Poverty
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The discussion of poverty in the United States has played a surprisingly large role in the presidential election of 2012 probably due in part to Mitt Romney's now infamous 47 percent quote. But even before that story hit Mother Jones, Romney made it clear that he lacked a true understanding of the problem of poverty in the United States. This paper looks at Romney's comments from February, 2012, regarding the very poor and their social safety net as compared to the realities of poverty in the United States.
During the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney famously said that he is not concerned about the very poor in America, charging that they have a "safety net" in the form of various federal programs. "I’m in this race because I care about Americans,” Romney told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien this morning after his resounding victory in Florida on Tuesday. “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it," (Wolf and Friedman, 2012). Romney went on to say that he was concerned about "about the very heart of the America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling," (Wolf and Friedman, 2012). The problem with this statement is that Romney got it wrong. His implication is that poverty affects a very small percentage of the American people, less than 10 percent if we accept his idea that 90 percent of Americans fall into the category between the very poor and the very rich. Poverty in the United States affects more than just 10 percent of the population and the so-called safety net does very little to make sure that those people have food or home security.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau report in 2010, "The 2010 poverty rate was 15.1 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 1997. This is the highest poverty rate since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for poverty estimates. (DeNavas-Walt 2011, p. 14)," (Hunger in America, 2012). At the most basic level, that implies the Romney was wrong about the percentage of Americans that fall in the category of the very poor, assuming that we use the poverty line as the measurement of someone's "poorness." But beyond the fact that he underestimated the number of Americans living in poverty, the candidate's statements reflect a lack of understanding of poverty in the United States and the so-called safety net that exists. In 2011, in a supplement to the 2010 census data, the United States Census Bureau looked again at poverty, specifically at the way poverty is defined and who it affects. "This new measure addresses seven concerns that have been raised about the official poverty measure, including the fact that the offical poverty measure does not reflect the effects of key government policies that alter the disposable income of families and thus their poverty status, such as the SNAP/food stamp program. (For a good brief discussion of these issues see 2011b, p.1-3.) Taking these adjustments into account, the supplemental poverty measure showed a 3 million increase in the number of poor people in 2010, compared to the official poverty rate," (Hunger in America, 2012).
In essence, the Census Bureau in 2011 argued that the way it had been measuring poverty did not accurately reflect the realities of American life. Because of the way the bureau described a household, cohabitating partners, step and foster children, and unrelated roommates who shared resources were often excluded from poverty counts. Furthermore, the primary measuring device, before tax income versus a set value based on a matrix that included information about family composition (Heggesness et al., 2012). When the Census Bureau excluded benefits received via SNAP and other so-called safety net programs, as well as adjusting the definition of household to include all the people who lived together and relied on a pooled income, the number of people living in poverty rose by more than 3 million nationwide. Worse yet, it signficiantly impacted the age distribution of those poverty-stricken individuals. More than 27 percent of the nation's children lived in poverty and more than 12 percent of those over the age of 65 (Heggesness et al., 2012). "The supplemental poverty measure does measure poverty more accurately, and it is gratifiying to see that programs to reduce poverty and hunger among children have had an impact," (Hunger in America, 2012).
Thus having established that the problem is more widespread than perhaps the presidential contender understood, it becomes important to understand what it means to be living in poverty in the United States. In 2010, 46.9 million people in the United States were living in poverty, more than 20 million of them living on the equivalent of less than $10,000 a year for a family of four. But the Heritage Foundation would have you believe a completely different picture: " The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation," (Rector and Sheffield, 2011). The report argues that most poor Americans have a larger living space than the average non-poor European and have amenities that were once the province of the wealthy including washing machines, microwave ovens and refrigerators. There are families, the report offers, where hunger is a problem at certain times of the year, but generally the poor have access to adequate nutritious food, shelter and medical care. "To a family that has lost its home and is living in a homeless shelter, the fact that only 0.5 percent of families shared this experience in 2009 is no comfort," (Rector and Sheffield, 2011).
The problem with this assessment is that it fails to address the reality of hunger and medical care for those who are at or near the poverty line and the quality of the so-called nutritious food that they have access to. It also makes unfair comparisons. As a first world nation, the United States has living standards that are substantially higher than some impoverished parts of the globe. at the same time, some of the "opportunities" common in other parts of the world do not exist. Most poor Americans do not have land to grow their own food and live in areas where raising animals for food is illegal or at the very least frowned upon. " There's certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that, in spite of poor families' ready access to some consumer amenities, they can face severe challenges in meeting basic needs. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released this month, 14.5 percent of American households--more than 17.2 million households, in all--were defined as "food insecure" last year. That means that poor households lacked sufficient money or other resources to obtain access to adequate food supplies. Among those with incomes near or below the poverty line, rates of food insecurity were said to be "substantially higher," (Roth, 2011).
In addition, unlike the image painted by the Heritage Foundation, many may have access to air conditioning, but can't afford to actually use it. While it is possible that the American poor are wealthy compared to poor in Africa, they struggle with huge debt in an effort to keep up with the standard of living that is common and expected in the United States. Yes, the average home in the United States has a phone, a refrigerator, and a stove, but that does not mean that occupants live any less in poverty. Take, for instance, Dawn Jacobson, a 37-year-old woman living on Social Security Disability in southern Illinois. Jacobson was in a car accident, not her fault, that broke her back resulting in the fusing and pinning of her spine as well as the end of her career as a certified nurse assistant, a job that required physical labor (Jacobson, 2012). She also has suffered from Bell's Palsy and other neuro-degenerative diseases resulting in her qualification for SSI. She gets $771 per month to live on. She moved from her home in Las Vegas to southern Illinois where she is lacking a family and friends support network because the cost of living is substantially lower there. Her medical costs are partially covered by Medicare, but non-covered expenses, like annual pap smears, have to come out of her meager budget. She rents a one bedroom trailer for $300 per month and after qualifying for weatherization assistance, spends about $100 per month for electricity.
She has an air conditioner in the trailer, but runs it only when the temperatures outside top 90 degrees and the heat begins to restrict her mobility. Her car is a hand-me-down 15 year-old gas guzzler that was a gift from a family member. When it breaks down, she has to rely on friends for transportation until she can save the money to get it fixed. After her paying her rent and utilities, including electricity, water and trash service, she has about $200 to get food, pay for insurance on her car, and pay for her minimal cellular service so she has a way to contact her family and her doctors. "There are times when whatever they have at the food pantry is what I have to eat," she said, (Jacobson, 2012). Even with clipping coupons and eating almost no meat, the rising cost of groceries has made it difficult for her to make sure she is getting enough to eat. She's thankful that she doesn't have anyone else relying on her. And, she acknowledges, there are neighbors who have it worse. "I run errands for a neighbor lady, she's 85, I think, who gets less than $600 a month to live on. Her family is gone and I usually sneak her a few things from my pantry when she has me grocery shop for her. Otherwise, I'm not sure she would eat," Jacobson said.
While certainly not everyone living in poverty is going to bed hungry every night, many are. Nationally, the average food stamp allocation per person who qualified varied based on the local cost of living, but averaged out at $133 per person per month in 2010 (Kelley, 2011). In five years, that number increase by almost $40, from $94 in 2006, but at the same time, the price of food has risen quicker. Using data from the Department of Agriculture's data base on the consumer price index for food, we can extrapolate that a piece of meat which cost $1 in 2006, cost $1.22 in 2011, an increase of 21.9 percent (USDA.gov, 2012). The price of meat was chosen an example, but other categories of food followed a similar course with the cost of cereal increase 25 percent in one year, 2011 to 2012, (USDA.gov). Jacobson said that with the rising cost of food, it is virtually impossible to buy anything nutritious. "Junk food is always cheaper than fruits and veggies; people think poor people are obese because they eat too much. I think it's because they eat the wrong things, because that's what they can afford," (Jacobson, 2012).
In the end, poverty in America is not the same as poverty in Africa or parts of Asia where children die daily because they do not have enough to eat. But at the same time, poverty in the United States is as real for the people who live it as poverty elsewhere is for the people who live it there. It is likely that poverty contributes to a great many of the social ills facing the nation, from obesity due in part to poor eating habits learned in the feast or famine times of poverty to crime caused in part by those in poverty coveting what their neighbors have (Hunger in America, 2012). The root causes of poverty are subject to great debate, including at least some indication that they are a natural consequence of a free market economy. Regardless of the causes, what is ultimately clear is that the poor represent far more than the 5 to 10 percent of the American population that Mitt Romney claimed and that poverty is a real problem in the United States.
REFERENCES
DeNavas-Walt, C. Proctor, B.D. and Smith, J.C. (2011) "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:2010", United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 12, 2012, from http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf.
Heggeness, M.L., Alexander, T. and Stern, S. (2012, May 3) " Alternative Strategies for Grouping People into Resource Units: Measuring Poverty in the American Community Survey," United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 14, 2012, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/taxes/SEHSD2012-09.pdf.
"Hunger Notes" (2012) "Hunger in America: 2012 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts", Retrieved Oct. 15, 2012, from http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm.
Kelley, P. (2012) "What is the average food stamp amount?" eHow.com. Retrieved Oct. 15, 2012, from http://www.ehow.com/info_7742715_average-food-stamps-amount.html.
Rector, R. and Sheffield, R. (2011, July 19) "What is Poverty in the United Stated Today?" The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty
Roth, Z. (2011, Sept. 14) " What does it mean to be poor in America?" The Lookout. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/does-mean-poor-america-195128330.html.
United States Department of Agriculture (2012) Food Price Outlook. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook.aspx.
Wolf, Z.B. and Friedman, E. (2012, Feb. 1) " Romney: Campaign ‘Not Concerned About the Very Poor’," ABCNews. Retrieved Oct, 14, 2012, from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/romney-not-concerned-about-the-very-poor/.
The discussion of poverty in the United States has played a surprisingly large role in the presidential election of 2012 probably due in part to Mitt Romney's now infamous 47 percent quote. But even before that story hit Mother Jones, Romney made it clear that he lacked a true understanding of the problem of poverty in the United States. This paper looks at Romney's comments from February, 2012, regarding the very poor and their social safety net as compared to the realities of poverty in the United States.
During the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney famously said that he is not concerned about the very poor in America, charging that they have a "safety net" in the form of various federal programs. "I’m in this race because I care about Americans,” Romney told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien this morning after his resounding victory in Florida on Tuesday. “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it," (Wolf and Friedman, 2012). Romney went on to say that he was concerned about "about the very heart of the America, the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling," (Wolf and Friedman, 2012). The problem with this statement is that Romney got it wrong. His implication is that poverty affects a very small percentage of the American people, less than 10 percent if we accept his idea that 90 percent of Americans fall into the category between the very poor and the very rich. Poverty in the United States affects more than just 10 percent of the population and the so-called safety net does very little to make sure that those people have food or home security.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau report in 2010, "The 2010 poverty rate was 15.1 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 1997. This is the highest poverty rate since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for poverty estimates. (DeNavas-Walt 2011, p. 14)," (Hunger in America, 2012). At the most basic level, that implies the Romney was wrong about the percentage of Americans that fall in the category of the very poor, assuming that we use the poverty line as the measurement of someone's "poorness." But beyond the fact that he underestimated the number of Americans living in poverty, the candidate's statements reflect a lack of understanding of poverty in the United States and the so-called safety net that exists. In 2011, in a supplement to the 2010 census data, the United States Census Bureau looked again at poverty, specifically at the way poverty is defined and who it affects. "This new measure addresses seven concerns that have been raised about the official poverty measure, including the fact that the offical poverty measure does not reflect the effects of key government policies that alter the disposable income of families and thus their poverty status, such as the SNAP/food stamp program. (For a good brief discussion of these issues see 2011b, p.1-3.) Taking these adjustments into account, the supplemental poverty measure showed a 3 million increase in the number of poor people in 2010, compared to the official poverty rate," (Hunger in America, 2012).
In essence, the Census Bureau in 2011 argued that the way it had been measuring poverty did not accurately reflect the realities of American life. Because of the way the bureau described a household, cohabitating partners, step and foster children, and unrelated roommates who shared resources were often excluded from poverty counts. Furthermore, the primary measuring device, before tax income versus a set value based on a matrix that included information about family composition (Heggesness et al., 2012). When the Census Bureau excluded benefits received via SNAP and other so-called safety net programs, as well as adjusting the definition of household to include all the people who lived together and relied on a pooled income, the number of people living in poverty rose by more than 3 million nationwide. Worse yet, it signficiantly impacted the age distribution of those poverty-stricken individuals. More than 27 percent of the nation's children lived in poverty and more than 12 percent of those over the age of 65 (Heggesness et al., 2012). "The supplemental poverty measure does measure poverty more accurately, and it is gratifiying to see that programs to reduce poverty and hunger among children have had an impact," (Hunger in America, 2012).
Thus having established that the problem is more widespread than perhaps the presidential contender understood, it becomes important to understand what it means to be living in poverty in the United States. In 2010, 46.9 million people in the United States were living in poverty, more than 20 million of them living on the equivalent of less than $10,000 a year for a family of four. But the Heritage Foundation would have you believe a completely different picture: " The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation," (Rector and Sheffield, 2011). The report argues that most poor Americans have a larger living space than the average non-poor European and have amenities that were once the province of the wealthy including washing machines, microwave ovens and refrigerators. There are families, the report offers, where hunger is a problem at certain times of the year, but generally the poor have access to adequate nutritious food, shelter and medical care. "To a family that has lost its home and is living in a homeless shelter, the fact that only 0.5 percent of families shared this experience in 2009 is no comfort," (Rector and Sheffield, 2011).
The problem with this assessment is that it fails to address the reality of hunger and medical care for those who are at or near the poverty line and the quality of the so-called nutritious food that they have access to. It also makes unfair comparisons. As a first world nation, the United States has living standards that are substantially higher than some impoverished parts of the globe. at the same time, some of the "opportunities" common in other parts of the world do not exist. Most poor Americans do not have land to grow their own food and live in areas where raising animals for food is illegal or at the very least frowned upon. " There's certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that, in spite of poor families' ready access to some consumer amenities, they can face severe challenges in meeting basic needs. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released this month, 14.5 percent of American households--more than 17.2 million households, in all--were defined as "food insecure" last year. That means that poor households lacked sufficient money or other resources to obtain access to adequate food supplies. Among those with incomes near or below the poverty line, rates of food insecurity were said to be "substantially higher," (Roth, 2011).
In addition, unlike the image painted by the Heritage Foundation, many may have access to air conditioning, but can't afford to actually use it. While it is possible that the American poor are wealthy compared to poor in Africa, they struggle with huge debt in an effort to keep up with the standard of living that is common and expected in the United States. Yes, the average home in the United States has a phone, a refrigerator, and a stove, but that does not mean that occupants live any less in poverty. Take, for instance, Dawn Jacobson, a 37-year-old woman living on Social Security Disability in southern Illinois. Jacobson was in a car accident, not her fault, that broke her back resulting in the fusing and pinning of her spine as well as the end of her career as a certified nurse assistant, a job that required physical labor (Jacobson, 2012). She also has suffered from Bell's Palsy and other neuro-degenerative diseases resulting in her qualification for SSI. She gets $771 per month to live on. She moved from her home in Las Vegas to southern Illinois where she is lacking a family and friends support network because the cost of living is substantially lower there. Her medical costs are partially covered by Medicare, but non-covered expenses, like annual pap smears, have to come out of her meager budget. She rents a one bedroom trailer for $300 per month and after qualifying for weatherization assistance, spends about $100 per month for electricity.
She has an air conditioner in the trailer, but runs it only when the temperatures outside top 90 degrees and the heat begins to restrict her mobility. Her car is a hand-me-down 15 year-old gas guzzler that was a gift from a family member. When it breaks down, she has to rely on friends for transportation until she can save the money to get it fixed. After her paying her rent and utilities, including electricity, water and trash service, she has about $200 to get food, pay for insurance on her car, and pay for her minimal cellular service so she has a way to contact her family and her doctors. "There are times when whatever they have at the food pantry is what I have to eat," she said, (Jacobson, 2012). Even with clipping coupons and eating almost no meat, the rising cost of groceries has made it difficult for her to make sure she is getting enough to eat. She's thankful that she doesn't have anyone else relying on her. And, she acknowledges, there are neighbors who have it worse. "I run errands for a neighbor lady, she's 85, I think, who gets less than $600 a month to live on. Her family is gone and I usually sneak her a few things from my pantry when she has me grocery shop for her. Otherwise, I'm not sure she would eat," Jacobson said.
While certainly not everyone living in poverty is going to bed hungry every night, many are. Nationally, the average food stamp allocation per person who qualified varied based on the local cost of living, but averaged out at $133 per person per month in 2010 (Kelley, 2011). In five years, that number increase by almost $40, from $94 in 2006, but at the same time, the price of food has risen quicker. Using data from the Department of Agriculture's data base on the consumer price index for food, we can extrapolate that a piece of meat which cost $1 in 2006, cost $1.22 in 2011, an increase of 21.9 percent (USDA.gov, 2012). The price of meat was chosen an example, but other categories of food followed a similar course with the cost of cereal increase 25 percent in one year, 2011 to 2012, (USDA.gov). Jacobson said that with the rising cost of food, it is virtually impossible to buy anything nutritious. "Junk food is always cheaper than fruits and veggies; people think poor people are obese because they eat too much. I think it's because they eat the wrong things, because that's what they can afford," (Jacobson, 2012).
In the end, poverty in America is not the same as poverty in Africa or parts of Asia where children die daily because they do not have enough to eat. But at the same time, poverty in the United States is as real for the people who live it as poverty elsewhere is for the people who live it there. It is likely that poverty contributes to a great many of the social ills facing the nation, from obesity due in part to poor eating habits learned in the feast or famine times of poverty to crime caused in part by those in poverty coveting what their neighbors have (Hunger in America, 2012). The root causes of poverty are subject to great debate, including at least some indication that they are a natural consequence of a free market economy. Regardless of the causes, what is ultimately clear is that the poor represent far more than the 5 to 10 percent of the American population that Mitt Romney claimed and that poverty is a real problem in the United States.
REFERENCES
DeNavas-Walt, C. Proctor, B.D. and Smith, J.C. (2011) "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States:2010", United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 12, 2012, from http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf.
Heggeness, M.L., Alexander, T. and Stern, S. (2012, May 3) " Alternative Strategies for Grouping People into Resource Units: Measuring Poverty in the American Community Survey," United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 14, 2012, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/taxes/SEHSD2012-09.pdf.
"Hunger Notes" (2012) "Hunger in America: 2012 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts", Retrieved Oct. 15, 2012, from http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm.
Kelley, P. (2012) "What is the average food stamp amount?" eHow.com. Retrieved Oct. 15, 2012, from http://www.ehow.com/info_7742715_average-food-stamps-amount.html.
Rector, R. and Sheffield, R. (2011, July 19) "What is Poverty in the United Stated Today?" The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty
Roth, Z. (2011, Sept. 14) " What does it mean to be poor in America?" The Lookout. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/does-mean-poor-america-195128330.html.
United States Department of Agriculture (2012) Food Price Outlook. Retrieved October 15, 2012, from http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook.aspx.
Wolf, Z.B. and Friedman, E. (2012, Feb. 1) " Romney: Campaign ‘Not Concerned About the Very Poor’," ABCNews. Retrieved Oct, 14, 2012, from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/romney-not-concerned-about-the-very-poor/.