WASHINGTON (NNPA) - A U. S. Census statistic placing the number of impoverished Americans at 34.6 million is causing presidential candidates to understate the depth of the problem, says the president of one of the nation's largest anti-poverty organizations.
"I think by not suggesting that we have closer to 100 million Americans who live on the edges, on the fringes [of poverty], you don't create the kind of necessary urgency to spotlight poverty that is needed," says Derrick L. Span, national president of the Washington, D.C.-based Community Action Partnership, a 32-year-old network of 1,000 community action agencies.
The danger, Span said, is that saying 30-34 million in a nation of 300 million are impoverished creates the impression that the problem is a minor one.
"Thirty-four million people living in poverty in the richest nation in the world is still shameful, but 100 million living around the circle of poverty is absolutely scandalous, and I think by not recognizing that and saying that, then we let an opportunity pass to focus on poverty, spot-light it and treat it as [a] national urgency, like we should."
The most recent census figures on poverty, released last fall, reported that the poverty rate had risen from 32.9 million in 2001 (11.7 percent) to 34.6 million in 2002 (12.1 percent).
Since that report, the candidates have repeatedly cited the 34.6 million figure, Span points out.
Nearly all, if not all, of the presidential candidates have used the statistic in some way. For example, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) is quoted on "Ontheissues.org," complaining, "There's been no discussion about 35 million Americans who live in poverty."
Span, former CEO and president of the Urban Leagues in Harrisburg, Pa. and Broome County, N.Y., explains: "Certainly they are giving the numbers that the census is reporting, and so certainly they are not being disingenuous.
The census report gathers up the chronically unemployed and the working poor.
But, there is another face of poverty called the future face of poverty. These are the individuals who aren't represented in the census report. They are the ones who are one or two or three paychecks away from slipping below the American dream, who are one injury away or one sickness away."
Other poverty experts question how poverty is calculated.
"The first thing I would do is revise the poverty line. I think it's absurd," says Chester Hartman, research director at the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, a Washington-D.C.-based anti-poverty research group.
"It doesn't take sufficient account of regional and local variations. One of the more dramatic census figures is the millions and millions and millions of people who have to spend 60 to 70 percent of their income in order to keep a roof over their heads - otherwise they're going to be homeless. What does it take to keep a decent roof over your head? That varies enormously. If you live in Toledo, it's one thing. If you live in San Francisco and Washington and Boston and New York, it's another thing. And the poverty lines don't seem to reflect those considerations."
The U.S. Census Bureau says a family of four is impoverished if it's living on $18,392; the amount is $14,348 for a family of three, $11,756 for a family of two, and $9,183 for individuals. According to those calculations, there are 16 million (8 percent) whites living in poverty and eight million Blacks (22.7 percent).
New policies on health care and sick pay are also necessary to enhance the lives of people on the borderline of poverty says, Beth Shulman, author of "The Betrayal of Work," a book that discusses how low-waged jobs fail the poor.
"We need to say, 'Look, corporations, you can't compete on the basis of impoverishing workers.
They need to be given paid sick leave so they're not choosing between having a job and forfeiting a day's pay and taking care of a sick child,'" Shulman says.
"We need a new contract with working Americans. We have 30 million jobs that pay less than $8.70 an hour. Many of those jobs don't have health benefits, sick leave, time off to be with one's family.We set the rules in our society. And we need to set rules that insure healthy families and insure that we're provided the basics."
Not since the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in the 1960s has there been an all out effort to eradicate poverty in America, recalls Span.
Johnson's "Great Society" was the centerpiece legislation of his domestic agenda for Congress in 1965. It launched an "Economic Opportunity Act," which included his "War on Poverty" legislation.
At the time, Congress passed a string of new programs, including a Medicare program that provided health services to the elderly through the 1935 Social Security Act, laws that provided federal aid to elementary and secondary education and the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist with low-income housing.
But funding for the Vietnam War siphoned off many of the programs that Johnson wanted to fund.
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968, he was in the middle of his "Poor People's Campaign" that would have culminated in a march on Washington demanding passage of a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights, guaranteeing employment to everyone able to work, incomes for those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination, Span recalls.
The assassination sparked protests - many of them violent - in at least 130 cities across the country.
"As a result of that, the ranks of the country have turned very conservative and started marching in another direction that was more individualistically dominated," he says.
But Span believes there is hope. The Indiana native, who is the first Black person to head the Community Action Partnership, is planning a "No Room for Poverty" rally Sept. 4 on the Washington Ellipse, during which presidential candidates will have a chance to outline their anti-poverty measures.
Span says his staff is researching new anti-poverty policy options in anticipation of the rally. The goal will be to impress upon the next president to hold a "White House Conference on American Poverty" with a goal of adequate funding to squash poverty in the United States, he says. He describes several local and state programs that, if carried out at the federal level, could impact poverty across the United States. They include:
- Individual Development Accounts. Once a family saves a certain amount of money for two years, then the state and federal government matches the savings, which then can be used for down payment on a home, an automobile, day care or starting a business.
- Self-employment assistance programs. Individuals who are about to exhaust their unemployment insurance can participate in a 12- to 22-week entrepreneurial training program in which they write a business plan and consult with business attorneys, accountants and bankers in preparation for business ownership.
- Community Development Financial Institution Program. Banks or other lending institutions specifically lend to poor and distressed communities in order to expand or create businesses.
- Tax breaks programs whereby businesses pay lower taxes if they hire distressed and low-income people.
Despite the highly charged politics of next fall, Span says he is hoping the Sept. 4 demonstration will be genuinely bi-partisan.
Unlike the Johnson era, President George W. Bush has been criticized for policies that are hurtful to the poor.
Hartman, the poverty researcher, says: "Bush comes from this incredibly privileged background, whereas Johnson knew poverty in Texas and really was quite serious about civil rights and poverty - and we've kind of lost that." http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&s detail=196&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&rety pe=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&sal=