How can we stop poverty? Solution?

How can we stop poverty?

 With 46.2 million People living in poverty in 2011, as reported by: Population Survey Data.

A SUMMARY OF 2012 CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY DATA

(September 12, 2012) 

• The Census Bureau today released data indicating that the overall poverty rate in 2011 was 15.0 percent – statistically unchanged from 15.1 percent in 2010. This represents 46.2 million people living in poverty in 2011.

• Today’s data indicate that there were 16.1 million children (persons under 18) living in poverty in 2011, not significantly changed from 2010. The child poverty rate was 21.9 percent, not significantly changed from the 2010 rate of 22.0 percent.

• In 2011, 6.6 percent of all people, or 20.4 million people, lived in deep poverty (had income below one-half the poverty threshold, or $11,511 for a family of four).

• The overall poverty rate of 15.0 percent in 2011 did not change significantly from 2010. In contrast, the poverty rate had risen significantly in seven of the prior 10 years from a recent low of 11.3 percent in 2000.

• These figures reflect money income only and do not reflect in-kind public supports, tax credits, most ARRA-funded expansions and temporary reductions in the payroll tax. Data incorporating these and other noncash benefits and how they affect measures of poverty will not be available until November.

In a country that is said to be the richest nation in the world, we still have poverty? What can be done to change that? How do we help? What do we offer these people that are struggling to get by every day?

 

For extreme poverty we need social programs, we need to do whatever possible we can help those that have fallen through the cracks. But for the rest, what do we do?

I have heard that the solution is more jobs, with 46.2 million people living in poverty – a job is not enough. We have millions of poverty stricken families working to three part time jobs. Many are working two fulltime jobs and are still struggling to get by.

I have also heard the answer is better paying jobs – higher wages. This is also a strange solution since most people know that any company that raises the wages of its employees also raises the cost of its products to cover the rise in wages. If the bulk of the economy is small business, mom and pop shops – they have no choice but to raise prices on their products or services. Just consider it part of the inflation problem.

Another solution is to stimulate the economy, get business thriving. The problem with this solution is that business ”thrive” when people spend. How can people spend when they have nothing to spend with? With every recession we are always told – a call to the masses, go and spend, that is how our economy works. But the last economic crisis, the last recession has proven one thing: how can you spend on frivolous things when you are watching every penny you spend in order to make ends meet. Or in this current economy – to make sure you have something to eat.

I have a solution and you might not like it.

What if we instead of telling people “you can’t make it and you need our help”, what if we told them that they have the power to change their circumstances? What if we told them I know you can rise above this – we will help you, because we believe in you. What if instead of telling people that it’s hopeless, why not tell them the truth – you have control, you can achieve, you can change all this.

It’s not wishful thinking or a positive attitude I am promoting: its truth that so many want to deny. The poor may be in dire need, but they can rise to the challenge, they can overcome – The American dream is still ALIVE and well.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.“

~ Chinese Proverb

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Contrl - Achevie - Power : Power to the Poor

How can lives be changed?

There are 46.2 million people living in poverty. With all the assistance our government offers, food stamps, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, free school lunch, free education and so much more. We still have 46.2 million people living in poverty - How can we change this? 

Annette Ramirez works at a church-run community center in San Bernardino, Calif.

Being poor is new for Annette Ramirez. "When I first walked out of that welfare office, I came out in tears," she says. 

The 44-year-old graphic designer from San Bernardino, Calif., used to lay out classifieds for the local paper and advertising for a beer distributor. She rented a four-bedroom house from her brother and was doing "OK."  

But in 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession and just as the subprime mortgage crisis was popping the housing bubble, her brother lost his home, and Ramirez lost her job. Since then, she and her 11-year-old daughter have moved in with her parents, scraping by on $490 in state welfare payments and $300 in food stamps. 

"I've worked so hard all these years. But now I'm right there with everybody else," Ramirez says.

San Bernardino has taken its hits over the years. On historic Route 66 in Southern California, the city of 215,000 was once a bustling bedroom community -- the 1950s birthplace of McDonald's and a 1970s "All-America City." But the thousands of jobs lost after the closing of Kaiser Steel in the mid-1980s and Norton Air Force Base in 1994 (about 10,000 jobs) rippled through the area's blue-collar workforce to devastating effect.

"We never recovered," says Marlene Merrill of the county's Community Action Program, which gets 20,000 calls a month from residents seeking help. The real-estate bubble in the late 1990s and early 2000s fueled a partial resurgence in construction and service jobs, but when the boom went bust, those jobs did, too. 

Ramirez works for her welfare check, supervising the distribution of clothes, books and toys to the poor at a church-run community center. 

Let me first make this one statement – “the poor do not have to be poor”, the poor have the power to control, achieve and change.

Barns & Noble: Order ebook Power to the Poor  $4.99
Amazon kindle: Order ebook Power to the Poor  $4.99

If poor need government help - why does the govn't need?

There are 46.2 million people living in poverty. With all the assistance our government offers, food stamps, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, free school lunch, free education and so much more – We still have 46.2 million people living in poverty? How can we change this? 

One: by changing how you think. 

Let me first make this one statement – “the poor do not have to be poor”.

They - the poor, the 98% of Americans can change their circumstances. In fact they can even buy and own the rich. It’s time that the 98 percent realized the power that they truly have. I believe that the poor, the 98%, have the capability, the intelligence, the courage and the means to reduce poverty as a whole. I believe that these people, who are classified as poor, have more to offer than they themselves know or realize.  

The truth is that the United States economy is strong because of the so called poor. That the only reason U.S. companies succeed is because they rely on the poor to make them strong. When a recession is acknowledged by the government their solution is to first cry to the people, the 98% - to spend.

 

So before we get to the how, let me start with this. 

It’s amazing how the division is growing. The poor hate the rich, the middle class are said to be disappearing and the Rich – well, they say that the poor simply do not want to work for anything – they simply want to be given everything. Or at least this is what the perception is said to be. 

The above for mentioned may be an overly simplified generalization of what was played out in the media during the 2012 Presidential election which many said was the epitome of class warfare. 

But I want, I need to ask – why do they ask the 98% to spend money they don’t have? Why ask the poor, the down trodden, the very ones who are suffering and struggling in the recession to save the economy by spending?

Barns & Noble: Order ebook Power to the Poor $4.99
Amazon kindle: Order ebook Power to the Poor $4.99