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Poor are more needy, but getting less help
William A. Collins
Published January 7 2007
Just as George Bush has blessedly abolished
hunger by renaming it "food insecurity," Bill Clinton
abolished poverty by passing "welfare reform."
Presto, a little name change, and the whole
problem disappears.
But the needy people don't. They're still out there,
"ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed," in President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's memorable phrase. If the Flying Walendas' safety net had
been so full of holes, the whole clan would have died out in nothing flat.
Poor people die prematurely too. That's because the United States offers
no basic entitlement for health care, food or shelter. Fine programs
abound, like Medicaid, food stamps and Section 8 housing subsidies, but
society has never found it important to adequately coordinate or fund them.
Thus, gaps abound.
America still clings to that immigrant/pioneer spirit of self-reliance. This
ideology is understandably promoted by the wealthy. By minimizing the
government's responsibility for human welfare, they keep taxes down.
Here at home, our not-so-humble state of Connecticut has achieved a
special honor in regard to the poor. We are one of only two states where
the average income of the poorest fifth of the population has actually
inched downward since 1991. And you'll no doubt be shocked (shocked!)
to hear that income for the wealthiest fifth simultaneously rose 32 percent.
Ho-hum.
Nationally, that bottom fifth did much better than in Connecticut, its income
rising by 16 percent while ours declined. But not all of the bottom fifth is
actually "in poverty." To qualify for that distinction, a family of four must
suffer an income below $19,000. Plenty do - 12.6 percent of us to be exact.
Losing a job, or falling sick, or developing a mental illness can submerge
you to that level very quickly. So can a low-paying job.
After all, full-time, minimum-wage employment these days is only good for
about $12,000. And when the new Democratic Congress gets through, it
should be worth about $17,000, but not until 2008. That's still poverty.
Besides, what family of four can live on $19,000 anyway? They'd need food
stamps, Section 8 and Medicaid, plus a lawyer to navigate all those
bureaucracies. There wouldn't be time left to hold a job.
To soften poverty's blow, some cities have been fussing with a "living"
wage. This concept usually applies to municipal contractors and to
companies that receive city subsidies. The typical required pay scale runs
about $10 per hour, plus health care. (Yes, many public contractors pay
less). New Haven, Waterbury and Manchester have now taken this step,
with others in the pipeline. Chicago has even applied it to Wal-Mart.
One mitigating factor in olden times was state welfare's local office. It
aided the downtrodden in claiming their rightful due under the statutes.
Well, it still does, but there are not nearly as many of them. As an example,
in Norwalk, the city closed its own welfare shop for budgetary savings,
figuring that the needy could just use the state government office instead.
Smooth, but then the state closed its shop too. Now, in this tony region,
applicants must travel to Bridgeport for help, while avoiding losing their
jobs for taking so much time off.
The whole nation is like that. Poverty is not a problem to be solved; it's a
problem to be avoided. When conservative members of Congress speak
of cutting the budget, they don't mean for the rich, for the military, or for
themselves. They mean for the poor. The rich and the Pentagon enjoy
permanent entitlements. Only the poor must prove their needs year after
year.
So we now live in a land of downward mobility. Perhaps the new Congress
can do better.
Syndicated columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative
and a former mayor of Norwalk.
The piece was distributed by www.minutemanmedia.org.
Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc
William A. Collins
Published January 7 2007
Just as George Bush has blessedly abolished
hunger by renaming it "food insecurity," Bill Clinton
abolished poverty by passing "welfare reform."
Presto, a little name change, and the whole
problem disappears.
But the needy people don't. They're still out there,
"ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed," in President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's memorable phrase. If the Flying Walendas' safety net had
been so full of holes, the whole clan would have died out in nothing flat.
Poor people die prematurely too. That's because the United States offers
no basic entitlement for health care, food or shelter. Fine programs
abound, like Medicaid, food stamps and Section 8 housing subsidies, but
society has never found it important to adequately coordinate or fund them.
Thus, gaps abound.
America still clings to that immigrant/pioneer spirit of self-reliance. This
ideology is understandably promoted by the wealthy. By minimizing the
government's responsibility for human welfare, they keep taxes down.
Here at home, our not-so-humble state of Connecticut has achieved a
special honor in regard to the poor. We are one of only two states where
the average income of the poorest fifth of the population has actually
inched downward since 1991. And you'll no doubt be shocked (shocked!)
to hear that income for the wealthiest fifth simultaneously rose 32 percent.
Ho-hum.
Nationally, that bottom fifth did much better than in Connecticut, its income
rising by 16 percent while ours declined. But not all of the bottom fifth is
actually "in poverty." To qualify for that distinction, a family of four must
suffer an income below $19,000. Plenty do - 12.6 percent of us to be exact.
Losing a job, or falling sick, or developing a mental illness can submerge
you to that level very quickly. So can a low-paying job.
After all, full-time, minimum-wage employment these days is only good for
about $12,000. And when the new Democratic Congress gets through, it
should be worth about $17,000, but not until 2008. That's still poverty.
Besides, what family of four can live on $19,000 anyway? They'd need food
stamps, Section 8 and Medicaid, plus a lawyer to navigate all those
bureaucracies. There wouldn't be time left to hold a job.
To soften poverty's blow, some cities have been fussing with a "living"
wage. This concept usually applies to municipal contractors and to
companies that receive city subsidies. The typical required pay scale runs
about $10 per hour, plus health care. (Yes, many public contractors pay
less). New Haven, Waterbury and Manchester have now taken this step,
with others in the pipeline. Chicago has even applied it to Wal-Mart.
One mitigating factor in olden times was state welfare's local office. It
aided the downtrodden in claiming their rightful due under the statutes.
Well, it still does, but there are not nearly as many of them. As an example,
in Norwalk, the city closed its own welfare shop for budgetary savings,
figuring that the needy could just use the state government office instead.
Smooth, but then the state closed its shop too. Now, in this tony region,
applicants must travel to Bridgeport for help, while avoiding losing their
jobs for taking so much time off.
The whole nation is like that. Poverty is not a problem to be solved; it's a
problem to be avoided. When conservative members of Congress speak
of cutting the budget, they don't mean for the rich, for the military, or for
themselves. They mean for the poor. The rich and the Pentagon enjoy
permanent entitlements. Only the poor must prove their needs year after
year.
So we now live in a land of downward mobility. Perhaps the new Congress
can do better.
Syndicated columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative
and a former mayor of Norwalk.
The piece was distributed by www.minutemanmedia.org.
Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc
