The Subject of Poverty Came up at My Coffee Meeting......

Some espouse the flawed notion that being poor in America is no different than being poor in other parts of the world, like in Russia (pictured).  This notion is just not true.

The subject of poverty in America came up during my Coffee with the Commissioner event yesterday morning.  Unfortunately, it is something I know about from my own personal experience, growing up in a broken home in some very tough circumstances.

I know what it feels like to go to bed hungry---I lived that.  I know what it was like to get whipped with a belt for simply getting food from the refrigerator without asking permission.  Yeah, that happened to me until I turned 11 years old.

So I heard there was a luncheon event in downtown on Tuesday where it was stated that "poverty in America is no different than poverty around the rest of the world."

I just have to take exception to that--that is patently false.  Poverty sucks, I know that firsthand as I lived it.  (My Dad[who adopted my brother and I] and my Mom, God rest their souls, worked 5 jobs between them at one point here in Pensacola in 1978--and still we struggled.) But my parents kept at it, and eventually things improved. Slowly. It took a lot of hard work and MUCH sacrifice.

As a family, we overcame poverty.

Others have overcome poverty in America as well.  Many by following what Ben Shapiro calls his three simple rules to escape poverty in America.  During my coffee yesterday I offered a slightly skewed version--1.Don't do Drugs  2. Work a Job  3. Don't have Children You cannot afford to care for.  4.  Get Married and stay married.  Work and marriage are the key to escaping poverty.

It isn't that difficult to understand, and it isn't that complex-because we live in a great nation that is extremely generous and benevolent that is full of opportunity for those that are willing to work hard.

So how do I know poverty is not the same here as it is in Greece, Turkey, or Mexico, anyway?  Uh,


 I've been to those places and many more like them and seen the plight of the poor there..

I'm fortunate in that I have had the benefit of being able to travel extensively, I've lived overseas, and I've seen firsthand some truly dismal conditions in many other parts of the world.  And I have read extensively about this issue as well--again as someone who loves this country and who has experienced dire poverty firsthand--as it is a subject of interest.

So when I hear propaganda like what I heard from this Tuesday luncheon in Pensacola and read propaganda like this comparing the poor in America to the poor in places like Paraguay, China, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Benin, Niger, and other places--I completely disagree.

Here's why:

#1--measuring poverty by looking at income doesn't give an accurate picture because entitlements are not calculated into the incomes of the poor in America  and neither are other revenue sources (some illicit) that flow to the poor in American households and communities of tremendous poverty.

#2--If we analyze the living conditions of Americans "in poverty" and compare these conditions to those in less generous countries--there is no comparison.  Poor Americans with subsidized housing, air conditioning, education, subsidized food, and subsidized technology (cell phones)--these people live as well as or better than most middle-class and wealthy citizens of dozens of countries worldwide--forget about the poor from those same countries.

And if we measure a person's "wealth" by consumption- a different picture emerges and those Americans who claim zero in income are actually shown to consume goods and services at a rate comparable to a person who works and makes lower-middle to middle income wages.  According to Robert Rector:

"A more accurate picture of the economic resources of low-income households can be obtained from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX), collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and published by the U.S. Department of Labor. This survey contains detailed, self-reported household expenditures for each month and indirectly captures much of the income and many of the benefits missing in income surveys. The CEX routinely shows that low-income households spend $2.40 for every $1 of income that the Census Bureau claims they have.Our analysis of the CEX shows that the number of Americans living on less than $4 per day is effectively zero."

Many economists believe we have actually conquered poverty in America.  According to this article in Forbes Magazine:

"By those same World Banks standards the definition of globally middle class is a consumption possibility of $2 to $50 a day (there's two different possible definitions, $2 to $13 which we might better regard as "not in poverty but not yet middle class" and $12 to $50 which is perhaps "middle class"). Even those reporting no income at all in the US have consumption possibilities roughly equal to those reporting incomes of $20 a day. And to repeat, yes, this is adjusting for the different value of money in different places and countries.  Thus we can say that by global standards there are no poor people in the US at all: the entire country is at least middle class or better. We seem to have fought and won that War on Poverty."

Finally--if we are such a terrible place to be for poor people to live, why do the poorest people from around the world risk their lives as they desperately seek to leave their own dysfunctional, broken countries and come here to America??  It is estimated that America spends $1.1 Trillion yearly battling poverty....I wonder how much Eritrea spends on battling poverty?  Or Ethiopia?

Dinesh D'Souza, in his book "What's So Great About America" had an interesting quote: 

"Recently I asked an acquaintance in Bombay why he has been trying so hard to relocate to America. He replied, “I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat.”

Perhaps he was on to something....maybe poverty should be measured worldwide based upon the average number of calories consumed daily by a nation's "poor."  That might produce some interesting information.....about American poverty.

A self-described "7th Generation" local (who unsucessfully ran for office last cycle) and his sidekick  (a guy who fancies himself a "journalist"-but who failed at that) both attacked me viciously for my position on this topic online yesterday.  One even resorted to called me a "racist."  Look--I'm not going to swallow their left-wing garbage talking points.  Just because they may not have experienced poverty as I have, just because they grew up wealthy and well fed with silver spoons in their mouths, does not give them the right to project their "experience" or "privilege" and view on this topic over folks like me who have actually lived through and actually understand what poverty feels like.

Guys like these, armed with pre-conceived notions about what it's like to be poor (while never actually going hungry themselves), shouldn't assume things about others they know nothing about.

 They should stick to things which they actually understand--this topic obviously doesn't fit into that category for them.