Posted on 07/19/2011 7:22:58 AM PDT by kiki04
When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can’t adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.
When the Census Bureau defines “poverty,” though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as “poor.”
Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.
“Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens,” Rector says. “The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images.”
Congress is tying itself in knots figuring out how to cut spending and bring down a $14 trillion national debt. Lawmakers might well take a much closer look at the nearly a trillion dollars spent each year on welfare even though many recipients aren’t what the typical American would recognize as poor and in need of government assistance.
What is poverty? Americans might well be surprised to learn from other government data that the overwhelming majority of those defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau were well-housed and adequately fed even in the recession year 2009. About 4 percent of them did temporarily become homeless.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
It’s amazing how things change with time.
I see lots of kids on the free/reduced lunch list with iPods and what not.
It's pretty sickening.
Another observation about America’s poor is they are the fattest poor people anywhere on the planet.
We had a neighbor who opted to pay her cable bill instead of her utilities when she ran short. She was totally freaked when her power went out and cable would not work. (Our utilities don’t shut anyone off during the winter, but this was not during winter.)
Shame on that mother for her insouciance! My fiancee and I make a decent living, but we aren’t going to be giving our children any digital devices until they’re teenagers. We realize this is an uphill in the snow battle, but it’s one that we believe in.
I’m scared to raise children in this digital age. The Internet was an idea in a lab when I was a kid. Nintendo transformed our worlds. Now the Internet? Yikes!
Kiki, if you can keep your kids busy with sports or other activities, more power to you. You do not have to spend inordinate amounts of money to raise your children. A bocce set or even some board games are cheap and provide plenty of entertainment for a family.
And check out the shoes and the cell phones and the pants half down to the knees in the hood. It is amazing how comfortable those on welfare can be. That is the reason people won’t better themselves - they have enough and then some for free. Why do well in school or find a job when a person can watch the big fat television from the big fat couch perched on their big fat a$$ while enjoying a big fat beer and smoking a big fat doobie, all for free?
A good article with interesting facts.
A good article with interesting facts.
Record number on food stamps.
Record number of obese people.
America has the highest caloric consuming “poor” in the world.
I’m a single mom. But I went to grad school & got myself a GOOD job (praise the Lord). I now make 6 figs but it annoys me to no end to see these welfare queens walking down the street with their cell phones & Louis bags, while I get up at 0430 every day to slave away paying my taxes to support them.
Pigs. I’d say they live like animals, but truly, I think that’s a disservice to animals. My cat is more civilized than some of these folks.
There are no poor people in this country....people in Haiti are poor. In this country, they use poor as a relative term, not as an absolute term.
Well said.
and a taxpayer financed trip to the grocery store every month
The dirty secret about the working poor is that they are largely “single” moms. These “single” women almost always have a man living in their home. He may be “disabled” or he may have a job but in any case his income is not counted towards her finances. If this couple were married they would not be getting any benefits so, of course, they will never marry. They can afford to live on her government benefits so his income can go towards booze, smokes, toys and vacations. Poverty is rough.
I know times are tough and some families are truly struggling to provide housing and food for themselves. These people need help from the government and/or charities.
I find it insulting/dishonest to include in the definition of “poverty” people who have homes, cell phones, big screen tvs with asses so fat they can’t walk to the corner and back. When some people are going hungry I refuse to call a fat person “poor.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.