Monday, March 14, 2016

Updating the poverty articles

I'm not seeing the "failure of poverty programs" articles that I saw 2-3 years ago--the figure used to be federal and state programs combined amounted to over $22,000 per poor person to feed, house, medicate, educate and lift people. But our poverty rate was 14% when Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1964, and now it's 16%. I'm still getting an awful lot of appeals to alleviate "desperate poverty" from church groups and non-profits. Maybe it's the Bernie fall out? Really folks, if $80,000+ doesn't lift a family of 4 out of poverty, how much more will? No sensible person thinks a family in the inner city or an Indian reservation actually sees that money; it goes to people in the suburbs working for non-profits, universities and government agencies. Poverty is good business; why solve it?

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