The recent flap about public housing lifetime resident/activist and big screen TV owner Sharon Jasper raises the question – what does it mean to be poor in America? Most people’s idea of poverty is very different from that of the Census Bureau:
[T]he “Poverty Pulse” poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in 2005 asked the general public the question: “How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?” The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs.[7]
But if poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 37 million people identified as being “in poverty” by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor.[8] While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity. The average “poor” person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines.
Sharon Jasper is one of the 25% of “the poor” who own a big screen TV.
Only about a third of poor households – around 12.5 million in a country of over 105 million households – experience conditions most of us would classify as “poverty” including intermittent food shortages, difficulty paying bills, and less access to medical care. At the other end of that spectrum you can find the people in tents that Sharon Jasper threatened to join. (Yeah, like that’s gonna happen…) The rest, like Jasper, are considered poor only in contrast to the luxurious lifestyles the average American enjoys. That she enjoys that lifestyle based on other people’s work product instead of her own is a separate issue. Like the health care “crisis” most of the poverty discussion is hyped for the sake of politics. A useful discussion of how to solve these limited, but real, problems can’t occur until people acknowledge the actual scope of the problem and are willing to entertain ideas other than government handouts to solve them. One of those ideas to solve the problem of poverty is shocking to some – work more.
In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year— nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.
Father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty.
There are legitimate issues that prevent people from working. Debilitating physical and mental illnesses, for example. But that doesn’t apply to everyone, and I’d suggest that it doesn’t apply to Sharon Jasper. I don’t know what Jasper does – if anything – other than “activism” but I would assume she’s had some kind of jobs over the years. She probably does work reasonably hard at her “activism” – she never seems to miss a protest, anyway – so what could she have done at a real job over the last forty years if she had tried? Her age should not be an obstacle. She’s younger than my mother, who works a couple of blocks away from where Jasper threw her little hissy fit. My mother is 62, and intends to continue working for several more years, in spite of the fact that she’s had a heart attack and two hip replacements. She rents, too – without benefit of any government subsidy.
I’ve thought for some time that the root problem is a poverty of ideas and hope that causes most material poverty. But, you know, maybe some people just don’t feel like taking responsibility for themselves. Jasper is not lazy. She’s out there working for a cause she believes in. And she’s got hope – hope of a better lifestyle even than the one she enjoys today, because she doesn’t “like to live poor.” So what’s the explanation for why a grown woman of working age and obviously decent health – at least as good as that of my working mother – isn’t supporting herself? Right now she’s protesting, and threatening a war to keep her precious projects open. I don’t know whether she personally was involved with creating or posting the signs which read,
“For every public housing unit destroyed, a condo will be destroyed. If there will be no homes for us, and relief from high rents, there will be no homes for the rich either! Sincerely – The Angry and Powerless.”
But there are public housing units available right now, as well as subsidized apartments. Furthermore, the projects that Jasper and others advocate for keeping open because they are in such terrific condition were the subjects of federal lawsuits before Katrina, because they were in such deplorable condition.
Pick a narrative and stick to it, please! You can’t have your poverty and your big screen TV, too.
Some years ago, my pastor, who had grown up in actual poverty made an interesting point. I was going through a time when I was very short on money, and I told him I was “poor right now.” He said, “You aren’t poor, you’re short of money. There’s a big difference.”
I believe in compassion and care for the poor, but I also believe in accountability.
It’s all in the perspective. By our standards today most of our grandparents and great-grandparents would consider many our “poor” to be quite wealthy on many fronts…housing and medical care for example. I have seen and worked with some that are poor and poverty stricken in the truest sense but when a parent of one of my fifth graders tells me that they can’t afford a five dollar gift exchange at school and then the child shows up with a brand new, top of the line cell phone, I have to wonder.
On another note…I would be interested in being added to the Philophronos Blogs if you’ve space for Journey of Words…let me know…. and keep up the good work Laura!
Agreed… I’ve been poor – as in, no electricity, which meant no heat and only cold showers, not enough to eat, for seven months, ultimately culminating in my eviction. Situational, temporary poverty which I experienced is a real problem that affects a lot of people. But for that kind of poverty, there are a lot of bandaids to help people get through. For example, I used food banks a lot. I was not saved then, and it was my first exposure to real ministry. That kind of poverty is something churches are well-suited to deal with (i.e. the food banks, and my church used to pay a lot of utility bills pre-Katrina.) My church paid the bills directly to the utility company so no worries about misspent money, and got to know people, ministered to them, helped them budget better, often got involved with mentoring the kids, etc. It’s a wonderful ministry opportunity, and we would do well to expand it as much as possible.
As for the generational “poverty” that keeps people in the projects, in my observation it is mostly caused by poor life choices. I don’t want to subsidize that. Mean? I guess so… but it seems more cruel to me to leave people in that place. Jasper was screeching in that video about not being a slave, but if you don’t want to live where and how The Man tells you to live, stop asking The Man to pay for it.