The U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that poverty was down in 2007 for both the City of Long Beach and Los Angeles County, but there really isn’t much cause for celebration. The federal government defines poverty with figures that should make any informed American laugh, cringe, or sigh with disbelief.
According to Uncle Sam, you are not poor if your family of four has more than $21,000 in annual income. For a single person, it takes just $10,000 to be considered – what’s one step above poor? – middle class? Not-so-bad-off? Lucky?
Try raising two kids on 21 thousand bucks in LA County. Obviously, they’re sharing a bedroom with each other – and maybe with you and your spouse. There will be no eating out. There will be no new clothes. There will be no vacations, no Playstations, no school field trips. If your rent is 600 dollars per month, you will spend almost a third of your after-tax income on housing. But, of course, finding a decent place to rent at that price is about as likely as John McCain correctly identifying Pakistan on a map; it ain’t gonna happen.
Now I understand American poor isn’t the same as, say, Haiti or Mali or Bangladesh poor. But then, it shoulnd’t be – this nation is much richer than those countries. In Haiti, you’re really poor if you can’t eat and have no home; in the United States, if you’re buying your kids’ clothes exclusively at Goodwill – not by choice, but by necessity – if an illness or car trouble can mean no money for rent or medicines, and if a simple purchase like a watch or flashlight or matinee movie ticket is nothing but a pipedream, we should all be able to agree that you are what we call “poor”.
Nasty word, isn’t it?
Maybe you think it’s not important to define poverty; maybe you oppose the social services that “the poor” are “entitled” to receive. Maybe you think the poor are poor because they don’t work hard (in fact, according to research done in the 1990’s by the United Nations, lower-income people work an average of 15 hours more per week than their wealthier counterparts, and that’s not counting housework!). Maybe you just don’t think defining poverty is the government’s business.
Fine. I won’t argue (for now). But here’s the thing: Even if all that’s true, the fact is the government is in the business of defining poverty, and of helping poorer people with various forms of assistance. So shouldn’t the definition of poverty be based on reality?
To anyone who thinks a family of four living on less than 2k a month is anything but poor, I challenge you to try it.
Or invent a better word.