The Poverty Problem in America

It is important to start with a disclaimer: We can reduce poverty in America, but we can never totally erase or eliminate it. There are a number of reasons why this statement is sadly a fact of life. First of all, there are some people who are unable and unwilling to work and support themselves and their families. Even if that number can be reduced through welfare payments, job training and other financial incentives, there will always be a few who simply cannot cope with getting out of poverty.

We are also facing a serious dilemma in just how much the governments- state, city and federal should spend to lift some people out of the poverty level. As the budget crisis increases, and the trillion-plus debt of the Iraq War on Terror will keep Americans paying for budget shortfalls for generations, public sentiment is moving away from supporting the poor, and funding ways and me

If we are to do at least something to get more people above the poverty level, here are some priorities. First, education. We need to alter our educational system and weed out those who are scholastically "slow learners" and place them in the sort of schools where they can be trained for job skills where the Three R's may not be a vital requirement. For others, we need to create an educational system that interests and involves students and does not rely on a national test average for the school to be considered successful. This also implies that teachers need to instruct not to get good grades out of their pupils, but to get them to learn SOMETHING.

Second, we need a job training program, co-sponsored by labor unions and large businesses that provide the next generation of labor to keep from continuing to outsource our manufacturing. During the 1930s, there was the WPA and the CCC- organizations developed to put young people to work to do something useful and constructive during difficult times. Even though over the past decades some types of "work camps" have been tried, somehow they didn't catch on. Perhaps there was not enough incentive. Perhaps the publicity didn't reach the right people. Perhaps what is needed is both a carrot and a stick: join up, learn a trade, get to work- or lose welfare benefits." Harsh, yes. But it very well may be needed.

Third, undocumented aliens, a.k.a. illegal immigrants, are also diffusing the labor market. There are those who claim these people do the jobs Americans won't do. In actuality, they are willing to work for lower wages, get paid under the table, and therefore seldom (if ever) pay taxes. Thus, an American earning the same pay, who is taxed, brings home far less for the same amount of time and labor. Unfair? Yes, but that is what brings some employers to the pick-up stations where the illegals congregate.

Fourth, provide health care that encompasses the 30+ million who now have little or no health insurance. Mostly children, by the way. It is a well-known fact (though debated by fiscal conservatives) that if you are not healthy, or chronically ill because of lack of care, you are not able to work. Or, you may work only sporadically. At the same time, birth control must be taught and encouraged, and neo-natal clinics established more widely so that even new mothers may be able to resume work or find a job. That, of courser, also means providing child care at the work place. But, getting a loyal worker because of such care is worth the small overall cost.

It is easy to wall off one's concern about the disadvantaged and poor. But they are among us. And they may only multiply unless we take some of the steps suggested above to at least reduce poverty. Sorry to say that poverty sometimes is like the common cold: too many people get it and once you have it there is little to be done to cure it. As a poplar book a few years ago pointed out, too many are being "nickeled and dimed" in America. The Trumps and their ilk get richer. The welfare system seems to keep too many from achieving a goal of self-sufficiency.