Women Are Swelling the Ranks of People Living in Extreme Poverty in America

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gender/war-women-newly-invisible-and-undeserving-poor-north-america




While the rest of the world debates America’s role in the Middle East or its use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress is debating just how drastically it should cut food assistance to the 47 million Americans — one out of seven people — who suffer from “food insecurity,” the popular euphemism for those who go hungry.

The U.S. Government began giving food stamps to the poor during the Great Depression. Even when I was a student in the 1960’s, I received food stamps while unemployed during the summers. That concern for the hungry, however, has evaporated. The Republicans — dominated by Tea Party policies — are transforming the United States into a far less compassionate and more mean-spirited society.

The need is great. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the food stamp program — now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), has doubled from $38 billion in 2008 to $78 billion in the last year. During 2012, 65 million Americans used SNAP for at least one a month, which means that one out of every five Americans became part of the swelling rolls of “needy families,” most of whom are women and children.

Democrats defend the new debit card program, which can only be used to purchase food, as feeding needy Americans at a time of high unemployment and great poverty. Republicans, for their part, argue that the programme is rife with fraud, that its recipients (who are mostly single mothers) are lazy and shiftless, and that we must make drastic cuts to reduce government spending. Their most Dickensian argument is that if you feed the poor, they won’t want to work.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[pipoman]

2. A little off the subject. .

But the picture brings to mind how many people hurt their own job marketability. Many employers have rules about visible tattoos and excessive piercing. .my employer included. .it is always surprising to me how many people show up for interviews looking like the woman in the picture seemingly oblivious to the reason they have difficulty finding work.

[countryjake]

10. So that's the woman's fault? How do you know she's not working three jobs?

From the article:

"So why have women disappeared from a fierce national debate over who deserves food assistance? I’m not actually sure. Perhaps it is because so many adult women, like men, now work in the labour force and are viewed as individuals who should take care of themselves. Perhaps it is because Republicans find women’s appetite, as opposed to that of children, an embarrassment, hinting of sexual desire. Perhaps it is because this is part of the Republican war on women’s reproductive freedom: a single mother with children is somehow guilty of bringing on her own poverty."

[pipoman]

11. If you read the subject line of my post. .

You will see I stated it a little off the subject. .meaning my comments had nothing to do with food stamps. Men or women who have multiple face piercings and tattoos on their neck and hands remove themselves from eligibility for a lot of good jobs.

[theHandpuppet]

13. Most of the single Moms I know...

... are also the hardest working people I've ever met. I don't know how many of them do it, really.
I also think some of the observations in the article are spot on. How else to explain the RW's fear and loathing of single Moms?

[countryjake]

14. Working Class Heroes...

I think, is how Ms. Rosen ended her article.

As she also pointed out, even the talking heads who are vigorously opposed to the cuts to SNAP, for some strange reason, fail to say that it is struggling women, the poor single mothers of our nation, who are bearing the brunt of the cuts already in place and if the Rethugs get their way, it's those same hard working women who will be even further devastated.

Personally, I don't know how they manage either, but I have the utmost respect for the single mothers that we know and help them out whenever we can. So many are suffering the effects of poor nutrition, the daily sacrifices that they must make, running on empty to shitty job after shitty job. A living nightmare that our entire country seems to want to sweep under the rug. Invisible.

[redqueen]

3. K&R nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. kick for more exposure

[Igel]

5. Of course.

It's in the definition of the poverty levels, more or less.

For 2013 if you make
11,490 for 1 person you're at the poverty line. The 133% of poverty line is about $15,300.
Mininum wage of 7.25 gets you above $14,000. $10/hr gets you $20,000, if you work full time for 50 weeks (my figures will all be for 50 weeks). So one person, full time, Walmart gets you clearly out of poverty and probably above that 133% level.


Now consider single-parent families. The vast majority are headed by a woman. The men don't take the kids; society doesn't prefer giving men the kids; the women typically want the kids.

If there are two of you, parent and child:
$15,510 is the poverty line. $20,680 is the magic 133% level. Walmart probably won't get a parent and kid out of poverty.

If there are three of you, parent and two kids:
$19530 is the 100% of poverty line. $25,975 is that magic 133% line that usually is considered as "poor" or "in poverty" by most advocates and many media folk. To avoid that 133% line you need full time work at $13/hr.

More dependents, the higher the poverty line. Give me an income of $47000 and 7 dependents, I'd be in poverty. And the median household income of $51k or so wouldn't get me above the 133% of poverty line.


Now consider single person households. They're going to be where the single males, most often the fathers of the kids in single-parent households, are. They're one-person economic units. They make $20k and they're not officially "in poverty."

The problem are the stats: the lower the SES, the lower the education level, the lower the family income level, the greater the number of kids and the more likely to be a single parent.

[redqueen]

6. The problem is poverty. Not the stats. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Demonstrating why spreadsheets are not a substitute for thoughtfulness nor experience.

The problem is bad intent and execution and they are the product of a philosophy of governance that says government's job is to take care of business and abandoning the people to try and work it out for themselves.

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. I'd really like to know how much of that $40B increase found its way

onto the balance sheets of the TBTF parasites?

[countryjake]

9. K&R!

[Le Taz Hot]

12. Well, that's not what I heard.

I heard we own 60% of the country's wealth. Read it right here on the DU. Of course even a cursory look at the Census Bureau statistics will reveal the truth but why let truth get in the way of a good female bashing?

[LisaLynne]

15. I was just coming here to post that.