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| Only in a dream |
Happy 237th
Birthday America! The land of the free, home of the brave, wealth and
abundance... Wait, what? Wealth and abundance? It looks really great
in print, but does wealthy still describe contemporary America? With
over 22% of American children (16.1 million) living in poverty and
over 15% of the general American population (46.2 million) living
in poverty, can the United States still be considered the land of
plethoric abundance as others and even we, ourselves, tend to
describe it? Does the American Dream of equality and material
prosperity—an owned home with a white picket fence around it—still
thrive in America today? Perhaps optimists may cling onto the last
thread of this intricately woven dream, but we might just need a
reality check.
Poverty in the US
How often do you even hear of poverty in the news?
Not very often. Even during presidential debates? Nope. Anywhere at
all? Not really. Americans, who have managed a decent living for
themselves and their families, are cut off from the world of poverty
in their own country and possibly unaware of it entirely. Oh, but
poverty is very real and it is on every street corner.
About half of all Americans over 65 experience
poverty. If you thought 46.2 million was too much, just think that if
not for social security, 67.6 million more
individuals would be added to that number. These numbers, however,
only reflect the number of people who are recognized as living in
poverty—below the poverty line—and not
those barely getting by.
The poverty line itself is another concern; it is
hardly representative of the standard of living in the US. $23,550
for a family of four is absurd. That’s barely $2000 per month for
four individuals with countless expenses, including rent, meals,
transportation, schooling, clothing, and other essentials. Let’s
consider this same family of four with double the income; even this
is still too little, yet over one third of Americans, 106 million,
endeavor to fend for themselves in this situation.
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| Poverty on the rise in America |
America’s Homeless
Currently, about 630,000 individuals call the streets
of America their home. This official number is really just an
estimate; it is inherently difficult to count the number of
individuals who don’t have a permanent place to call home. Some
families out of sheer desperation to keep a roof above their heads,
double up with other families in homes that can barely hold one
family.
Which first world country has the greatest number of
homeless, you ask? You guessed it, the United States. At 630,000, we
have more than double Canada’s 300,000; Australia has 105,000,
while the United Kingdom has only 10,500. Just a side note, Sweden
and Finland theoretically have no homelessness at all since citizens
who don’t have a home are provided ones.
These comparisons may seem innocuous, until you
realize how we fare in comparison to third-world countries. We have
more than 302 times the GDP (nominal) of Tunisia, 29 times their
population, yet as a post-revolution country they
have 1/315 the number of homeless that we do. Eh, you say? Somalia has been
amidst a civil war for more than two decades; Somalia
has 1.5 times the number of our homeless population as internally
displaced persons—a direr, yet comparable form of
homelessness—but we have 83 times their GDP per capita. So while it’s easy and quick
to argue that the US’s population is playing a large role in terms
of the numbers, it does not explain why despite our more bountiful
resources, we are not doing more to help our own citizens. Our desire
for rugged individualism can’t support our equally shared desire
for first world status. Our fear of government intervention, even on
the level exemplified by Sweden and Finland, might just be the reason
we lose our status in the future.
Unemployed in the Land of Opportunity
In June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the
number of unemployed workers in America, unskilled to highly skilled,
to be 11.8 million people. Let’s put this into perspective.
Consider Norway, a sovereign nation of 4.7 million. The number of
unemployed workers in the US is 2.5 times the population of Norway,
yet their unemployment rate at 3.7% is slightly less than half of
ours (7.6%)! It is difficult to
fathom that number of people without a job, which will eventually
translate into the number of people without an income,
can be that much higher than the entire population of another
country.
The unemployment rate that gets touted in the news is
only half the story. This unemployment rate only reflects the number
of people who currently collect unemployment benefits and can
actively be tracked. If you take into account the number of
individuals who have given up looking for jobs or have given in to
taking temporary, part-time jobs just to make ends meet, the real
unemployment rate or “U-6” is a whopping 14.3% and counting.
Many argue that U-6 is more realistic and should be
the official unemployment rate because the longer individuals go
without jobs, the less likely they are to ever get back on a payroll,
thus they eventually stop looking for jobs or take whatever they can
get in the interim. We should be concerned about this population
because, as even politicians have been forced to admit, we have no
solutions to help this growing demographic.
Equality Only in Theory?
30 million Americans have been added to food stamp
rolls since the beginning of the 21st
century, leaving the current number at 50 million Americans. Despite
the declining condition and growing needs of the country, members in
Congress
wish to cut $20.5 billion from the food stamp program.3
On the other hand, our 2013 military
budget was $728 billion dollars, only after $55 billion was cut
from its originally requested level. The United States spends more on
its military than the next ten highest military-spending countries
combined. Why are we so willing to allocate more money to the
military than to food stamp programs, which help fill the hungry
stomachs of Americans? Some food for thought, pun intended.
As generous as we are to funding our military, we are
curiously reluctant to aid war veterans
who suffer from physical disabilities, mental illness, and other
war-inflicted disorders. In fact, veterans are 13% of the
adult-homeless population. If you ask me, I would prefer more of my
tax dollars to go towards those who already
risked their lives and are now suffering for the sake of my freedom.
How long will we as a nation continue to find it
acceptable to ignore the increasing number of poor, homeless and/or
hungry citizens in our so-called “first world” country? The
foundations of this country are shaking; we must work towards
preventing our dream from crumbling under the weight of our ignorance
and indifference for matters of that should be of priority.
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Maxime Rieman is a writer for NerdWallet, a financial
literacy website that helps consumers make informed choices about the
big things like mortgages and education to the little things like
finding the best
car insurance companies or getting a deal on that vacation you’ve
always wanted.
