked. Compare that to a place like BoA that has ATM fees, minimum account balances and fees, and while…

What do you do when you need $10,000 in cash?

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#63

Post by celeritascelery »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #31

The amount of single parent households has 5X'd since the 50s. The US now leads the world in this measure. This seems like such an obvious factor to leave out of an article like this. I have trouble believing it's not one of, if not the most important changes the US has gone through.

There is a strong correlation between poverty and single parent households[1 2 3]. However it is not a popular thing to talk about because it can feel like “blaming the victim”. But if we ignore it we can’t have productive conversations about how to solve poverty.

[1]https://post.ca.gov/portals/0/post_docs/publications/Buildin...

[2]https://ifstudies.org/blog/less-poverty-less-prison-more-col...

[3]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/04/half-of-all...

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#64

Post by blindriver »

cmh89 wrote: post #48
blindriver wrote: post #16

Poverty persists because Americans have abandoned the notions of education and safety. Entire cities are destroyed by generational poverty but those are also the highest in crime. No one talks about the 20+ murders a weekend in South-side Chicago. No one. How do you expect children to get an education and lift themselves out of poverty when they are terrified of being gunned down every single day? The worst parts of…

> No one talks about the 20+ murders a weekend in South-side Chicago. No one. How do you expect children to get an education and lift themselves out of poverty when they are terrified of being gunned down every single day? Crime in Chicago isn't talked about? That's not been my experience. It's literally infamous for it. >The worst parts of the US need a well-trained, well-monitored police state that will bring safet…

> Crime in Chicago isn't talked about? That's not been my experience. It's literally infamous for it.

If you ask your coworker today, how many shootings were there in Chicago last weekend, unless you live in or near Chicago, they will be shocked that there were 17 shootings and 4 homicides just over the weekend. Murders are "down" in 2023 with only 83 murders since Jan 1, 2023. We are only 10 weeks into the year.

> There is no such thing as a 'well-monitored' police state.

I think if enough money is poured into it, with enough eyeballs on it, and a high level of training, it can be very effective.

> Safety and education can only be achieved through economic security, not incarceration and abuse by the state.

You can't achieve economic security without safety. Can you name a single wealthy location with as high a crime rate as South side Chicago or Baltimore? The infant death rate in Baltimore is higher than 3rd world countries. We have fucking ABANDONED Baltimore and it's disgusting.

I don't want a police state, but in those areas, that's the only solution.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#65

Post by ihm »

This article gets very close, but ultimately fails to get to the root of things. It’s like a liberal facsimile of a radical analysis. This can be seen clearly with logic like

> Lousy, underpaid work is not an indispensable, if regrettable, byproduct of capitalism

Actually, it is. Market competition in the search for a steady profit pressures capitalists to reduce wages as much as possible, and eliminate any human aspects from work that are not strictly necessary for production. So, definitionally lousy, poorly paid work[^0].

Workers can fight back against this pressure, but it’s a Sisyphean task. As this article explains, it’s difficult and any gains will be eroded over time and a new generation of workers will have to fight again.

The real solution is to construct systems (technologies and institutions) that can perform the functions of capital (coordination of production and distribution, giving people something to do with their day), and then eliminate capital as a social process. Generating poverty (not to mention war, ecological destruction, etc.) is just an intrinsic consequence of the dynamics of capital and will be with us until we do away with it.

[^0]: I didn’t say underpaid because on average all jobs in capitalism are underpaid: profit comes from paying people less than they produce…

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#66

Post by MSFT_Edging »

blindriver wrote: post #54
insane_dreamer wrote: post #25

Reducing the U.S. military budget by 20% and spending it on poverty relief programs could eliminate poverty to a large degree in the U.S. (not entirely, but that's unrealistic). It's not that the government doesn't have the money or that we're not paying enough in taxes. It's that we're spending it on the wrong things (if we want to have a generally prosperous and stable society).

Giving people living in generational poverty a handout is the BEST way to keep them enslaved on government largesse. You need to take that money and invest in their neighborhoods and lift the entire neighborhood out of poverty by educating them. My God, how many eons is the saying "Give a man a fish..." been around? Yet the best idea we still have is to hand money out to absolve ourselves of collective guilt? Look at…

Poverty is cyclical. It continues because it's expensive to be poor, and one road block multiplies to many roadblocks.

You're upset about the SF homelessness budget and homelessness activists, but what is your solution? break up homeless camps and throw all their earthly possessions into a dumpster, then tell them to "elevate themselves" at the shelter where they're more likely to be assaulted and stolen from?

Or maybe send as many to prison as you can to "teach them a lesson"?

Can you point to a study where safe injection sites make drug problems worse?

Can you point to anything where its physically possible to "pull oneself up by their bootstraps"?

Look, I get it, you don't like looking at them, they make you feel bad, you don't want to see them as human. But you can't just solve poverty by telling the diseffected masses to become an entrepreneur.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#67

Post by prottog »

cmh89 wrote: post #50
prottog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data suggest that income inequality and marginalization are what cause those issues Being poor and downtrodden forces one to turn to street violence? Nonsense. Poor kids raised in cultures that value education and self-improvement are able to turn their lives around. Poor kids in cultures that value other things aren't, which obviously isn't the fault of the kids, but there is only so much the state can do to step…

Can you elaborate on what "cultures" don't value education and self-improvement?

As the other commenter replied, inner-city gang culture is a principal example that is destructive to so many children's futures.

Even among groups that would be categorized together in the US, such as African-Americans, you can see a clear divided in outcomes between cultures; Nigerian-Americans, for example, have a higher average income than the US average, and nearly twice that of Somali-Americans. Average incomes for black people who immigrated to the US is considerably higher than those native-born.

Or take Indian-Americans vs. Bangladeshi-Americans, whose original countries are next to each other and have comparable GDP per capita; yet the former group has an average income more than twice the latter. And you can imagine that whatever prejudices an Indian-American faces, a Bangladeshi-American faces equally.

There's no evidence historically to suggest that cultural groups that value human capital differently should end up at similar levels of wealth over time.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#68

Post by prottog »

speculativename wrote: post #59
Spinnaker_ wrote: post #31

The amount of single parent households has 5X'd since the 50s. The US now leads the world in this measure. This seems like such an obvious factor to leave out of an article like this. I have trouble believing it's not one of, if not the most important changes the US has gone through.

In the 1950s you could also afford to raise a family of 4 on a single (male) income. If a single mother's income today was comparable to a husband's income back in the 50's relative to cost of living, this wouldn't be an issue at all. Or, you know, if we had any number of institutions in this country which are more common in the rest of the developed world, such as paid childcare and maternity leave, affordable healt…

You're comparing a dual-parent household to a single-parent household and claiming that if they made the same amount of money, the children would be equally well off. I'm not sure where you get this idea.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#69

Post by yoyohello13 »

humanrebar wrote: post #44
dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Despite absolute dollars per person spending increasing since the Reagan years, Americans remain in poverty because: 1. Raising health care costs 2. Very little poverty spending actually goes to the recipients' pockets 3. Decline of union membership 4. Home ownership is out of reach and the rent is too damn high 5. Banking is expensive for poor people Most of these issues can be traced back to corporate lobbying. The…

Eh... you have some valid points, but poverty has existed under every single policy regime so far. Ever. In history. So why should I accept that the root problem is bad policy instead of something else?

I think the root cause is pretty clear actually. The vast majority of humans will never willingly reduce their quality of life to make a stranger's quality of life better.

Re: Why Poverty Persists in America

#70

Post by jmclnx »

dfxm12 wrote: post #30

Despite absolute dollars per person spending increasing since the Reagan years, Americans remain in poverty because: 1. Raising health care costs 2. Very little poverty spending actually goes to the recipients' pockets 3. Decline of union membership 4. Home ownership is out of reach and the rent is too damn high 5. Banking is expensive for poor people Most of these issues can be traced back to corporate lobbying. The…

All True, but I think there is "one item that rules the all" :)

Exploitation. Our economic system is based on exploiting other people. We "had" the worst kind, slavery along with colonialism. Then we slowly moved to a combination of "unlivable" Wages and Undocumented Workers.

This allows the well off to live the good life. With the issues we are having now, we may need to move to a different system, but witch one ? Unfortunately the only way that has happened in the past is civilization ending wars (or something close to that).

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