american poverty

Mitchell Atencio 7-10-2023
A picture of a well-dressed heterosexual couple as tiny figurines, standing in front of a large quarter. Smaller figurines of a white man carrying a dollar bill, and a black man carting around a dollar bill, are in the lower left and right corners.

CSA-Printstock / iStock

MATTHEW DESMOND, a Princeton sociologist and author, has grown tired of calls to reduce poverty — because he knows we can abolish it. In his new book, Poverty, by America, Desmond explores not the lives and struggles of people who are poor — but poverty, and the conditions that cause it. And Desmond contends that the lives the rest of us live are often connected to the conditions that cause poverty.

“To understand the causes of poverty, we must look beyond the poor. Those of us living lives of privilege and plenty must examine ourselves,” Desmond writes. “Are we — we the secure, the insured, the housed, the college educated, the protected, the lucky — connected to all this needless suffering?”

Desmond is the son of a pastor, and his work is rich with spiritual metaphor and flare while grounded in the material realities of poverty and the conditions that cause it. He dedicates a chapter of his book to refuting the idea that “neoliberal” cuts in welfare spending are to blame for poverty. “There is no evidence that the United States has become stingier over time. The opposite is true,” he writes. Instead, the problem is “a fair amount of government aid earmarked for the poor never reaches them.” Sojo.net associate news editor Mitchell Atencio spoke with Desmond about his new book, community building, and capitalism. —The Editors

Sojourners: Theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez defines poverty as “premature and unjust death,” saying that “the poor person is someone who is treated as a non-person, someone who is considered insignificant from an economic, political, and cultural point of view.” Is that a good way to describe poverty?

Matthew Desmond: I think that’s a factual way to describe what poverty is. Between 2001 and 2014, the richest women in America gained three years of life and the poorest women gained 15 days. So, poverty is death. There was a study that came out very recently that showed that one of the leading causes of death in the United States is poverty. I think that when we deny people access to basic needs, and we deny them basic economic security in this rich land, we do deny them life and happiness itself.

The other part of the quote about insignificance is very interesting because it does seem that in our popular culture — our TV shows, our movies, our children’s books — there are often no portrayals of real poverty in those media, and so it’s kind of amazing how seamlessly the poor can be erased from everything we’re reading and watching and reading to our kids.

Image via Katie Haugland Bowen/Creative Commons

San Antonio is about 63 percent Hispanic — the largest majority-Hispanic city in America — 30 percent white and 7 percent black. Helmke suggested the interfaith group ought to look more like the population itself.

5-10-2013

Jar of coins. Photo courtesy Balefire/shutterstock.com

The stories pastors, chaplains, and charity workers too often hear behind closed doors and through frustrated tears are being brought to light. Acting Secretary of the United States Department of Labor Seth Harris has hit the road to listen to people struggling to get by on the minimum wage. 

Courageous people are publicly coming forward to tell their stories of personal pain, indignity, and frustration in the interest of creating the will to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour by 2015.

 

 
QR Blog Editor 1-03-2013

The Nation reports that the fiscal cliff deal is a "mixed bag" for the poor. On the positive side:

The biggest takeaway, perhaps, was for the unemployed: they saw a one-year extension in federal unemployment benefits. Another very important piece of the deal was a five-year extension of crucial tax breaks: the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and the American Opportunity Tax Credit.

On the negative side:

The payroll tax holiday was allowed to expire. The double whammy of trying to get Congress to raise the debt ceiling while also trying to keep it from torching the social safety net does not bode well for the poor.

Read more here.

 

Linda Adams 7-09-2012

Image courtesy Linda Adams

Last week was the first time I have ever been called a “poverty pimp” in front God and everyone—in public.  It certainly got my attention!

As Director of International Child Care Ministries, I straddle two worlds—the America I call home and the 30 countries where our sponsored children live. I travel back and forth between these two worlds several times a year and experience the stark contrast between my world and theirs. 

Here in the U.S., part of my responsibility is to advocate for the children at conferences, churches, and other venues. Last week at an event I had my display set up, 20 kids’ faces looking out from their brochures, silently imploring conference attendees to choose them and become their sponsors.

My accuser was an eloquent professor of African American Studies. He is offended at groups like mine who apparently profit off Africa’s poverty and perpetuate an image of Black helplessness. He is concerned that African American children who view pathetic images of hungry kids on TV internalize a sense of racial inferiority. And that’s not the half of it.

the Web Editors 2-14-2012

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Jack Palmer 12-07-2011

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Jack Palmer 12-01-2011

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Jack Palmer 11-30-2011

Private Sector Adds 206,000 Jobs In November; Police Clear Occupy Camps In Los Angeles, Philly; Churches Help Occupy Movement Survive Crackdowns, Winter; Study: Even With More Kids In Poverty, Number Of Uninsured Children Fell 14 Percent Over 3 Years; Poverty Soars For Students In D.C., Montgomery County; Anonymous Iowa Christian Group Launches Attack On Gingrich; Should Fair Trade Certify Giants Like Nestle and Folger's?; Long Lines For Free Holiday Food Vouchers.

Jack Palmer 11-29-2011
Homelessness is a growing problem for children around the United States.

Homelessness is a growing problem for children around the United States.

This weekend, 60 Minutes aired a piece that has been commended by many as a shocking but must-see insight into poverty in the United States today.

Sixteen million children now live in poverty, and for many, they don’t even have a proper place to call home. These situations are even more frequent in areas of the country where traditional industries have collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis – such as the construction industry in central Florida.

Jack Palmer 11-29-2011

Coptics Fear Islamists Will Sweep Egypt Elections; Why Columbus, Ohio, Needs Somali Cops On Its Force; Anti-Mormon Bias Persistent In Presidential Politics; Rampant Levels Of Poverty In Florida Force Families To Live In Cars; Religion: A Growing, Changing God Lobby In D.C.; Poll Numbers Suggest Gingrich’s ‘Humane’ Immigration Stance Could Help Him; How 2008 Radicalized Me; Cornel West: Ultimate Fight For Entitlements Will Be In "The Streets"

Jack Palmer 11-22-2011

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Joshua Witchger 11-21-2011

http://youtu.be/cJRBNbuaonc

Awesome tweet of the day: The father of liberal theology, Fred Schleiermacher, was born today in 1768. “Born” and “today” are just metaphors, of course. (via @shipofools) Plus interfaith bridge building, an extensive interview from U2, Jana Riess is Flunking Sainthood, Pakistanian cell phone censorship, Oscar-worthy documentaries, urban farming, Malawi introduces an anti-farting law (seriously, see above) and more.   

 

Yesterday, Congress passed the 2012 Agricultural Appropriations Bill or “minibus” as it has come to be called. The good news is that cuts to both national and international nutrition programs were not as severe as originally expected. The bad news is, poverty is still at record levels and there is still more we can do to help those in need.

Over the past few weeks, Sojourners activists have sent thousands of emails to Congress urging them not to cut poverty focused foreign aid. While that fight continues, the passage of this bill -- without any major cuts to vital programs for poor and hungry people -- is an important step.

What you don't know about poverty can hurt you, and the nation's poor. I'm guessing there are quite a few people who don't know that the poverty line for an individual is just 22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual. Or, that three out of four poor adults have jobs and half of them are working full time. They also might not know that one in four children under the age of 5 live in poverty.

This morning, the Center for American Progress released their first annual report to track progress on the goal of cutting the poverty rate in our country in half over the next ten years

the Web Editors 10-26-2011

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Neeraj Mehta 3-31-2010
Why are people poor? Why do they stay poor? What would it take to get them out of poverty? These are major questions that have been heavily debated for a century in our country.