America's new poverty

With the role of government and the cost of the social safety net taking center stage in this year's Presidential election, a new book suggests that the problem of the poor in America is getting wider and the term "poor" now classifies many Americans who used to be middle class.

In their book, The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West say that politicians only gloss over the problem. They criticize elected officials on both sides of the aisle who "seem to know nothing about poverty or the poor" and routinely "throw meat to their base" by "demonstrating their willingness to destroy the welfare system."

Smiley and West's book looks at the history of poverty, but focuses on the new face of poverty which includes the former middle class, including many white voters. Poverty today "is no longer confined by class or color; like an unrestrained and deadly virus, it doesn't discriminate."

The virus has spread to 50 million people - a number large enough for a social revolution of sorts, according to the duo. They write, "If the 50 million poor ever reached consensus about the roots of their suffering, the plutocratic apple cart would be upended permanently." Which is why, they reason, "ignoring, denying and dismissing the poor has become a multimillion-dollar enterprise" that politicians encourage.

They warn society as we know it could be upended soon - insisting the U.S. is "dangerously close to cementing a permanent American catastrophe." Smiley and West categorize widespread poverty as nothing less than a national security issue.

This Sunday on Face the Nation, Smiley and West will take up this "potential national pandemic" with Bob Schieffer. What are the first steps to addressing poverty? How has the issue changed in light of the Great Recession? What does it mean that now that "the media are delving into the plight of the poor because the escalating numbers of the 'new poor' and the 'near poor' are white citizens?" We'll find out what they see wrong with both Mitt Romney's and President Barack Obama's jobs plans.

[kelcar101]

Hello,
Yes, I do believe 50 million people within the economic poverty level have created a "potential national pandemic". The American poverty movement lead by and created by special interests groups i.e. "WOW" and "NAACP" has formulated and cultivated a culture that propagate generations that do not evolve. An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. The poverty shuffle pattern is involuntary, not to seek legal forms of employment or to earn a self-driven income without the aid of social welfare. "It is way the way it is because this is the way my grandmother did it and the way my mother, sisters, and aunts do it, so this is the way I do it." This is a statement heard on the social welfare circuit from Maine to Florida to Texas to California to Oregon to Chicago and back the New York. In the USA citizens must qualify for social welfare. Given the social national pandemic that faces the United States and considering the most important aspect of poverty that touches everyone's soul and that is the victims, the children of poverty, we have to ask; Should there be a US Federal law for both male and female to have to provide qualified financial background, proof of health insurance history with drug and mental testing along with family history and criminal history in order to qualify to give birth to a child? This would eliminate United States Child Support Judicial System, making it a law that the female sign a US Federal biding contract to solely support their child if they decide to give birth. In terms of child support laws the female has the choice to support their child or go to prison not the male. Give the female the choice to take responsibility. Provide a culture that has conscience choices, ending fabricated culture of the poor. Change the cultural slogan coming from all racial background in the US from "Mo Money" to "Can I afford it".

[tlrinet]

It is so nice to finally hear someone say that there is no color to poverty. For decades the focus has only been on the African American community or the Hispanic community. Poverty does not discriminate against race, size, sex, or religion. We need to stop separating ourselves by color and look at ourselves as human beings that are all subject to the same illness, financial problems, etc. When we start to look at ourselves as a whole and not separate parts of a whole, then our country will run as a whole.