Poverty, so many lives lost, yet it is the web that creates everything we want to change.

Below are links to tables and graphs showing poverty levels, by state, by year, by race, by ethnic group, by age.  It's been tracked and study ad nauseum.

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality

https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/154286/50YearTrends.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759512938/u-s-census-bureau-reports-poverty-rate-down-but-millions-still-poor

https://www.poverties.org/blog/poverty-statistics

https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html

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We have a beautiful statue in a harbor--Lady Liberty--“Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.”, a gift from France in celebration of our first 100 years as a nation.  A And the poor came to us, the tired from war and oppression came to us, the hopeless came to us----and we gave them---poverty.

I hear you arguing, telling me, they just have to work hard, they just have to improve themselves.  We are all equal.  We all have the same opportunities.

Do you really believe that?

• Do the children in Flint Michigan( and we don't know how many Flint Michigans actually exist in this country, we don't check and if we find out, we don't tell) whose brains were poisoned by lead due to a government that failed to provide the same quality of water to the poor cities as the wealthy neighborhoods, ever have equal opportunity?  
• Do the children receiving the shitty serving of funds for their schools because the land surrounding their home is cheap have the same opportunity as the upper middle class neighborhoods that get the best of everything due to the high property taxes in that area?  (Nevermind the rich sending their children to $45,000 a year elementary schools and hiring masters prepared tutors if the kiddies don't get it)
• Do the children that spent the night cowering in their room while the police breakdown the doors of their neighbors, go to school the next day as well prepared as the child that went to school after a peaceful night in a house that doesn't know the sound of violence and fear.
• All people born into bondage were born into poverty.  Freedom and human rights must be present for a person to not be living in poverty.
• All people living in circumstances in which their children are forced into schools whose sole purpose is to remove any trace of their birth culture are born into poverty.  The many nations of people that were not exterminated by our government's goal of "Manifest Destiny", were impoverished by the forced relocation to reservations on poor land and the use of education to kill their native languages and destroy their crafts, rituals, and beliefs.
• All immigrants that were brought here, not for their own good but for their use by those wealthy businessmen that wanted to run a bigger plantation, a cheaper farm, a faster track for the railroad, were delivered, not into the land of opportunity, but into the land of poverty.
• Every immigrant group that left a place of persecution, violence and war in which they sided with the "losers",  entered this nation to live in a state of poverty.  From the Bond servants from Europe, to those escaping the famine of Ireland, to the Hmong that fought with us in Vietnam to the Central Americans that came up to escape the gangs that were birthed in the United States, then sent back home to ravage the places they had lived in before.  
• And let us not forget those who were born of parents that suffered addiction, born of parents without education--for whatever reason,  born of parents labeled "Convict", born of parent with untreated mental illness.  

There is a lot of information to study and ponder in those few links, but to understand poverty, you must either live in it, through it, or up against it.  To help you see the difference between the sadly tragic effects of poverty as seen in graphs and numbers, you must see people.  Individuals that, for whatever reason, are living in poverty, have a very different view of life than a person born into and raised in a stable home where at least one parent had a well-paying job that they were secure in and at least one parent that was capable of caring for the child(ren) in a way that was both nurturing and protective.  There have been people that were born into poverty as long as the United States has been a nation.  But what are the components of poverty?

• A daily struggle to insure everyone in the household eats enough that their stomach isn't growling all night.
• Making decisions like--do we get gasoline to go to work or pay the water bill this month.  (and on time!!! those late fees eat up the grocery money)
• No one in the family ever seeing a physician except in the emergency room---even if you qualify for medicaid, the physicians don't make appointments for the same month you call, the docs are paid in a capitated manner and making too many low pay appointments a month costs the Doctor money.
• Finding housing that is affordable but in a safe place.  You can get cheaper out in the rural areas, but no work and you need a dependable car as many rural areas have a central grocery store 10 to 50 miles away.  The suburbs have nothing affordable unless you qualify for section 8 housing and may take years and years on a long waiting list.  The urban areas have plenty, but it ranges from apartments with so many people in poverty they smell like desperation and a new pair of shoes can get you killed as everyone wants a new pair of shoes.  Don't judge---how many pair of shoes did you buy last year.  A new pair of shoes should not be an unaffordable luxury.  The other option is the currently-heading-down neighborhoods full of old and unmaintained homes---the final step before gentrification is the buying up of those houses to rent out, by people looking to make a profit.  The buyers don't even clean them out before renting them, forget fixing roofs, heaters, windows.  And they still rent at twice the price of a mortgage payment for the amount paid for the house, but people with credit don't want to live there---too many poor people renting nearby.
• Transportation--to work, to grocery stores, to schools, to medical care---poverty lives in food deserts, the clinics in walking distance are frequently less than wonderful, the schools are in areas where the property taxes are low so their funding is also low. 
• Childcare in a qualified preschool is not within range by distance or by cost.  When you live in poverty, you aren't donating thousands to the best prep schools trying to guarantee your child a place, you are trying to find a person nearby that will watch them for an hour or 8 hours for a low price or as a trade off.  Predators, both for financial and sexual reasons are known to volunteer to watch your kids, but you have no internet access so just think they  really love kids.  Or, you are scared, lock the kid in the house/apt while you go to the store, the job, or whatever else you can't live without for a while.  Five year-olds in charge of three year-olds and babies are not well cared for.  Before you call them skanky parents, what was the longest you set in your house with just the kids and no other person.  Poverty doesn't really allow for play dates and mother's day out.
• Now, lets touch on the complications that make it so hard for people in poverty to get out of poverty:  born into poverty, born to parents with addictions, to parents that were raised in our wonderful foster child system--not always the best, but no adult family when at 18 you are suddenly all on your own, raised by poorly educated parents or foster parents and getting your own poor education---while your stomach rumbled and your mind was focused on walking home past whatever predators awaited you, taught by teachers that mean well but have no idea why you can't just do your homework, bring your school supplies, show up clean and on time,  kids that have PTSD from things like witnessing violence or being the victim of violence and peer pressure to try this, try that, wear this, get that---but with no money.  
• Children raised in poverty do not see their parents struggling to get by as a role model to follow.  They love their parents; in jail, hustling for money, lying to the kids about what they are doing to make more money, but they don't want to be them.  So who do they try to emulate?  Who in the area has the money? the power?  Yes, in poverty, the heads of the gangs, crime lords, and the rare athlete or performer that comes home in a shiny car to move mom out, that is the hero.  That is who they want to be.  But being born with exceptional talent is not something you can emulate.  Neither can you get that lucky break that everyone of them got, noticed by the right person at the right time; just by wishing on a star.  Hollywood is full of young people trying to do exactly that, they are currently couch surfing or living in a car, or under bridges, waiting tables, or strolling on a corner, just waiting to be noticed.

Can this cycle be stopped?  Of course it can.  

Basic income for everyone would be a start.

Schools all subsidized at the state level, not based on local property taxes, would help, as would every student having an individualized education plan that allowed each to learn at their own speed and to their own ability. 

We will not all be Rhodes Scholars  and College bound, but the bright poor person should be able to go to college without a parental payout of 20-100 thousand a year.  We all should.  College is not just about tuition, but also books and a place to live and food to eat---without leaving school owing half a million dollars before even getting a job.  

All fulltime jobs should pay more than the individual poverty level where the job exists.(be assured, poverty level in podunk, mid-america is not the same as the poverty level in metropolitan coast city.)  If the company owner can't afford that, they should go do that job themselves---they are not yet a nonworking business owner.  And, if the job is  more than 3 days, its full-time.  Wait staff needs pay, not tips.  Pay your employees;  they didn't show up on their own hoping to make some money doing for the rich.(how feudal is that old system)  If you need part time, it needs to provide prorated benefits and hours so the person can work a second job without 24 hour days.

Childcare needs to be part of work benefits, paid sick time and maternity leave for both parents needs to be paid, mothers and fathers need a chance to bond with their new offspring. 

And Convicts need to be trained in prison for real jobs with halfway houses and jobs arranged with social workers not just parole officers that only care about drug use and violations.  If you want them permanently destroyed by their prison time, then just leave them in for life.  AND NO MORE SLAVE LABOR OR FOR PROFIT PRISONS.  NO MORE INMATE QUOTAS or even traffic stop quotas.  Crime is not our money maker.

Legalize Drugs, fix it where the supply is only through legal channels and affordable to the poor addict as well as the wealthy .  Alcohol is legal so bootlegging is way down, do the same with everything, including the stuff that the addicts need, free clinics for addicts, daily meds, combine it with the meds for mental illness, and free treatment for addiction recovery and mental illness without the nasty looks from those treating them.  Get rid of the money in the Crime syndicates and the motivation for selling drugs goes away.  Same happens with sex trafficking and weapons.

Poverty is not a birthright and it is not a punishment from god.  Our own capitalism and favoritism toward the wealthy creates this ongoing problem.  We have a 20% poverty level.  We are the richest country in the world.  If northern Europe can figure it out, we can too.  

Looking down at people worse off than you are is not really that important to your well-being.  Our own history created those in poverty.  What we do next needs to end that.