quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'd like to just wait until I hear Geraine's explanation about what the biggest problem with dealing with the poor is, what 'cultural issue' is at fault.
My point is that perpetual poverty is more than just money.
No. It's just mostly about money. So let's do focus on the 1% of it that isn't about money.
quote: Children that grow up relying not on their parents but on the money the government gives their parents sets a bad example for the child. The child is more likely to repeat the cycle than get out of it.
No. And if this were true, then the welfare roles would have ballooned in the past 35 years to encompass a massive wave of lazy assed poor kids. But that didn't happen. Maybe because this theory is just stupid, and (though you didn't mention race), mostly based on racist attitudes about the poor.
quote:Money is certainly one aspect, but things like good education, nutrition, and jobs are just as crucial in helping people get out of the cycle of poverty. There is a culture of poverty that exists.
Good education takes money. Good nutrition takes money. Getting a good job takes good education and networking, which takes money.
Even staying above the level of mental exhaustion which keeps a person from collapsing on the couch at home after a long day of low-wage work while worrying about where their next rent payment will come from *takes money.* That is a problem that a little bit of money actually solves for a lot of people. Not a *lot* of money, but just enough.
So the things that are crucial to getting people out of poverty are things which cost money to accomplish.
quote: There is a culture of poverty that exists
I have no earthly idea what this is supposed to mean. You think there are people who are taught by their parents to be poor? Like, as a cultural trait? A culture of losers? Does that actually make sense to you?
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Orincoro -- you're taking advantage of the fact that Geraine is generalizing to change the argument. You've admitted that. Call it what you will.
From a limited perspective, his argument is valid. There is a certain segment of society, and I'm not purporting to understand the size, that is content to live on government funding rather than work. It is entirely logical that this segment would be further disincentive to work if the funding is increased.
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On the flip side, you're right. There are many things a government can do to create upward mobility and decrease poverty for a segment (majority?) of a population. Unfortunately, government attempts in the US are utterly uncoordinated and improperly implemented. Yes, there are many people with good intentions, but I've yet to see a program that works on a macro level.
What are some ways that government assistance is effective? I think the increased availability to student loans enacted by the current administration is one of the best that I've seen. Are there other good programs?
On the flip side, are there theoretical programs that might work better?
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As someone who was once homeless, I would say that public housing is the biggest step a government could take toward eliminating poverty.
Extreme poverty and homelessness is very difficult to escape. If the government, business, or private charity (better yet, a consortium of all of the above) built super low-cost fabricated housing, it would take care of a huge number of societal ills. - Provide access to a metropolitan center. - Provide access to hygiene (group? personal?). - Provide an address to receive mail. - Have a central drop-off point for additional charity (food, clothes, education, same day labor, etc).
IMHO this would eliminate a good deal of petty crime and make the streets cleaner and safer. For the homeless, it would allow them the option of becoming a contributing member of society (something hard to do when you're dirty, don't have an address, etc).
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: There is a certain segment of society, and I'm not purporting to understand the size, that is content to live on government funding rather than work. It is entirely logical that this segment would be further disincentive to work if the funding is increased.
Aside from the fact that this is not most people, so what? Let's imagine that this is true for some small portion of the population. So what? We have more people working than there is work that needs to be done. If these people were, from a paid work point of view, absolute parasites, so what? Should they starve? Sleep on heating grates in the winter? They may be extraordinarily kind or tell amazing stories or sing beautiful songs or be and do any number of wonderful things that we don't "incentivize" monetarily unless one is extraordinarily lucky.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'd like to just wait until I hear Geraine's explanation about what the biggest problem with dealing with the poor is, what 'cultural issue' is at fault.
My point is that perpetual poverty is more than just money. There is monetary aspects as well, but social and cultural capital is just as important. We have spoken on Hatrack before about how hard it is for kids in poor neighborhoods to get a good education, get a good job, etc. Money is only part of the solution.
Children that grow up relying not on their parents but on the money the government gives their parents sets a bad example for the child. The child is more likely to repeat the cycle than get out of it.
Money is certainly one aspect, but things like good education, nutrition, and jobs are just as crucial in helping people get out of the cycle of poverty. There is a culture of poverty that exists.
Money isn't the only solution.
I don't think this exactly answers the question?
You said "I still think that the biggest problem we have in dealing with the poor is more cultural than monetary."
I want you to explain completely what the cultural problem is. What, to you, is a complete definition of the 'culture of poverty?' Are you saying that it's when kids in impoverished families see their parents buying them food with SNAP funds, they're more likely to decide "oh cool government means I don't have to work" and be poor when they grow up too?
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There seems to be some miscommunication here. For reducing the number of people in poverty, I fail to see why simply giving them enough money to not be in poverty wouldn't reduce the number of people that are in poverty. The cut-off for poverty is a simple income cut-off.
For example, in Canada we have welfare programmes like OAS (Old Age Security) and GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) that effectively guarantee senior's income to not be below the poverty line.
Result? Our senior's poverty rate is roughly 6% as opposed to 24% in the US and of that 6%, there's an over-representation of recent senior immigrants that don't qualify for welfare. link
There are other terms like "perpetual poverty" or "dependence" that are very unclear to me. But "poverty" is pretty clear, so when posters are saying things like "Extreme poverty ... is very difficult to escape" that doesn't make sense to me.
It seems pretty simple, you give people in extreme poverty enough money so they aren't measured as being in poverty.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'd like to just wait until I hear Geraine's explanation about what the biggest problem with dealing with the poor is, what 'cultural issue' is at fault.
My point is that perpetual poverty is more than just money. There is monetary aspects as well, but social and cultural capital is just as important. We have spoken on Hatrack before about how hard it is for kids in poor neighborhoods to get a good education, get a good job, etc. Money is only part of the solution.
Children that grow up relying not on their parents but on the money the government gives their parents sets a bad example for the child. The child is more likely to repeat the cycle than get out of it.
Money is certainly one aspect, but things like good education, nutrition, and jobs are just as crucial in helping people get out of the cycle of poverty. There is a culture of poverty that exists.
Money isn't the only solution.
I don't think this exactly answers the question?
You said "I still think that the biggest problem we have in dealing with the poor is more cultural than monetary."
I want you to explain completely what the cultural problem is. What, to you, is a complete definition of the 'culture of poverty?' Are you saying that it's when kids in impoverished families see their parents buying them food with SNAP funds, they're more likely to decide "oh cool government means I don't have to work" and be poor when they grow up too?
The cultural problem doesn't just exist within the poor communities. Being poor growing up can cause a child to feel hopelessness, have a low self esteem, and have a horrible sense of worth. Many times the children are just simply used to receiving government benefits. It's often all they know. The majority of the children come from single parent homes who work, so often their friends and the street are the only things that guide them outside of school.
It also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
Look at inner city schools. We approach their education from a deficit perspective. The education system receives a ton of money, but it is spent more on the "product" of education than the "process" of education. How are public charter schools here in Las Vegas able to give a better education to students in low income areas with less money and resources? They don't treat the kids as if they are at a disadvantage. They don't even provide school lunches. Yet these kids are consistently scoring higher on tests than every other public school in low income territories.
Culture is ONE of the problems of poverty. Even many democrats and left-leaning scholars are now saying that culture plays a role. It's not just the conservatives, Oscar Lewis', or Daniel Moynihan's of the world anymore.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Orincoro -- you're taking advantage of the fact that Geraine is generalizing to change the argument. You've admitted that. Call it what you will.
It's not generalization, it's conflating two unlike terms. You don't get to do that and have a sound argument.
quote: From a limited perspective, his argument is valid.
His argument is not even internally valid- though it presupposes a mechanism not supported by the evidence anyway. Since it is an argument against government assistance (or an argument that government assistance is "too high") that supports itself with references to government dependence, which is a fundamentally different issue, it lacks any internal validity. It's like arguing that apples are bad because we have too many oranges (even if we don't actually).
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: t also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
It's remarkably less stupid than focusing on a person's culture as the root of their poverty, particularly in America. Particularly postulating that a person's poverty is due to acculturation. I know you really really want to focus on it, but it's just not as important as you want to believe it is.
Believe me, by the way, I know what acculturated social parasitism looks like. You've probably never met a Rom in your life, for example. Much less been to a village full of them, living in disgusting conditions, and digging through garbage instead of taking the work that's offered to them. I've seen that, and I still don't believe their poverty has its roots in their culture. It has its roots in their total alienation from the greater society. But no class of Americans has ever been through the cultural destruction those people have- not since slavery ended.
It exists, but you've never seen it.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: It seems pretty simple, you give people in extreme poverty enough money so they aren't measured as being in poverty.
What's weird about American conservatism is the wildly bipolar ideologies: America and it's people are capable of doing anything provided the comfort of freedom, but absolutely incapable of doing anything for themselves, provided the comfort of support.
When "support," looks to conservatives like freedom, for example, the freedom bestowed by a large defense budget, or agriculture subsidies, it's good. But when the support looks like a give-away, like a food program, or education, health care, or god-forbid, social assistance, that's not good, and it's not freedom.
The concept that freedom in an egalitarian society is possibly dependent upon a scaled approach to different levels of self-sufficiency is too much, and the center does not hold for American conservatism. But if any gentile white people should fall on hard times, exceptions will be made.
In other words, racism.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: t also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
It's remarkably less stupid than focusing on a person's culture as the root of their poverty, particularly in America. Particularly postulating that a person's poverty is due to acculturation. I know you really really want to focus on it, but it's just not as important as you want to believe it is.
Believe me, by the way, I know what acculturated social parasitism looks like. You've probably never met a Rom in your life, for example. Much less been to a village full of them, living in disgusting conditions, and digging through garbage instead of taking the work that's offered to them. I've seen that, and I still don't believe their poverty has its roots in their culture. It has its roots in their total alienation from the greater society. But no class of Americans has ever been through the cultural destruction those people have- not since slavery ended.
It exists, but you've never seen it.
I didn't know you knew so much about me or where I have been. I actually have seen extremely poor people. I lived with them for two years. Houses made literally out of garbage they could piece together to have a roof over their heads. Kids that ran around on the street naked because they literally could not afford clothes.
Just to summarize what you typed: (and correct me if I'm wrong)A culture of poverty exists, just not in this country, and the reason this culture doesn't exist is because of lack of acculturation?
Come on now, I have a hard time you honestly believe that, especially when there is acculturation happening here in the US. It has been going on for decades, and not just with Latinos. If you look at the family unit there have been numerous changes over the past 50-60 years. The rising divorce rate. The amount of time parents spend in the home. The rise in single parent families. The fall in quality of education due to ineffective programs, teachers unions, etc.
All of the evidence is right there. There doesn't have to be an earth shattering event for acculturation to occur. It's been happening slowly for the last half a dozen decades.
Lack of money doesn't cause the behaviors either. If that were the case, most Americans in the 19th and 20th century would have been extremely dysfunctional.
Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.
Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.
Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.
“One of the ways you get on this program is having problems in school,” notes Richard V. Burkhauser, a Cornell University economist who co-wrote a book last year about these disability programs. “If you do better in school, you threaten the income of the parents. It’s a terrible incentive.”
I want an honest answer to a couple of questions from you:
If we gave every person in poverty $1 million dollars, do you believe that the majority of them would spend it wisely?
Do you believe that they would change their diets, seek to be more healthy, and get their kids a good education, or would they spend it on other things?
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: It seems pretty simple, you give people in extreme poverty enough money so they aren't measured as being in poverty.
What's weird about American conservatism is the wildly bipolar ideologies: America and it's people are capable of doing anything provided the comfort of freedom, but absolutely incapable of doing anything for themselves, provided the comfort of support.
When "support," looks to conservatives like freedom, for example, the freedom bestowed by a large defense budget, or agriculture subsidies, it's good. But when the support looks like a give-away, like a food program, or education, health care, or god-forbid, social assistance, that's not good, and it's not freedom.
The concept that freedom in an egalitarian society is possibly dependent upon a scaled approach to different levels of self-sufficiency is too much, and the center does not hold for American conservatism. But if any gentile white people should fall on hard times, exceptions will be made.
In other words, racism.
So having people depending on government dependence somehow equals freedom? You do realize how silly that is, don't you? If you depend on someone or something to survive, are you free?
As far as your claim for "racism" is concerned, you are hilarious. If the majority of poor people are not white, then anyone that doesn't think throwing money at them is the best course of action *must* be racist?
Glad to know that even you use fallacies every now and then.
As far as your defense budget / agricultural subsidies, etc, I find myself firmly in the libertarian camp when it comes to those subjects.
Whenever you beholden yourself to someone or an entity, you are not free.
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The cultural problem doesn't just exist within the poor communities. Being poor growing up can cause a child to feel hopelessness, have a low self esteem, and have a horrible sense of worth. Many times the children are just simply used to receiving government benefits. It's often all they know. The majority of the children come from single parent homes who work, so often their friends and the street are the only things that guide them outside of school.
It also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
You're telling me "the cultural problem doesn't just exist within the poor commumities" and "culture is ONE of the problems of poverty." but you are still not really giving me a description of what the cultural problem is. You're not, I don't think, describing for me what I'm asking for, just giving me addendums to some unexplained core.
I don't know if it's being answered in a roundabout way?
You said "I still think that the biggest problem we have in dealing with the poor is more cultural than monetary."
What is that problem? What is the biggest problem? Why is it more cultural than monetary? What's the complete definition of the cultural problem you are talking about? What is the 'culture of poverty' you are trying to explain?
Please answer it in a complete summation. Like "the culture of poverty is _________" or "the biggest problem we have when dealing with poverty is _________" or "the reason why the biggest problems we have with poverty are cultural are __________"
Sorry if I'm not getting something you are TRYING to get past, but I'm not seeing a description I can work on yet.
quote:Culture is ONE of the problems of poverty. Even many democrats and left-leaning scholars are now saying that culture plays a role. It's not just the conservatives, Oscar Lewis', or Daniel Moynihan's of the world anymore.
Literally no Democrat I can think of does not think there are no cultural problems relating to poverty or has ever said that culture does not play a role in poverty. Where on earth does THIS come from?
quote:How are public charter schools here in Las Vegas able to give a better education to students in low income areas with less money and resources?
To answer your question flatly: good question, because if they ostensibly can, they aren't. They're worse than the public schools in performance.
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quote:Whenever you beholden yourself to someone or an entity, you are not free.
Describe for me a situation in the United States, other than being fabulously wealthy, where you are not beholden to anyone?
People who make the arguments you are making tend to limit the idea of being beholden purely to government assistance. But you're beholden to your employer as well. And a lot of other people that make modern society functional.
Very few people are not necessarily dependent on others to make their lives work. And it doesn't really matter that you work for it. Most of the poor work as well. Modern welfare is often dependent on work in order to receive benefits. But our society requires a perpetual underclass to keep the service industry affordable for the middle class to purchase services and goods from. We give them enough of our tax money to subsidize those cheap goods but not so much that it neutralizes the benefits.
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: So having people depending on government dependence somehow equals freedom? You do realize how silly that is, don't you? If you depend on someone or something to survive, are you free?
No. If you *can* depend on someone for support, then you can be free. The key denominator here in this equation is *access* to support, not the support itself. The idea of a social safety net, is that it frees the individual from the worst consequences of freely made decisions. Without that net of support, society would be dominated by a minority of lucky, fantastically rich and conservative investors, and a majority of poor people who couldn't afford to take risks to get ahead, since taking risks literally means risking your survival to prosper. That's what libertarianism would look like.
This is borne out in game theory, by the way: social security is partly structured around Nash equilibriums (certainly influenced by them)- if society is full of rational actors, who are aware that all involved parties will take on a certain level of risk, all should rationally be willing to support a system in which the worst consequence of that risk, weighed against a reasonable loss in reward, can be eliminated, ensuring mutually higher social prosperity.
In short: you benefit from there not being a lot of poor people, just as much as poor people benefit from your support. And the money spent on social security has a net-positive effect on total economic growth. This has always been true. And the existence of social support benefits all parties, because it encourages more appropriate levels of risk taking (eg: starting a business, taking a loan for education, etc). Risk is good in the right proportion, and poor people can't take financial risks, meaning you end up with a sluggish, oligarchically dominated economy. The South in 1850, in other words.
quote: As far as your claim for "racism" is concerned, you are hilarious. If the majority of poor people are not white, then anyone that doesn't think throwing money at them is the best course of action *must* be racist?
No, No. You misunderstand.
It's just that the chances that that person is a racist are extremely high. It's not logically bound to be that way, it just usually *is* that way practically. Particularly in your case, given your grasping justifications for your views of the poor as "inculcated" into poverty by their lowly cultural backgrounds. That is a fundamentally racist and stupid assumption, and you are guilty of it. Not all rich white people are, but you are.
quote: Glad to know that even you use fallacies every now and then.
Nope. You just don't understand solid argumentation when you see it.
quote: Whenever you beholden yourself to someone or an entity, you are not free.
Pish posh. You're an American. You own your government. And you are politically responsible, as we all are, for how it's run. You're not much of an American if that isn't a principle you believe in.
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: t also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
It's remarkably less stupid than focusing on a person's culture as the root of their poverty, particularly in America. Particularly postulating that a person's poverty is due to acculturation. I know you really really want to focus on it, but it's just not as important as you want to believe it is.
Believe me, by the way, I know what acculturated social parasitism looks like. You've probably never met a Rom in your life, for example. Much less been to a village full of them, living in disgusting conditions, and digging through garbage instead of taking the work that's offered to them. I've seen that, and I still don't believe their poverty has its roots in their culture. It has its roots in their total alienation from the greater society. But no class of Americans has ever been through the cultural destruction those people have- not since slavery ended.
Two words: Native Americans.
If you think this kind of poverty doesn't exist in America, think again.
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That's true. You caught me underthinking it. I would say that some reservations certainly represent an exception to that rule.
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There are people that are in poverty because they're lazy bums who simply won't make an effort. That's true, yes. The vast majority of them, however, learned the life skills and habits that are in large part holding them back from their parents.
I'm talking about things like substance abuse, an inability to manage one's finances properly (whether through lack of interest or loss of hope,) a lack of interest in pursuing educational opportunities to the fullest extent possible.
Does this mean that every child that comes from such a home is fated to live in poverty? Of course not. There are plenty of people who break the cycle. But that doesn't change the fact that a child coming from such a background is much more likely to fall into the pit, doomed to an extremely difficult or even impossible job of getting out, if they should even decide to try.
Things like foodstamps and welfare are not something that I would ever want to take away; they have their place and they do a good thing. Generational poverty can not be ignored, however; it very much is a cultural thing, present in both minority and white communities. ("Poor white trash.")
Being successful in the any country requires a person to have certain lifeskills. If anything, I'd be for more money being put into efforts to break that cycle and teach the children (and any willing adults) the necessary skills to be successful.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: That's true. You caught me underthinking it. I would say that some reservations certainly represent an exception to that rule.
Not many. There's a believe that casinos have made life on the reservation high on the hog, but that often obscures the fact that little casino money ever really improves the lives of most people living on the Rez. I met a lot of people who either studied Native American history professionally or actually grew up on the Rez when I was at UNL, and it's a grinding sort of poverty most Americans only see in documentaries about bombed out post-WWII towns and third world slums.
It's a type of poverty most of us will never see first hand, because our experience with Native Americans in most parts of the country is limited to old western movies and craft shows.
Poverty in the inner cities of places like Detroit is terrible, but the Rez is a different level entirely.
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The cultural problem doesn't just exist within the poor communities. Being poor growing up can cause a child to feel hopelessness, have a low self esteem, and have a horrible sense of worth. Many times the children are just simply used to receiving government benefits. It's often all they know. The majority of the children come from single parent homes who work, so often their friends and the street are the only things that guide them outside of school.
It also exists among more wealthy groups (more so) in how they view the poor. If a kid is poor he isn't as educated. If he is poor he must be lazy. If he is poor he must be dirty. It is a stupid attitude to have.
You're telling me "the cultural problem doesn't just exist within the poor commumities" and "culture is ONE of the problems of poverty." but you are still not really giving me a description of what the cultural problem is. You're not, I don't think, describing for me what I'm asking for, just giving me addendums to some unexplained core.
I don't know if it's being answered in a roundabout way?
You said "I still think that the biggest problem we have in dealing with the poor is more cultural than monetary."
What is that problem? What is the biggest problem? Why is it more cultural than monetary? What's the complete definition of the cultural problem you are talking about? What is the 'culture of poverty' you are trying to explain?
Please answer it in a complete summation. Like "the culture of poverty is _________" or "the biggest problem we have when dealing with poverty is _________" or "the reason why the biggest problems we have with poverty are cultural are __________"
Sorry if I'm not getting something you are TRYING to get past, but I'm not seeing a description I can work on yet.
quote:Culture is ONE of the problems of poverty. Even many democrats and left-leaning scholars are now saying that culture plays a role. It's not just the conservatives, Oscar Lewis', or Daniel Moynihan's of the world anymore.
Literally no Democrat I can think of does not think there are no cultural problems relating to poverty or has ever said that culture does not play a role in poverty. Where on earth does THIS come from?
quote:How are public charter schools here in Las Vegas able to give a better education to students in low income areas with less money and resources?
To answer your question flatly: good question, because if they ostensibly can, they aren't. They're worse than the public schools in performance.
Sam, I alluded to the answer in the post, but I will make it more clear.
The destruction (There is probably a better word) of the family unit has been the single greatest "cultural" issue in perpetual poverty.
There is a lot that goes into that though. Single parents needing to work long hours outside of the home. Divorce rates are high. Families live further away from non-immediate family due to advances in technology. Children have less supervision.
The article I posted has statistics regarding poverty among complete families vs. broken families.
This isn't something that is specific to the poor, but it affects the poor more than middle class families.
As for the charter schools, I appreciate the articles Tom posted, from everything I had read it was the opposite. There have been problems in many charter schools here in the valley, especially one concerning fraud (At Quest Academy, mentioned in the article).
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quote:Whenever you beholden yourself to someone or an entity, you are not free.
Describe for me a situation in the United States, other than being fabulously wealthy, where you are not beholden to anyone?
People who make the arguments you are making tend to limit the idea of being beholden purely to government assistance. But you're beholden to your employer as well. And a lot of other people that make modern society functional.
That is what I am saying. We essentially choose to give up our personal freedom in order to survive.
If the government had some way of knowing how long every individual lived, would you be ok if they came to you and said, "We looked and we see that you are going to live until you are 90 years old, so from now on we are going to dictate how you spend 40% of your time every single day. There are some people that will only live to be 50 years old, so we aren't going to dictate your time. After all, why should you have more free time than someone else!"
I can choose to work for my employer to support my family. I can't choose whether or not to support your family.
Well, that's not entirely true. I suppose I could just quit my job and collect benefits as well.
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Should 8 year olds born to poor families who can't afford to feed their children be forced to sweep and clean school floors in order to qualify for the school to provide healthy food?
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quote:I suppose I could just quit my job and collect benefits as well.
Why don't you? Do you suppose that the motivations that keep you employed aren't present in the people that are collecting benefits?
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quote:There is a lot that goes into that though. Single parents needing to work long hours outside of the home. Divorce rates are high. Families live further away from non-immediate family due to advances in technology. Children have less supervision.
The article I posted has statistics regarding poverty among complete families vs. broken families.
This isn't something that is specific to the poor, but it affects the poor more than middle class families.
Ok. Independent of marital status do you think that a child from a home in which the parent(s) are working or unworking poor but receive a significant amount of food and living aid from the government is more or less likely to move out of poverty as an adult than a child whose family is equally poor but who are denied food and living aid from the government?
When states like North Carolina cut back on their welfare programs and food aid to poor families so much that they lose federal backing of these programs see an increase or a decrease in intergenerational poverty?
If divorce creates situations where there is insufficient time and capacity by a single parent to raise a child, is that child better off if we subtract food and financial aid to the parent (to prevent them from apparently being trained to be dependent upon the government or w/e) or add food and financial aid to the parent (to allow the parent access to childcare and sufficient food for their child)?
Which do you think the data supports? The idea that poor children are ultimately better off when their caretakers don't get food aid because food aid produces intergenerational dependence and increased poverty overall, or are they better off with things like a robust safety net?
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Somehow Sam, I don't think Geraine is frankly interested in any data which doesn't fit his narrative. It would be unlike his reasoning to submit to mere facts.
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It could seriously just be a question of not knowing, and in the case of things like federal food aid, the data IS rather unambiguous and can lead to a reassessment of position!
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quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Should 8 year olds born to poor families who can't afford to feed their children be forced to sweep and clean school floors in order to qualify for the school to provide healthy food?
is not exactly related to a position anyone here is taking, here's what he's talking about
quote:On Saturday, Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston (R) came out against free lunches, saying that children should have to pay at least a nominal amount or do some work like sweeping cafeteria floors.
"But one of the things I’ve talked to the secretary of agriculture about: Why don’t you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria -- and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people -- getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch," he said.
Because nothing instills a good sense of American whats-what in a child like being forced to perform janitorial duties in school while the kids with better parents go off to play or learn or something. What's a little more lost government money when you can subject all the poor kids in America to a little bit more of that?
You know, I am pretty sure that children who grow up poor already have a keen understanding of what it's like to grow up poor. They're getting free meals at school in large part because many of them can't count on meals at home. Forget after school trips or the like, and they aren't getting those neat backpacks the other kids might be wearing, or new clothes for the school year, and shoes might have to last well past the point where they hurt to put on. I promise you, they know they're poor. They know they're excluded. Congress really doesn't need to pass a new law against schools feeding poor 12-year-olds unless poor 12-year-olds really get that there ain't gonna be no free handouts to you, you little still-too-happy shits.
Merry Christmas to you too, fella. Happy Jesus Day, or whatever you call it down at the ol' church.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Geraine isn't capax. Give him more credit than that.
Even when I'm not involved in the conversation you still take a dig at me? Huh... I thought you had more class than this, Lyrhawn.
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