alien@gcc-opus.ARPA (Alien Wells) (12/11/84)
Much political hay has been made recently about the percentage of Americans below the 'poverty line'. I heard an interesting report the other day which makes it seem that there has been another case of lying with numbers. It seems that when the 'Great Society' programs were inacted, there were about 22% below the PL. The reports for last year seem to show it unchanged. However, it turns out that many benefits for poor people are not included in determining whether you are under the PL. For instance, food stamps are not included. This is rather interesting. As anyone who has worked in a store can tell you, Food Stamps and money are pretty similar. They even get routed through the banking system to the Treasury. You use them just like money. Of course, your food stamps get discounted if you try to buy drugs or fast cars :-) Leaving food stamps out of the PL calculations basically says that someone with food stamps is no better than someone without them. Clearly absurd. When entitlement programs (predominately food stamps) are factored into the calculation, the % of people under the PL dropped to a low of about 7.5% just before the last recession. Since the % is strongly linked to the unemployment rate (make sense), it rose to a high of about 10% in the recession. It is projected to be about 8.5% for this year based on data in so far (the recent drop in unemployment might lower this), presumably lowering next year. What does this mean? First, Poverty in the US is not as bad of a problem as some people would want you to believe. Clearly, 8.5% is not as bad as 22%. (Did you ever stop to wonder where those 22% were? I mean, if there were that many, wouldn't you know a lot of them?) Second, although many of the Great Society programs were stupid and wasteful, nevertheless they have had some effect, especially the Food Stamp program. By the way, as someone who has lived under the PL most of his life, I can tell you that where the line is is rather political too. You can live pretty well under the PL. The year I went to college, my folks only owed a total of $167 in federal income tax for the WHOLE YEAR (the best year they had ever had). They qualified for Food Stamps the entire time I lived there. (However, Dad would never take them. Probably the reason he doesn't need them now.) And we didn't live bad. I always had adequate food, clothing and shelter (although I grew to hate stewed tomatos and spam). We didn't have much new, and we didn't have a color TV, and there was a hell of a lot else we didn't have, but I was hardly deprived. However, we were clearly under the PL. However, other people with the same or more money had serious problems, even serious malnutrition. Why? Usually the main reason was vice. Cigarettes, alcohol, junk food. In general, poor money management. I've had some rather enlightening talks with social workers. One family that spent their entire allowance of Food Stamps on soda and potato chips. That's all they ate. The rest of their money went to support their fathers 4 pack a day habit and alcoholism. I could go on, but I won't. But don't be too idealistic about helping the 'disadvantaged'. Yes, there are some people who just haven't had a chance. However, there are a lot who wouldn't know a chance if it bit them in the face. And all the social programs you dream up won't help them if they won't help you help them. Unless, of course, you regulate all choice out of their lives ... Alien
hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (Jerry Hollombe) (12/13/84)
>When entitlement programs (predominately food stamps) are factored into the >calculation, the % of people under the PL dropped to a low of about 7.5% >just before the last recession. Since the % is strongly linked to the >unemployment rate (make sense), it rose to a high of about 10% in the >recession. It is projected to be about 8.5% for this year based on data in >so far (the recent drop in unemployment might lower this), presumably lowering >next year. 8.5% of 230 million people = 19,550,000 people living below the poverty line. Hardly a trivial problem. >However, other people with the same or more money had serious problems, even >serious malnutrition. Why? Usually the main reason was vice. Cigarettes, >alcohol, junk food. In general, poor money management. I've had some rather >enlightening talks with social workers. One family that spent their entire >allowance of Food Stamps on soda and potato chips. That's all they ate. The >rest of their money went to support their fathers 4 pack a day habit and >alcoholism. I could go on, but I won't. This is known as "welfare mentality" and is a very real problem. Social workers get very crazy (and very burnt out) trying to teach people like this to manage their money. Not surprising when you consider the number of supposedly intelligent, relatively affluent people who are incapable of living within their means. Probably a lot of Doctoral dissertations have been written about attempts to cure the problem, with no visible success. -- The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe) Opinions expressed here are my own Transaction Technology, Inc. and unrelated to anyone else's. 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90405 United States (213) 450-9111, ext. 2483 ...{garfield,lasspvax,linus,cmcl2,seismo}!philabs!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe
glosser@ut-ngp.UUCP (glosser) (12/15/84)
<> In a recent article Alien (alien@gcc-opus) was trying to make the claim that entitlement programs (especially food stamps) where helping as far as the war on poverty is concerned. I will agree with him in that sense, because without entitlements things would be worse. However, when he makes the following statement about including benefits (food stamps, etc.) when determining who is below the poverty level (8.8% of the population below the poverty level if benefits are included, 22% if not.) he shows a great misunderstanding of what the issues are vis a vis the incidence of poverty in this country: >What does this mean? > >First, Poverty in the US is not as bad of a problem as >some people would want you to believe. Clearly, 8.5% is >not as bad as 22%. (Did you ever stop to wonder where >those 22% were? I mean, if there were that many, wouldn't >you know a lot of them?) > First, it might enlighten people to see what the %'s of people below the poverty level have been from 1970 through 1982 for the total population as well as the white and black population: % of Persons Below the Poverty Level (source Economic Report of the President - 1984 Page 252) Year Total White Black 1970 12.6 9.9 33.5 1971 12.5 9.9 32.5 1972 11.9 9.0 33.8 1973 11.1 8.4 31.4 1974 11.2 8.6 30.3 1975 12.3 9.7 31.3 1976 11.8 9.1 31.1 1977 11.6 8.9 31.3 1978 11.4 8.7 30.6 1979 11.7 9.0 31.0 1980 13.0 10.2 32.5 1981 14.0 11.1 34.2 1982 15.0 12.0 35.6 Also, consider the following data for families below the poverty line. (source Economic Report of the President - 1984 Page 252) Where: Total = Total % of all families in the USA Female = Total % of all Female headed families in the USA White = Total % of all White families in the USA White F. = Total % of all White Female headed families in the USA Black = Total % of all Black families in the USA Black F. Total % of all Black Female headed families in the USA % of Families Below the Poverty Line Year Total Female White White F. Black Black F. 1970 10.1 32.5 8.0 25.0 29.5 54.3 1971 10.0 33.9 7.9 26.5 28.8 53.5 1972 9.3 32.7 7.1 24.3 29.0 53.3 1973 8.8 32.2 6.6 24.5 28.1 52.7 1974 8.8 32.1 6.8 24.8 26.9 52.2 1975 9.7 32.5 7.7 25.9 27.1 50.1 1976 9.4 33.0 7.1 25.2 27.9 52.2 1977 9.3 31.7 7.0 24.0 28.2 51.0 1978 9.1 31.4 6.9 23.5 27.5 50.6 1979 9.2 30.4 6.9 22.3 27.8 49.4 1980 10.3 32.7 8.0 25.7 28.9 49.4 1981 11.2 34.6 8.8 27.4 30.8 52.9 1982 12.2 36.3 9.6 27.9 33.0 56.2 From the above, issues such as what the poverty incidence would be without food stamps, horror stories of people spending all their entitlement money on soft drinks and hard liquor, etc. detract from what I consider to be one of the main issue associated with poverty in this country: The incidence of poverty shows that RACISM and SEXISM is alive and well in the United States! In other words, when: roughly one out of two black female headed households are below the poverty line; three times as many female headed households as compared to male headed households are below the poverty line (this also means three out of ten female headed households as well); as well as three tenths of the black population living below the poverty level, something is seriously wrong! Stuart M. Glosser
alien@gcc-opus.ARPA (12/17/84)
>issue associated with poverty in this country: The incidence >of poverty shows that RACISM and SEXISM is alive and well in >the United States! Thanks for posting the statistics, though I am pretty sure they are the ones that don't include food stamps as income in determining poverty. Of course, the disparity between black and white wouldn't be anywhere nearly as large if they did, since the percentage of blacks on food stamps is much larger than the percentage of blacks in the population as a whole. But that is not what I wanted to reply to. Your quote above is something that I hear quite often, particularily on TV news, and it galls me. RACISM and SEXISM are thoughts, deeds, and perceptions that one group of people have toward another group of people that they consider *different*. Taking a look at a set of statistics about the economic welfare of groups of people and saying that it shows various ISM's is an absurd (though popular) abuse of statistics. Let me give some extreme examples. Statistics show that the following groups of people are generally worse off than the average: - Married heads of households under 25 - Single heads of households - Households with over 5 children - Elderly - People with chronic health problems - Descendants of poor people Does this mean that discrimination against these groups of people is 'alive and well'? Now, I won't deny that there IS still racism and sexism around. I would be either a fool or blind if I did. But let me point out some other factors which influence the higher black poverty level: - The higher incidence of single parenthood - The higher percentage of school drop-outs - The larger percentage of poor parents (with all the boot-strapping problems that entails) - The larger families Another point, a group which has clearly suffered from much discrimination in the US is the Jewish community. But yet, their demographics are better than national average. Why were they able to climb above the obstacles? Probably the biggest factor is the Jewish culture's strong values of hard work and education. Contrast this with the over 50% high school drop-out rate of blacks in most urban cities. Now, I am hardly going to characterize blacks as shiftless and lazy. As with any other group, some are and some aren't. And a growing number of blacks do get ahead these days, which is good to see. However, STATISTICALLY, the black culture does not put as much of an emphesis on basic education as the population as a whole does. (I am basing this statement on results of standardized tests, high school drop-out rates, literacy rates.) Now, there was a growing sentiment in the 60s that this was OK, that the black culture had different values than the white culture does and trying to use the same standards for the two groups was wrong, that blacks were doing an injustice to their heritage if they strived toward white ideals. Go tell that to the employer who just isn't interested in hiring a functional illiterate. This is a very basic problem, and all of the good will, intentions, and social programs in the world are not going to help someone who won't help himself. And the problem is cyclical and reinforcing. A group doesn't consider basic education important, so the children don't apply themselves at school. The school collapses because the kids spend more effort avoiding work than learning. The kids can't learn, because the school is no good. Everyone gets the idea that education is unimportant because the kids don't learn anything from it ... So now, how about a pat solution? I don't have one. But it has to start from the bottom. Bussing typically doesn't help because the kids tend to segregate themselves, and get their values from their peers of the same group. I suspect that making private child-raising illegal and having everyone raised by the state would do wonders, but I would hardly recommend it (all the kids would end up fucked up, instead of most of them). There are only two things that can break a chain like this: 1) Somehow have the group in question uniformly adopt a set of values which are strongly economically oriented. Some things that would help: * Stable families, low divorce rate, no single parents * Small families * Education and hard work strongly valued * Entire life of parents geared toward childrens future How do you get a group of people to endorse values like these? Damn if I know, and I don't think it would be right to force it on them if I did. 2) Eliminate racism to the point where the concept of race disappears, to the point that skin color is like hair color. This would, of course, mean the disappearance of blacks, hispanics, etc as distinct ethnic groups with any form of separate values or heritage. This is what I think will eventually happen, as it did with the large Italian, Irish, German, English, etc minorities we used to have. Sure, there are still people who consider themselves of, say, Irish descent in the US, but their number pales compared with the number of people with some Irish blood that just consider themselves Americans. The key to seeing this happen is inter-racial marriages. They are on the rise, but they are still rare. Until then, what do you do? My suggestion is to try to help those really needy without creating programs which re-inforce a 'welfare state mentality'. Workfare is my favorite. Make any able bodied welfare recipient work for their check. Even if it is just make work. The benefits are three-fold: - You at least make them feel they are working for the benefit instead of the government 'owing' them the money. - You might, just might, give them some sort of job skill or work ethic. - Someone will think a lot harder about a minimum wage job at a fast food joint if their alternative is poorly paid work instead of a paid vacation. Up here in Nashua NH we have a pilot workfare program, but I don't know how long it will last. It seems the Democrats are all up in arms, saying that it is 'demeaning' and 'unjust' to those who are 'unfortunate enough' to require government aid. Since southern NH is pretty Democratic (probably the proximity and number of refugees from MA), I suspect its days are numbered. Oh well. Alien
vassos@utcsrgv.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) (12/22/84)
> RACISM and SEXISM are thoughts, deeds, and perceptions that one group of people > have toward another group of people that they consider *different*. Taking a > look at a set of statistics about the economic welfare of groups of people and > saying that it shows various ISM's is an absurd (though popular) abuse of > statistics. The use of statistics about the economic welfare of Black people and women to make the point that racism and sexism exists in society, is perfectly legitimate. It serves the important purpose of showing that racism and sexism, in addition to (and more importantly than) being "thoughts, deeds and perceptions" of individuals against individuals, are _social_ problems with far-reaching and dire implications on their victims' lives. > Now, I won't deny that there IS still racism and sexism around. I would be > either a fool or blind if I did. But let me point out some other factors > which influence the higher black poverty level: > - The higher incidence of single parenthood > - The higher percentage of school drop-outs > - The larger percentage of poor parents (with all the boot-strapping > problems that entails) > - The larger families "Factor" 1 is actually a consequence of sexism ("single parenthood" almost always means "female-headed family"). "Factor" 2 is a consequence of racism: poor neighbourhoods (and Black neighbourhoods in their majority _are_ poor) get bad schools. "Factor" 3 is also a consequence of racism: many Black people have poor parents because their parents were discriminated against. This leaves us with "factor" 4: I don't know the demographics, so I don't even know that it is true; in any case, if it was a significant factor, it would imply Catholics are, as a group, poorer than Blacks, clearly untrue. Therefore, if "factor" 4 is a factor at all, it is insignificant. > Another point, a group which has clearly suffered from much discrimination in > the US is the Jewish community. But yet, their demographics are better than > national average. Why were they able to climb above the obstacles? Not to negate in the slightest the fact that the Jewish community has suffered a lot of discrimination and persecution, it is nonetheless a fact that Jewish people (along with the East and South European immigrants, also discrimiated against) were not brought in the U.S. in the chains of chattel slavery. If you don't understand the significance of this fact, you'll excuse me but you don't understand jack shit about the history and culture of Black people in the U.S. > Now, I am hardly going to characterize blacks as shiftless and lazy. As with > any other group, some are and some aren't. [...] However, STATISTICALLY, the > black culture does not put as much of an emphesis on basic education as > the population as a whole does. (I am basing this statement on results of > standardized tests, high school drop-out rates, literacy rates.) The results of "standardized tests, high school drop-out rates, literacy rates" are themselves a measure of racism: yes, if a group of people only has access to poor schools, it won't do as well in tests, it will tend to drop out of the (poor) schools more often and its literacy rate may be lower. What's that got to do with "black culture"? The fact is that you're basing your statements on standardized racist propaganda. > Now, there was a growing sentiment in the 60s that this was OK, > that the black culture had different values than the white culture > does and trying to use the same standards for the two groups > was wrong, that blacks were doing an injustice to their heritage > if they strived toward white ideals. If you are trying to say that a good education is "a white ideal" (as opposed to a "black ideal"), then I'll say that you are not only basing your statements on racist propaganda, but are spewing such yourself. If that's not what you are saying then _what_ are you saying? Check out the people who are struggling the hardest for quality education in your town (or place of employment? I mean Cambridge and Boston both of which I know first hand) -- you'll find the Black politicians in the front lines. > Go tell that to the employer who just isn't interested in hiring a functional > illiterate. More racist garbage. The problem with racism in employment is not that "the employer just isn't interested in hiring a functional illiterate"; the problem is that the employer "just isn't interested" in hiring a person because of his/her colour. > [...] the problem is cyclical and reinforcing. A group doesn't consider basic > education important, so the children don't apply themselves at school. The > school collapses because the kids spend more effort avoiding work than learning. > The kids can't learn, because the school is no good. Everyone gets the idea > that education is unimportant because the kids don't learn anything from it ... You're starting the circle from the wrong point. The starting point isn't that "a group" doesn't consider basic education important (in fact, that's not a point in the circle at all). The starting point is that "the group" has only access to the worst kind of education. > [...] There are only two things that can break a chain like this: > 1) Somehow have the group in question uniformly adopt a set of values > which are strongly economically oriented. Some things that would help: > * Stable families, low divorce rate, no single parents > * Small families > * Education and hard work strongly valued > * Entire life of parents geared toward childrens future A bit patronizing, don't you think? I know plenty of lilly white upper middle class suburbs with very unstable families and high divorce rates. How about delivering your sermons there? Regarding "education and hard work [being] stronly valued", they already are (by Blacks and by any other group I know of), thank you very much. Ditto for parents caring about their children's future. > 2) Eliminate racism to the point where the concept of race disappears, > to the point that skin color is like hair color. Finally, something I can agree with... > This would, of course, mean > the disappearance of blacks, hispanics, etc as distinct ethnic groups with any > form of separate values or heritage. Why should elimination of racism imply all this? Why shouldn't instead people learn to respect and learn from others' values, heritage, culture? Vassos Hadzilacos.