Poverty in the U. S.

As Thanksgiving nears, I think it’s appropriate to consider our manifold blessings and the circumstances of those less fortunate than we are.

Why do we have poverty in the U. S.? There are lots of answers to the question and the first one which everyone needs to understand is that we don’t. Consider the following map of world poverty, defined as people living on incomes of less than $1 per day:

Source of data: World Resources Institute. Click on the image for a larger view. Also, when the dust has settled I believe that China will turn orange. Between them India and China comprise an enormous proportion of the world’s very poorest people and both countries have the wherewithal to deal with the situation if they only had the will to do so and, moreover, steadfastly refuse outside assistance.

The number of people in the United States living on incomes of less than $1 per day (or even twice that amount) is negligible.

What we do have in this country is relative poverty. There are quite a few people whose incomes are much lower than those of the rest of us. Doing something about that requires considering the reasons for the disparity. Many of those in the lowest income quintile are immigrants—by some reckonings more than 50%. The average age of those in the lowest income quintile is over 50 suggesting that retirees comprise a good proportion of those in that quintile. Since the elderly receive substantial government benefits in the form of social security retirement income and Medicare and, additionally, a not insignificant number of the elderly have fairly low incomes but substantial resources, in the case of many of these income may not be a particularly good measure of wellbeing.

Additionally, we are a very diverse country, much more so than any single European country. That very diversity means that income disparity will be greater.

So, what could we do to reduce the disparities? I don’t think we’re going to abolish immigration and it’s politically rather difficult to justify subsidizing immigrants at the expense of the general population. Greater redistribution to the elderly is already under assault. If you paid attention to the debates over Social Security there are some pretty vocal elements in the society that don’t like how much we’re giving to the elderly now.

I’m chary of redistribution anyway since the history of redistribution in this country is that we’re as likely to redistribute from one segment of the upper middle class to another segment of the upper middle class as we are to distribute from the upper middle class to the poor.

I think, if we’re going to devote our energies to helping people in this country only, our attentions would be better devoted to ameliorating the circumstances of the poorest of the poor here and that would require some difficult and, probably, politically incorrect decisions. The poorest of the poor here are people living on Indian reservations, the homeless (quite a percentage of which are people with serious mental illness), and the rural poor.

Why don’t we hear more about changing the circumstances on Indian reservations, reinstitutionalization, and helping the rural poor?