For some people - for many people - the need is lifelong.
These are people for whom welfare is not a temporary solution, some sort of stepping stone to a job and self-support.
Not a chance in the world.
About time somebody noticed that the War on Poverty, inspired in part by Michael Harrington and launched under Lyndon Johnson, is as necessary and permanent a feature of society as schools and fire departments.
And we should be fighting it a lot harder.
The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem
The Oxford economist Robert Allen recently estimated needs-based absolute poverty lines for rich countries that are designed to match more accurately the $1.90 line for poor countries, and $4 a day is around the middle of his estimates.
When we compare absolute poverty in the United States with absolute poverty in India, or other poor countries, we should be using $4 in the United States and $1.90 in India.
Once we do this, there are 5.3 million Americans who are absolutely poor by global standards.
Once we do this, there are 5.3 million Americans who are absolutely poor by global standards.
This is a small number compared with the one for India, for example, but it is more than in Sierra Leone (3.2 million) or Nepal (2.5 million), about the same as in Senegal (5.3 million) and only one-third less than in Angola (7.4 million).
Pakistan (12.7 million) has twice as many poor people as the United States, and Ethiopia about four times as many.
This evidence supports on-the-ground observation in the United States. Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer have documented the daily horrors of life for the several million people in the United States who actually do live on $2 a day, in both urban and rural America.
Matthew Desmond’s ethnography of Milwaukee explores the nightmare of finding urban shelter among the American poor.
It is hard to imagine poverty that is worse than this, anywhere in the world.
. . . .
Even for the whole population, life expectancy in the United States is lower than we would expect given its national income, and there are places — the Mississippi Delta and much of Appalachia — where life expectancy is lower than in Bangladesh and Vietnam.
It is hard to imagine poverty that is worse than this, anywhere in the world.
. . . .
Even for the whole population, life expectancy in the United States is lower than we would expect given its national income, and there are places — the Mississippi Delta and much of Appalachia — where life expectancy is lower than in Bangladesh and Vietnam.
. . . .
For years, in determining this spending, the needs of poor Americans (or poor Europeans) have received little priority relative to the needs of Africans or Asians.
For years, in determining this spending, the needs of poor Americans (or poor Europeans) have received little priority relative to the needs of Africans or Asians.
As an economist concerned with global poverty, I have long accepted this practical and ethical framework.
In my own giving, I have prioritized the faraway poor over the poor at home.
Recently, and especially with these insightful new data, I have come to doubt both the reasoning and the empirical support.
There are millions of Americans whose suffering, through material poverty and poor health, is as bad or worse than that of the people in Africa or in Asia.
. . . .
[I]t is time to stop thinking that only non-Americans are truly poor.
Trade, migration and modern communications have given us networks of friends and associates in other countries.
We owe them much, but the social contract with our fellow citizens at home brings unique rights and responsibilities that must sometimes take precedence, especially when they are as destitute as the world’s poorest people.
In my own giving, I have prioritized the faraway poor over the poor at home.
Recently, and especially with these insightful new data, I have come to doubt both the reasoning and the empirical support.
There are millions of Americans whose suffering, through material poverty and poor health, is as bad or worse than that of the people in Africa or in Asia.
. . . .
[I]t is time to stop thinking that only non-Americans are truly poor.
Trade, migration and modern communications have given us networks of friends and associates in other countries.
We owe them much, but the social contract with our fellow citizens at home brings unique rights and responsibilities that must sometimes take precedence, especially when they are as destitute as the world’s poorest people.
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