Listening to Poverty
What do you say to things like these all in the same week?
- The World Bank has reported that from 1970 to 2006, the number of people in poverty (defined as income less than $1/day) has decreased by 67%. This is despite an increase in the world population of 80% over the same period. So basically efforts to reduce poverty appears to have not only kept pace with population increase, but exceeded it.
- From 2000 to 2008, the rate of poverty in the United States grew at twice the rate of the population growth. This is in stark contrast to the success that seems to be indicated by the statistics above, and then you have this…
- A man was arrested in Erie, PA on the charge of bank robbery. He reportedly told the FBI he was, “sick of being poor.” What do you say to that?
Depressingly all this is interrelated. Over the last 30 years, changes in national and corporate economic policies and capabilities have opened up international labor markets like never before. This is old news. The expansion of corporate labor pools into formerly third world countries brought in increase earning opportunities for the people in those countries, which while low paying when compared to the local status quo and the ridiculously low benchmark of $1/day has statistically lowered poverty. Despite the tone of the last sentence, I think it unfair to totally dismiss the World Bank’s claim of success. More people having more money and resource is more people having more money and resources.
The shift in the labor market to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, et.al.) has depressed the U.S. labor market, hamstrung the effectiveness of organized labor, resulted in incomes remaining flat or declining for working and middle class families, and displaced thousands of manufacturing and other blue collar workers. Again, this is all old news, but there is a difference between something being news and the repercussions of that thing beginning to be more and more evident around us. The question is will we listen to the growing problem of poverty? And if we listen, are we willing to do anything about it?
