By Andre Audette
We Americans like to keep our poor neatly tucked away, but new poverty numbers show it's going to get increasingly hard to do so. It's a shame really, not that we have to see what we like to think of as invisible, but that we let it get this bad. We are soon going to have to face up to our long-ignored problem, one that we'd much rather save for another day. Soon Americans are going to have to come to grips with the reality that our neighbors and friends might be poorer than we think. Poverty is on the rise, and we can't hide it much longer. We've sheltered ourselves for too long, and we've all grown poorer for it.
1 in 6 of our American brothers and sisters live in poverty. And new numbers show that 1 in 15 live in the most extreme form of poverty, below 50% of the (already artificially low) federal poverty line. That's over 20 million Americans who struggle by on less than half of what the government calls necessary to survive. Those numbers sure hit home, if you are lucky enough to have one. What it means is that our grandparents, our children, and maybe we ourselves are stuck in a cycle of trying to make ends meet.
These harrowing numbers don't tell the whole story however. More and more citizens are falling victim to the ongoing recession, leaving people without jobs, without homes, or without food to put on the table. Others are trimming the family budget because they are underemployed: over 15% of those who are lucky enough to have a job can't afford basic necessities because they don't earn enough from their one, two, or sometimes three jobs. When you add the numbers up, you see why it is harder to cast away our poor and let them fend for themselves.
The poverty problem is also getting hard to miss simply because poor communities are growing. More and more often the poor are clustered in underprivileged neighborhoods and can't get out, leaving them breathless in a spiral of poverty. We are seeing more run-down retirement communities because older Americans are losing their hard-earned savings. We are regressing back to the days of racial segregation because minorities continue to be disproportionately affected by the economic downturn. No matter where the poor are forced to live, the ghettos are growing too large to miss.
Poverty in America paints a very dreary picture. Many people are suffering, and those with the means to help others find themselves similarly uncertain about their economic future. Indeed, it's harder to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" when boots are becoming a luxury item. Our massive debt also means that government can less afford to spend on social programs that the poor and disabled need. And we still live in denial of this very serious crisis. Fortunately, we have the power to change it. America is not (nor ever has been) helpless to solve the problem, as long as we take serious measures to address it.
Helping the poor represents an opportunity to make both moral and economic advances in our country. By putting more money into the hands of those who need it, we can lift up the poor and put an immediate boost into our economy. Increasing discretionary funds among those who previously had none will increase spending and get American businesses back to work. By actually making a serious, full-faith effort to create jobs, we can ease the effects of poverty and set our nation on a better economic track. Instead of writing off a growing segment of the population, we need to get serious and start seeing invisible poverty. Trust me, we'll be much richer for it.
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