The article below does not give a very good reflection of how well capitalism works in America.
Extreme capitalism can be as bad for a lot of people as extreme socialism.
A good society should have a balance of both capitalism and socialism for a successful economy, for social justice and to enable reasonable standards of living for everyone.
https://blogs.msn.com/povertynextdoor/poverty-is-a-story-about-us-not-themToo often still, we think we know what poverty looks like.
It’s the way we’ve been taught, the images we’ve been force-fed for decades.
The chronically homeless.
The undocumented immigrant.
The urban poor, usually personified as a woman of color, the “welfare queen” politicians still too often reference.
But as income inequality rises to record levels in the United States, even in the midst of a record economic expansion, those familiar images are outdated, hurtful, and counterproductive to focusing attention on solutions and building ladders of opportunity.
Today’s faces of income inequality and lack of opportunity look like, well… all of us.
It’s Anna Landre, a disabled Georgetown University student fighting to keep health benefits that allow her the freedom to live her life.
It’s Tiffanie Standard, a mentor for young women of color in Philadelphia who want to be tech entrepreneurs — but who must work multiple jobs to stay afloat.
It’s Sharon Penner, an artisan in rural Georgia, who worries about retirement security and health care options for senior gay women.
It’s Charles Oldstein, a U.S. Air Force veteran in New Orleans who would still be on the street if the city hadn’t landed a zero tolerance policy for homelessness among veterans.
It’s Ken Outlaw, a welder in rural North Carolina whose dream of going back to school at a local community college was dashed by Hurricane Florence — just one of the extreme weather events that have tipped the balance for struggling Americans across the nation.
It’s activists involved with Mothering Justice, a Michigan-based advocacy organization, who have heard the stereotypes and code words for way too long.
If these are the central characters of our story about poverty, what layers of perceptions, myths, and realities must we unearth to find meaningful solutions and support?
In pursuit of revealing this complicated reality, Mothering Justice, led by women of color, went last year to the state capital in Lansing, Michigan, to lobby on issues that affect working mothers.
One of the Mothering Justice organizers went to the office of a state representative to talk about the lack of affordable childcare — the vestiges of a system that expected mothers to stay home with their children while their husbands worked.
A legislative staffer dismissed the activist’s concerns, telling her “my husband took care of that — I stayed home.”
That comment, says Mothering Justice director Danielle Atkinson, “was meant to shame” and relied on the familiar trope that a woman of color concerned about income inequality and programs that promote mobility must by definition be a single mom, probably with multiple kids.
In this case, Mothering Justice activist happened to be married. And in most cases in the America of 2019, the images that come to mind when we hear the words poverty or income inequality fail miserably in reflecting a complicated reality: poverty touches virtually all of us.
The face of income inequality, for all but a very few of us, is the one we each see in the mirror.
According to the Census Bureau, 38 million people in the U.S. are living below the official poverty thresholds (currently $20,231 for a family of three with two children). Taking into account economic need beyond that absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 140 million people are poor or low-income, living below 200 percent of the Census’s supplemental measure of poverty. That’s almost half the U.S. population.
No matter the measure, within that massive group, poverty is extremely diverse. We know that some people are more affected than others, like children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and people of color.
But the fact that 4 in 10 Americans can’t come up with $400 in an emergency is a commonly cited statistic for good reason: economic instability stretches across race, gender, and geography. It even reaches into the middle classes, as real wages have stagnated for all but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.
According to the Census Bureau, 38 million people in the U.S. are living below the official poverty thresholds (currently $20,231 for a family of three with two children). Taking into account economic need beyond that absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 140 million people are poor or low-income, living below 200 percent of the Census’s supplemental measure of poverty. That’s almost half the U.S. population.
No matter the measure, within that massive group, poverty is extremely diverse. We know that some people are more affected than others, like children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and people of color.
But the fact that 4 in 10 Americans can’t come up with $400 in an emergency is a commonly cited statistic for good reason: economic instability stretches across race, gender, and geography. It even reaches into the middle classes, as real wages have stagnated for all but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.
