What is poor in America? (1 Viewer)

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Ambush said:
Thank goodness this thread isn’t a indicator of actuality.
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you opened the thread asking a question, but it seems more like you're trying to press an answer. There are legitimate complications to such a pervasive, complex topic being raised but they keep getting shelved.

If you just wanted to tell us about poverty in America, why frame it as a question?

edit: I'll also add that I don't see anyone saying that poor choice or personal accountability don't factor into it. What I see is people saying it's not the only thing and/or that there are things that make making good choices difficult, esp relatively speaking. So I don't feel that contrary thoughts or contradictory opinions are being understood/represented quite accurately.
 
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Ambush said:
Food is available other than McDonalds to most of America. It comes down to choices. Choices that some people make are not healthy for their bodies or their pocket books.

It is somehow become a societal problem that the person making the choice is not responsible for the choices being made. It is somehow corporate greed (pick your bad guy of the week) that has caused the bad choices.
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When I was kid, I'd see the infomercials about donating just pennies a day would help a starving kid in some under developed country. I would think things like, "why dont they just move? Why make the choice to live there?" As I got older, I realized that there's more to the equation than that.

Food is NOT available to most of the United States. That's an illusion you could easily uncover if you decided to think outside of your own circumstances.

American Nutrition Association – Healthy People, Powered by Nutrition

americannutritionassociation.org americannutritionassociation.org

This explains what food deserts are and the ramifications of being poor and living in a food desert.
 
Oye said:
you opened the thread asking a question, but it seems more like you're trying to press an answer. There are legitimate complications to such a pervasive, complex topic being raised but they keep getting shelved.

If you just wanted to tell us about poverty in America, why frame it as a question?

edit: I'll also add that I don't see anyone saying that poor choice or personal accountability don't factor into it. What I see is people saying it's not the only thing and/or that there are things that make making good choices difficult, esp relatively speaking. So I don't feel that contrary thoughts or contradictory opinions are being understood/represented quite accurately.
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Damn it.

I came in on page 2. Thats my fault for not starting with the OP. I thought this was a genuine thread. I didnt realize this was started to echo some bootstraps, abstinence preaching Republican silver spooner. Oye's right. You're not looking for answers, you're looking to spread doctrine, empathy and facts be damned. You have a point to make and totally irrelevant anecdotal stories of privileged family and friends to do it with. Que more stories of bi-polar uncles, friends from well off families that are deciding to live on the streets for now. Yep, that totally encapsulates the familial generations of poor people in our country...bi-polar uncles.
 
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livefromDC said:
When I was kid, I'd see the infomercials about donating just pennies a day would help a starving kid in some under developed country. I would think things like, "why dont they just move? Why make the choice to live there?" As I got older, I realized that there's more to the equation than that.

Food is NOT available to most of the United States. That's an illusion you could easily uncover if you decided to think outside of your own circumstances.

American Nutrition Association – Healthy People, Powered by Nutrition

americannutritionassociation.org americannutritionassociation.org

This explains what food deserts are and the ramifications of being poor and living in a food desert.
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Even more than McDs being the only option, it’s actually more like the Chinese place behind the bullet proof glass
But more often than not, it’s just the corner store - like a lot of nutritious options at the corner store

And for those talking about cooking
That presupposes transportation to the grocery, enough on hand money to buy makings for a few meals at once, and then of course it presupposes a working kitchen with pots, pans, seasonings, etc
 
Ambush said:
Food is available other than McDonalds to most of America. It comes down to choices. Choices that some people make are not healthy for their bodies or their pocket books.

It is somehow become a societal problem that the person making the choice is not responsible for the choices being made. It is somehow corporate greed (pick your bad guy of the week) that has caused the bad choices.
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Yes and no. You and I benefit from our excessive mobility. We can go to different neighborhoods or even cities to find pretty much anything we want. But that's not so in poorer neighborhoods. And there are retailers who take advantage of that. Why are gas prices in lower income neighborhoods sometimes up to $.30 higher that in more affluent ones? Why did Lyft and a non-profit organization called Martha's Table team up to help people in lower income areas of Washington DC (where there are like only 3 grocery stores for almost 150,000 people) get to the store more often?

It's a systematic issue that we have to be honest about if we're going to get serious about helping out others. Your uncle is a unique situation (and I totally understand where he's coming from actually) but not the norm for people struggling to make ends meet. And we can't as a society force stores to establish a prescence in areas that they can't be profitable in, but cities and municipalities could offer the same tax breaks and/or subsidies that they do to retailers like Dollar Tree/Dollar General to get better food suppliers to stay in places who really need one.

Here's an interesting fact sheet by the Institute for Local Self Reliance on how big of an impact Dollar stores are having on lower income neighborhoods. I'm not saying that this is gospel or anything, but it shows that there's a much greater nuance as to why people can't pull themselves out of a negative financial circumstance than we sometimes want to acknowledge.

 
JimEverett said:
I think there are.
First, I am not talking about the "free spirits" who truly choose to turn down stability or whatever.
I am talking about people who are incapable of holding down that job for whatever reason. I have seen it all too often - including family members. There are various reason for it, but it happens.
And I am not saying that it is a majority of our poor. I really don;t know. But I suspect its common to some degree.

I think the poor in this country have a lot of issues that are not necessarily of their choosing but can seem like it is. Whether it is mental illness, abuse as a child, drugs, etc. - I rarely see (really have never see personally) someone in poverty for an extended period of time that was really capable of holding on to a job - especially one that would require the sort of commitment to pay $75,000 a year.
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“Various/whatever reason” isn’t good enough
I need the ‘poor by choice’ proponents to show me their work
 
I’m sorry if my opinion is not genuine enough for you. Lol

A few months back a report was posted that Hammond La is one of the worse places in the US to live. The major contributors were petty crime and lack of food availability. I just don’t see it. I travel this parish from end to end. There is food everywhere and I’m not talking McDonald’s. (This is the country)

There is surely poverty. The young couple working two jobs making $12 per hour and does everything possible to provide lunch for their kids. That is poverty. Unfortunately, a lot of these people do not seek government assistance for a multitude of reasons. (My family was to proud)

These are the people that I try and impact. Maybe my efforts should be focused on the homeless under the bridge. I just don’t think we would get the bang for the buck. However, it is easier to sensationalize that plight.
 
And maybe I am sheltered living in small town USA. But I do frequent, all major cities in La, Alabama, Tennessee, ms, and Florida. I see grocery stores everywhere.

I also see a lot of dollar stores. To Crosswatt point, I understand to an extent. But then that goes back to choices. I live in pumpkin center. We have 1 dollar store, 2 Convenience stores, a salvage food store and 2 stop signs. However, in both directions there is a grocery within 5 miles. Choices
 
There is no better feeling than to see someone get out of poverty. I think if we actually focused on the people who are striving to do better, we would see better results.

But like anything else, both sides of the issue focus on the fringe of the topic instead of the movable people.
 
DadsDream said:
In part because said programs have been rife with scandals, abuses, misuses, mission creep and corruption.
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I think an overwhelming majority of people, regardless of political identity, want efficiency and accountability in their government.

Whether it's the "Welfare Queen" myth, or the dire warnings of "socialism", I think we have to acknowledge that the very mechanisms that strive to provide food to children, health care, housing assistance, educational opportunities, etc, have long faced strong opposition. In reality, these programs are precisely the reason many of our poor aren't forced into shanty towns, shoeless, and walking miles in search of water and food - since that's the starting point premise.
 
DavidM said:
I don't think we can talk about the programs that are in place to provide assistance to people in need without also acknowledging there is a tremendous amount of political force to erode/eliminate these programs.
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i dont think this is accurate but more of a fear/scare tactic.
 
Anyway, as indicated in my first post, I think comparisons of American poverty to that elsewhere in the world is needless and flawed. Confronting world hunger and figuring out ways that the poor in this country can secure housing, access to health care, and otherwise survive in an expensive, modern capitalist society are important, crucial challenges to confront.
 

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