[Tallguy]

To see why it's so misleading, we analyzed how relative poverty rates compare with absolute poverty rates for each of the American states. For relative poverty, we calculated the proportion of people living in households that earn less than half of their own state’s median income. For absolute poverty, we looked at the percentage of all people in a state living in households below the federal poverty line."

This is easy. It takes 2 incomes to raise kids today -- that's baked into the government assumptions. The largest slice of single-parent households are almost automatically making below the median rate. There's your "relative poverty" right there in a nutshell.

But the goverment doesn't want to address economic & tax policies that have created the requirments for a 2-income household.

[ilovesarah2012]

Does he blame it on single parent households?

[IC Ken]

America....we pay people to be poor.

[Skooz]

bfl

[a fool in paradise]

Tens of millions of illegal immigrants streaming over the border having anchor babies. There are always going to be poor children in America.

It’s not America’s fault.

[from occupied ga]

Leftists lie - about everything. If they told the truth even to themselves their entire world view would fall apart

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Poverty"

Tagline.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Here in CT, being on welfare is the equivalent of a $24/hour job. Why the hell would any lazy young kid bother with going to work? Unnngh.

[Mase]

Bookmark

[CharlesOConnell]

African-American writer Robert Woodson, Heritage Foundation Retrospective on The Kerner Commission of the mid 1960s:

http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/the-kerner-commission-report

There was a rich tradition of economic development and self-sufficiency among free blacks even during slavery. It is interesting, however, that the advocates of civil rights had to abandon publications that discussed the strength of black communities in order for them to have civil rights laws applied to them. With these demands, we entered a “grievance period” in which we reported only on our shortcomings and our failings. This had devastating results on attitudes and goals. In addition, the civil rights movement was incubated in the same womb as the poverty movement. Therefore, the moral authority of one was extended to the other. Criticizing poverty programs meant being called a racist. It legitimized a victim mentality and undermined a spirit of self-help and personal responsibility.

As we conducted interviews among many older blacks who were active in the business arena, we found that 68 percent of those blacks who are second-generation college graduates were born into entrepreneurial households. These were the people that had nice houses, small businesses, and barber shops. These entrepreneurs tended to convey the importance of education to their children. Unfortunately, this entrepreneurial legacy was abandoned by black leaders in the 1940s and 1950s. As a consequence, there was a rapid decline in the entrepreneurial activity within the black community. Our history of success was lost, and we took on the role of victims to racism who were trapped in poverty. Personal incentive to escape the situation was dead.

If economic conditions and race were the sole predictors of outcomes in the black community, then why was it possible during the Great Depression that 82 percent of black families had both fathers and mothers raising their children? Current economic conditions are nothing in comparison with those of the Depression, during which time there was negative growth in gross national product with an overall unemployment rate of 25 percent for all Americans. This meant an unemployment rate of about 40 percent for blacks. This was also a time in which blacks had neither political representation nor judicial representation. Worst of all, they were being lynched every day. Despite these odds, they achieved and maintained strong family units. In 1863, when 1,000 blacks were fired from the docks of Baltimore, people did not march on Washington, D.C., demanding jobs, peace, and freedom. Instead, they established the Chesapeake Man Drydock and Railroad Company, which operated successfully for 18 years.

Revisionist history has been communicated to our young people. When I spoke to 200 black MBAs from the finest graduate schools in this country, I learned that not a single one knew anything of the rich entrepreneurial past of black Americans. Consequently, there has been an ascendance of a leadership class within the black community that is grievance-oriented. There are many middle-income blacks who have a proprietary interest in the grievances of the black community. The poverty industry has joined forces with the race-grievance industry, and together they suppress reform that could have the power to uplift those low-income people in the black communities.

[Blue Collar Christian]

It’s all about income equality. The progressives want everyone to be paid equally regardless of their ambitions. That way everything is fair, there will be no more greed, everyone will turn their swords into plowshares as plentifulness abounds and only the government will have swords.

Perfect.

[Blue Collar Christian]

It’s all about income equality. The progressives want everyone to be paid equally regardless of their ambitions. That way everything is fair, there will be no more greed, everyone will beat their swords into plowshares as plentifulness abounds and only the government will have swords.

Perfect.