Why is the stunning increase in the levels of poverty so muted during this campaign season?

[dajoki]

AlterNet / ByCourtney E. Martin and Noliwe Rooks
The Abstraction of Poverty Is Making Our Policies Poor
Why is the stunning increase in the levels of poverty so muted during this campaign season? Why are the solutions coming out of either party so hard to find?
April 2, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/154802/the_abstraction_of_poverty_is_making_our_policies_poor

No ink has been spared and no caricature avoided as columnists and pundits have discussed the wealth stockpiled by GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.

It got us thinking. Being out of touch with the reality of living below the poverty line is often used as a campaign strategy, but is it really a problem owned by either political party?

So far this election season, Republican candidates have proven themselves, at best, unaware that the number of Americans living on two dollars per day has more than doubled since 1996, and at worst, uncaring that this is so. But it’s not immediately apparent that Democrats are any more engaged. We strongly suspect that the so-called Left spends almost as little time thinking in solution-based ways about eradicating poverty as do wealthy Republicans like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum who have, at various times and in various ways in the last few months, intimated that the poor would do well to help themselves out of poverty by just getting a job.

The Obama administration, for its part, has pursued a sort of “rising tide” policy premised on the belief that increased economic opportunity for the largest number of American citizens will provide poverty relief by lifting all boats, including those of the poor and struggling. Sure, the unemployment rate has stagnated, but the numbers of American citizens living in poverty far surpasses the numbers of jobs created on a monthly basis.

Plus, the administration’s approach fails to acknowledge that not everyone has a boat that is sea worthy; too many Americans are drowning without the cultural capital—high school and college diplomas, access to professional networks, financial safety nets etc.—that serves as a life vest for so many of us in the middle classes when we struggle. According to a recently released report from the University of Michigan and Harvard University, 1.46 million American families, and 14 percent of all American children, are living in extreme poverty. The numbers are even more bleak if we include high priced urban areas, such as New York City, where almost 25 percent of children are living below the poverty line.

Just as neglect of the poor turns out to be non-partisan, poverty itself knows no boundaries. According to the National Poverty Center, 22 percent of America’s poor are Latino, 25 percent are black, and 45 percent are white.

<<snip>>

[RKP5637]

1. K&R !!! Excellent article IMO. I've noticed for some time poverty is pushed under

the rug by all of them. And I really can't recall the last time I heard politicians talk much about the poor in this country. Lots of talk about middle, upper and the 1%'ers, but hardly ever about poverty, homelessness and the poor.

I've heard that if one takes into account those on poverty, and those damn close to it, the poverty rate in the US is about 50%. No politicians want to talk about that figure. It was discussed on MSM when the statistic first came out by the Census Bureau, but then quickly went to the MSM and political back burner if at all.

[DJ13]

2. The increasing poverty is a direct result of the policies of the business community

Not by coincidence, the same business community that indirectly controls both parties.

Why neither side wants to make it an issue in the coming campaign isnt hard to figure out.

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, as usual, follow the money trail. n/t

[CTyankee]

3. American Exceptionalism!

We are in its thrall in the old USA! We love the thought. We can do anything...

only we can't and we don't and we're poor....

[RKP5637]

7. But we do know how to make wars, and the MIC knows how to be profiteers! n/t

[kenny blankenship]

12. Overtypay INCENTIVIZES brave volunteers for Freedom!

Why be a hater? Let the Invisible Hand of the Market play, its wonders to perform.

[RKP5637]

14. Yep, the results are so damn sad and pathetic. n/t

[OrwellwasRight]

5. Sadly has been true forever.

Mostly because poor poeple don't vote (in general, not saying no poor people vote).

[fascisthunter]

6. the poorer they are, the more desperate they are, the lower wages become

[Jakes Progress]

8. Both parties support the situation

because of the people who fund them.

[MannyGoldstein]

19. At least they have no quibbles with one-another

over what to do - keep screwing the middle class and make more poor folks.

[msongs]

9. the US Military industrial complex is doing fine, thanks. that's all that's important nt

[Marrah_G]

10. Because both parties are to blame for it

And both parties are funded by the people benefiting from it.

[kenny blankenship]

11. Ssh! Poverty is EMBARRASSING!

We don't talk about overtypay, especially when the esidentPray is a emocratDay.

[dajoki]

25. You are right n/t

[Honeycombe8]

13. They don't vote? Not to the levels that the other groups do. For example, my sister

My sister is poor, had an early stroke & is in a nursing home, paid for by Medicaid. I don't think she's ever voted in her life.

[Lionessa]

15. Even if they did, they don't contribute to campaigns

and there in a nutshell is the really important issue. It's why they don't vote as often when their districts are hobbled with too few polling places and too difficult to get to and all the other ridiculous things they do in poor areas to assure they don't vote often.

Can't have us poor huddling masses thinking we matter at all.

[Honeycombe8]

23. In my city, every precinct has one polling place. I don't know why you'd think it's easier

for people in a middle class precinct to get to the polling place than in a poor place, barring personal issues like no car. Both precincts have just one polling place.

It's been my observation among my poorer relatives, and poor people I have known, that they simply have little interest in civic affairs or voting. Maybe they're too busy scraping by, working hard. Maybe it's because they think their vote won't make a difference. Maybe their transportation or their working hours make it too much of a hardship. Of course I've known middle class people, like my mother, who were the same way. But I never heard my poor relatives talk about trying to go vote but being unable to. They simply never discussed politics or cared about it, and never voted, as far as I can tell.

That's generalizing, I guess, but I do assume the other poor people are like my poor relatives, since I've seen numbers showing who votes and who doesn't.

[Lionessa]

24. Perhaps not all the land is like your neck of the woods.

Our precinct in my last house had four polling places, the one before that had three.

Anyway, even standard ol' gerrymandering assures poor areas don't count for much.

Apathy against them from society and pols, creates apathy among those ignored toward politics. It's a vicious spiral, you're judgement of your relatives turns my stomach when it's so clear you can't fathom how unimportant their problems and needs are to politicians, government, society.

[shimonitanegi]

16. Hard working Americans are screwed

while Professional gamblers (HF managers, et al.) are stockpiling their filthy wealth.
The Fed thinks it's good idea to enrich the rich to the super rich because it helps the economy.

[rawbean]

17. Why do the poor even matter?

[kiva]

18. Not saying this to re-start the 2008 wars,

but poverty wasn't really discussed until John Edwards brought it up...yes, he had massive personal flaws, and yes, I'm glad he didn't get the nomination...but no one talked about it until he did.

Since Obama isn't getting primaried and the Republicans don't give a damn, don't look for poverty to be an issue this year.

[jwirr]

20. I think that this is a reflection of what people in this nation want. Both parties understand that

no one gives a damn UNLESS they are the ones who are poor.

Note: I understand that this is a generalization and that not all people act like this - just enough to make it unemportant to the elections.

[Luminous Animal]

21. Ever since Clinton's right wing welfare reform, Democrats don't give a flying fuck about poor

people anymore. Yet another Democratic value we surrendered to the Republicans. Neither party needs to talk about the poor because both parties fucked them over.

[deutsey]

22. The current American political system doesn't represent poor people?

Just a stab in the dark here.

[KPN]

26. That was a very good question at the time.

While things appear to have changed substantively since then, we shouldn’t take things for granted. There already are and undoubtedly will be continued efforts by the usual suspects to wallpaper over the economic injustice issue.