Really. Take just one data point:
Each year, the United States spends $65,000 per poor family to “fight poverty” – in a country in which the average family income is just under $50,000. Meanwhile, most of that money goes to middle-class and upper-middle-class families, and the current U.S. poverty rate is higher than it was before the government began spending trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs.
Now, I’m all for extending a helping hand to folks in genuine need. I’ve done it myself, as a personal choice. I’ve worked in food banks, homeless shelters and more. But who is the “feddle gummint” really “helping” with its disingenuously-named “war on poverty”? As far as I can see, it’s mostly a full employment program for federal and state bureaucraps, with the rest going to a mix of lazy bums and a few truly needy.
Apart from the very few who really are poor who are the “poor” in America? According to the “feddle gummint’s” own data, they’re part of the figurative “1%”–viewed as against the rest of the world.
According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR.
If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a washer and dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: That’s average European, not poor European.) The average poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight.
We Americans, on average, have it pretty good in the worldly goods category. But what about “poor” Americans? How do they fare n the worldly goods scale?
Right. Notalotadifference, eh? And that doesn’t even take into account the often–usually–transitional nature of the so-called “poverty” as designated by the “feddle gummint”.
Do note that I know full well that there are folks who are genuinely struggling to meets family needs for food, clothing and shelter, but those folks are vanishingly few compared to the numbers of folks who are really just sucking at the government teat… and assuring paychecks for “gummint bureaucraps” (I refuse to say most government bureaucraps are really doing jobs, although there are some worth having around I’m sure).
Just sayin’.
