[QUOTE=MGibson]
It is true, for the most part the poorest folks in the United States live a lot better then the poorest folks of a lot of other countries.
[/QUOTE]
1/ The poorest folk in the USA are the homeless and roofless. Their conditions are not disimilar to the poverty experienced by people in the third world, but with the added disadvantage of limited family and community ties.
Average age of death in the mid forties- hardly better than Africa.
2/ The Poor but housed:
· Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.
· There are 46 million Americans without health insurance.
· There are 82,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone.
· In 2004 the poorest community in America was Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Unemployment is over 80 per cent, 69 per cent of people live in poverty and male life expectancy is 57 years. In the Western hemisphere only Haiti has a lower number.
Quotes from the above:
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The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
Or they are people like Tammy Reinbold, 37. She works part-time and her husband works full-time. They have two children yet rely on the food handouts. ‘The church is all we have to fall back on,’ she says. She is right. When government help is being cut and wages are insufficient, churches often fill the gap. The needy gather to receive food boxes.
Some of those tragedies in Tulsa end up in the care of Steve Whitaker, a pastor who runs a homeless mission in the shadow of a freeway overpass.
Each day the homeless and the drug addicted gather here, looking for a bed for the night. Some also want a fresh chance. They are men like Mark Schloss whose disaster was being left by his first wife. The former Wal-Mart manager entered a world of drug addiction and alcoholism until he wound up with Whitaker. Now he is back on track, sporting a silver ring that says Faith, Hope, Love. ‘Without this place I would be in prison or dead,’ he says. But Whitaker equates saving lives with saving souls. Those entering the mission’s rehabilitation programme are drilled in Bible studies and Christianity.
Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life. It also runs counter to the strong anti-government current in modern American politics. Yet the problem will not disappear. ‘There is a real sense of impending crisis, but political leaders have little motivation to address this growing divide,’ Cynthia Duncan says.
Save The Children works here. Though the charity is usually associated with earthquakes in Pakistan or famine in Africa, it runs an extensive programme in east Kentucky. It includes a novel scheme enlisting teams of ‘foster grandparents’ to tackle the shocking child illiteracy rates and thus eventually hit poverty itself.
In America, to be poor is a stigma. In a country which celebrates individuality and the goal of giving everyone an equal opportunity to make it big, those in poverty are often blamed for their own situation.*
