Is it the price of being “privileged” to live in a superpower, the land of plenty, to assume responsibility for the poor of the world? Perhaps. Empathy isn’t a bad thing, except when its focus of the moment fails to include the reality that some of your fellow Americans aren’t living any better than the downtrodden elsewhere. What are the chances Ethiopia is going to send foreign aid to Milwaukee?
Surely no one in the United States today is as poor as a poor person in Ethiopia or Nepal? As it happens, making such comparisons has recently become much easier. The World Bank decided in October to include high-income countries in its global estimates of people living in poverty. We can now make direct comparisons between the United States and poor countries.
According to the World Bank, 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013; they are the world’s very poorest. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States, and 3.3 million in other high-income countries (most in Italy, Japan and Spain).
But it’s not quite the same problem to live on less than $2 in America as it is in a poor nation. It’s very expensive to live here. It’s not so expensive to live there. Yet, we’ve got 3.2 million people in the United States living in extreme poverty. You didn’t know? More to the point, you didn’t care.
People are passionate about helping the marginalized of the moment, who may very well need and deserve our attention. But when America’s extreme poor aren’t that flavor, they get little consideration or help. Millions of dollars in donations were flowing for the ACLU following Trump’s Muslim ban, who were, the issues with the ban notwithstanding, not Americans. Did anyone donating think about people here trying to survive on $2 a day?
On the 50th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainright, we were flooded with voices concerned about the failure to adequately fund indigent defense, leaving poor defendants without adequate counsel. It was a national travesty, everyone agreed, that the poor were denied their constitutional right to counsel. We wrung our hands, cried sad tears and bemoaned the horrible state of affairs for the poor in our courts.
In New York, Mayor Bill di Blasio has chosen to gift city taxpayers’ money to the defense of immigrants. Nice as they may be to some, why is money being spent for the sake of immigrants when the indigent in our criminal courts are deprived of counsel for lack of money?
There will be Bernie bros who see this as a failure of capitalism, contending that if we just tax the wealthy into oblivion, or cut an aircraft carrier from the military budget, we can fix these money problems. That they spend the same monies a hundred times over to solve poverty problems seems to elude them, just as does the goal of a financially comfortable life motivate Americans to work hard, to achieve, to succeed. Strip people of their ability to rise from the working class into the middle, or maybe even the upper, class and wonder where all those tax dollars went.
This isn’t to say that America shouldn’t help others around the world. Or that immigrants should be treated poorly. It is to say that we have poor at home, some of whom aren’t even deplorable, who are also in need, but fail to make it onto the radar of the unduly passionate. No one else is going to help them, feed them, keep them warm in the cold winds of winter.
When you’re busy feeling all empathetic about whichever vulnerable and marginalized population is the saddest of the moment, don’t forget that there are people here starving as well. Nobody else is going to give a damn about them. You might want to bear that in mind.
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That study did not include anti poverty program payments as part of that calculation. Food stamps alone account for more than $1.90 a day. Not saying we don’t have poor people here, but the study is deeply misleading.
Trees. Forest. Focus.
Disregard..i read the 3.3 as 13.3
Dear Papa,
You start with giving food to the poor. Once the hunger pangs subside, they might remember they are sick and in need of healthcare. Next, you’re calling for universal healthcare. Once they are fed and healthy, they might think they want safer conditions at work, or a healthier environment or better schools, or to search the internet without relentless public and private tracking, or access to employment opportunities, or who knows what. Better just to let them all eat cake, lest they get too “entitled.”
Restricting the few to rise above the many is pointless. It’s going to happen. Yet, there shouldn’t be titans lording their immense wealth over the few. “Oblivion” is a bit much, Pa.
Best,
PK
When people are starving, it’s rather hard to cry about microaggressions, PK. It’s not to protect the wealth of billionaire titans (even if the latest crop came from immigrants who have achieved the American dream by creating things), but trying to suck them dry for the sake of whatever flavor of marginalized people are on the front burner of the day still won’t help the people starving who are forgotten.
In other words, we’re doing a pretty poor job of providing a safety net to our own, while we kvell over others. And still we use our iPhones to buy on Amazon.
Agreed. The progressives aren’t preoccupied, though. They just don’t care as much as they say. Maybe less thinking is in order. Our guts say hunger is terrible and should be abolished for everyone. Or have we forgotten hunger too?
Cans of food, small donations, time in the soup kitchen, are all great; a billion dollars is better.
Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, people turn out in droves to staff food kitchens and pantries. Hungry people don’t eat the rest of the year. We’re a fickle people when it comes to empathy.
I know you’re young, PK; however, have you never heart of the *trickle-down theory* [of economics]? Without the so-called wealthy, the wetbacks and assorted rag-tag immigrants would be unable to earn enough Amerikan shekels to send back to their respective homelands . Venezuela comes to mind. (One of my neighbors are a Venezuelan immigrant family. They drive nicer cars than me, cars they would be unable to afford over there,… unless you belong to the corrupt Venezuelan oligarchs.)
In order to eliminate poverty, we have to eliminate wealth. That has been tried more than once, and didn’t work out too well. Who is going to be in charge of “distributing” the wealth? That is the conundrum. Personally, I don’t want the U.S. Govt. in charge of distributing anything other than bare necessities. They cannot even do that very well. How about taking care of our veterans? Sometimes it’s good, and occasionally, it’s awful. That’ Life in the Fast Lane. Would you rather live in the slow lane? Finally, the Squeaky Wheel gets the Grease. At least you are thinking, and the Host appreciates.
Next!
Trickle down didn’t work too well last time, Bill. As a “wetback,” I want the opportunity to work hard and succeed, regardless of the theory of economics in vogue at the moment.
Give it more time, Warren Buffett-breath. He’s a *hoarder* [of stocks and bonds] out there in the Plains states. Buy stock in good ol’ Amerikan companies, and never sell. Ah shucks, anybody can do it!?!
There’s another pathway to wealth [and eliminate poverty from the Face of the Earth]: It’s called the *Art of the Deal*. Ha. Be prepared to face bancruptcy at least four times and suffer negative net worth for years on end.
Trickle down worked like a champ! It’s just that the trickle was warm, wet, and yellow. And sometimes smelled like asparagus.
Why do you think they call it trickle instead of downpour?
Trickle down worked better than “tax the rich and give it away” as nothing ever seemed to make out of the hands of the middlemen (women) when the redistribution time came. At least the rich still needed employees (for their businesses and domestic workers) and passed something on, even if not as much as was assumed and promised. A new variant of “tax the rich” is being tried with the increased minimum wages in some regions but it’s looking like that is going to fail as well with employers switching to automation rather than pay low skilled, marginally employable people more than their jobs can justify. Both plans failed but I don’t see a third that really looks viable.
Also have you noticed that the “tax the rich” always seemed to mean the “other” rich, those we don’t like, but leave my hundreds of millions alone. And even worse all the plans seem to really just target those on the way up to prevent them from making the top without ever really touching the current crop of mega-millionaires? Take Warren Buffet (mentioned above) as an example, last report I saw ( a couple of years ago so this might have changed some) said his current annual taxable income is about $100,000, as he’s already made his bundle and stashed it all in shelters. The “tax the rich” schemes target those making well over that on the newly (nearly) wealthy still on their up as first or second generation high income professionals who don’t yet have the shelters and trusts set up to protect their money. Keep the riff-raff in their place and out of the country clubs, can’t have them thinking they are actually equal to those whose ancestors stole their fortune a couple or 4 generations back.
I don’t know that Buffet or Soros are being disingenuous. I do, however, know that most of the people demanding a system that people with money who worked hard, saved, sacrificed, pay for the things they decide others should have, don’t a great deal of skin in the game. It’s always easier to give away other people’s money for the good of humanity.
I don’t know that Buffet is either, he was just the example used in the article I read a while back that talked about this issue and therefore one who I had an idea of his alleged recent income vs wealth to use. You could substitute in the Hiltons, or Kennedys or any other of the “great” familys except I cannot give any idea of their income vs wealth ratio to use. The real point is that all the “tax the rich” schemes really target high income and not high wealth. The two are not necessarily synonymous.
Americans are reputed to be among the most generous in the world, correctly or not, but at some point every well runs dry. I know where I give my donations based on my values.
Personal to Scott…not meant to be published…but it’s your blog:
You have a great blog, with a great reputation. When writing about law, you nail it and rightly castigate those that misinform people or “make them dumber”. I’m not interested in starting a poverty debate, but, when you parrot barroom talking points like “what about poverty in ‘merica” you have officially started making people dumber.
The study is embarrassingly flawed (my first mistake was noting that you read past its 13 million number to get to the equally awful 3 million number).
Comparing American poverty to foreign poverty is a stale, shallow and frankly stupid argument people make when they are no longer interested in debating their desired policy position or specific program. This is not to say that there aren’t poor in America, and I’m not defending foreign aid over American aid, but comparing American poverty to third world poverty ignores the fundamental facts about being poor in the world.
Either research more, or stick to your areas of expertise…or whatever you want…it’s your blog. Your blog makes people smarter…just not today.
I’m happy to be chastised when I’m wrong. Here’s where my view differs. This post wasn’t really about poverty in America, or to promote the study per se. What it’s about is our allocation of scarce resources to whatever issue is on our front burner without stepping back, considering the big picture and removing the blinders of popular pressure from our decision-making.
That’s why I write about indigent defense v. immigrant defense, for example. We bemoan problems for the day we focus on them, then see the next squirrel and forget about them. We allocate scarce resources to whatever issue is promoted as the worst problem ever, having failed to address yesterday’s worst problem ever. And we are now in the mode of obsessing over problems that affect people who are not Americans while we fail to address the problems of our own people.
Screw the study. It was just the means to get into the discussion. I hope this explains the post better.
KT got up on the wrong side of the bed, “obviously.” PK did better than that, and he’s just a youngster. Ha. Your regular readership understood you perfectly. Trust it.
Kirk is a good fellow, and his point was well taken. Much as I prefer not to have to explain myself, I was happy to do so for Kirk.
That’s nailing it: Allocation and efficient use of scarce resources. Not the “flavor of the day”. Thanks for the clarification.
“comparing American poverty to third world poverty ignores the fundamental facts about being poor in the world.”
I know a therapist who specializes in grief. She has spent a lot of her own time and money going to various third-world countries to help survivors when disaster strikes, and has found the resilience, resourcefulness, and joie de vivre of poor people all over the world refreshing.
She’s also seen some of the despair in Appalachia first-hand, and would dismiss your statement as unthinking third-wave jingoism, unless what you meant is that being poor can be much worse here because of things like the misguided war on drugs.
Scarce resources or allocation of resources?
Shit!!! And here I thought you were a man who paroused federal contininuing budget resolutions on the toilet to harmononize your grunts while squezing out your morning grumpy.
No? Well, there you go. Free tip of the day.*
Results may vary depending on your weekly maple bacon donut intake.
It doesn’t get mention in the media, but the tent cities that came with the Great Recession are still with us. The homeless who lack even that, still with us. Nobody really knows how many, as uncoordinated point-in-time counts by local governments provide a partial snap-shot at best. Based on one such count, and those who were counted, there were at least 34,000 homeless in Los Angeles County alone in late 2017.
But somehow, in the discussion of politics, it gets left out, not only now, but through the entirety of the Obama Administration. What with all the important social posturing and #MeToo and who said what at the Grammy’s, it isn’t surprising that the media can’t afford a sound byte or two for the poor.
Don’t be poor. That’s what I advise people.
As Reb Tevye said, it’s no crime to be poor. But it’s no great honor, either.
Amazing how so many issues didn’t manage to find their way onto the front burner when Obama was president. And yet we are surprised not to find such concerns foremost in Trump’s administration. Shocking, really.
At heart, most of the really rich and powerful folks know full well that there are a lot of poor people; that some are starving; that some are in the US; and so on.
One option is to be blunt, and make an open choice about the allocation of government resources. But folks don’t like choice because they will get flak from their opponents on a bad choice. And of course even in the rare cases of openness, they never pay enough attention to the unseen. You might hear “we’ve decided to put money into our food bank,” but you don’t hear “…thereby having less money for the folks in the other parts of the state; and thereby having less money for health care, housing, etc.”
The other option is to pretend to be stupid, i.e. pretend to ignore the problem and thereby fail to take action (see, also, “Congress.”) They may get targeted by posts like these but overall it’s far less damaging to them than being specific, even though specificity is
Being a confrontational sort, I take option 1. When a charity calls, I say “money is fungible, and there is only so much money I can afford to give. Right now I am predisposed to give all my money to the Food Bank, no matter how much I give.
If you want to tell me why I should give money to you instead of the Food Bank, I’m all ears. But you can’t just tell me why you’re good; you have to explain why you’re better.
Literally, nobody even tried.
I got stuck on the part where you revealed the secret insights of the “really rich and powerful.” I was not aware that you hobnobbed with those folks.
The bulk of my charitable giving also goes to the food bank.
But if a charity calls, I explain that, although I understand that, as a non-profit, they are not bound by the do-not-call list, they also are not prohibited from using the do-not-call list, and if they’re so stupid as to spend money to bother people who have expressed a preference to not be bothered on the phone, they’re way too stupid with their money for me to be inclined to add to it.
Hey Patrick, calm down! Calm down, tomorrow is another day. The doo-gooders mean no harm. They’re just trying to help those in need. They are *on a mission*. Get it? Hey, it could be a scam artist in Nigeria calling!
You make *charitable contributions*? That is truly impressive. What? A jar of mayonnaise? (HellMaNS) A bottle of ketchup? (Heinz 52.) You are a chump. How about some anchovies, or artichoke hearts, Spanish green olives? Just sayin’. (We’re really big on Mediterranean diet, no donuts with sprinkles, pleese–fattening. Just olive oil.)
The true scam artists at least aren’t lying to themselves about whether they have my best interests at heart.
But sure, let shg know your address, and I’ll send you a care package of green and brown/silver things.
Number of people who starve to death a day: 25k (16k of which are children)
Number of people in the United States who starve to death per day: 0
Try going one day without food and then revisit the extreme stupidity of this post.
All the extreme poor in America thank you for your informing them how wonderful their life is because they didn’t starve today.
That said, thus far in 2018, 219 people have died of malnutrition in America. Too bad you didn’t tell them that nobody starves here earlier, so they could still be alive because you said so.
And Skink sent me this video. He’s horrible.
But the New York Times, from whence your article came, is a white supremacists, nazi paper. Obviously. any post that relies on such a filthy rag must be stupid, or worse.
I applaud your patriotism. I’m sure many people do not comprehend the multi-faceted value of US investments in our global neighbors, however, I’m not one of them.
If your argument is we can afford to do both, (help ourselves and help our neighbors) -I agree.
It’s not patriotism. It’s reality. I appreciate your global concerns. Do you appreciate the concerns at home? You will say so, but it’s unconvincing. As you know, I’m a capitalist. As I know, you’re less so.
If a choice has to be made, who lives and who dies? How bad must suffering be at home before it’s worthy of redress? If you pass some homeless woman on the street today, tell her that she’s not suffering as badly as people in Yemen, and she should appreciate her privilege. Maybe stop by the courts and tell an indigent defendant that his facing prison without a lawyer capable of giving him more than five seconds attention isn’t nearly as horrifying as some black female college student forced to see a white girl wearing hoop earrings. Choices have to get made, Jake.
The basic globalism v. nationalism argument. Do we use our resources to take care of ourselves first, and then others if we can, or do we use American resources to care for the most needy, wherever they may be? After all, borders are just social constructs, at least to people like Jake if not everyone else in the world.
Yup. I appreciate Jake’s concerns for others, and applaud his empathy. But scarce resources have to be allocated (though he will likely disagree that there is such a thing as scarce resources, but just greedy capitalist hoarding of wealth) and I will spend them first at home.
To people like Miles, there is apparently no connection between taking care of others and taking care of ourselves. It’s as if there is no connection between access to strategic resources and regional security. In this nationalist world pirates and terrorists merely leap forth, motivated by ideological purity in regions where there is sufficient access to clean water, food, education, and opportunity.
Build walls! They are more humanitarian than soup kitchens! Jesus told us so in an Evangelical prosperity sermon.
So Miles is saying kill all vegans.
PS- Death by malnutrition is ≠ to starvation due to lack of access to food.
Another nuance I’m sure many fail to understand.
The may be the same. They may not. Starvation was your word, not mine.
There is no poverty. It’s merely a *turn of phrase*. Just as pain is in the brain, so poverty is in the eye/stomach of the beholder. A little fasting is good for the cholesterol, not to mention diabetes. Supplements are NOT Us. Those are for the Little People and recent immigrants who do not know any better.