Due to unemployment and foreclosure crisis, poverty continues to be a bad thing in USA

The word poverty continues to be untouchable and taboo in USA – politicians, media personnel and the public in general have skirted the issue. But reality is that there is crisis related to poverty raging across the country.

This silence is most probably because the poor do not have the political clout to appoint representatives to focus on their plight.

The real figures on poverty are far graver than what has recently been reported by the Census Bureau. The latter noted that about 40 million citizens are officially affected by poverty. The yardstick is below $22,000 earnings for a family comprising of four members. It is the worst since the last 11 years.

The Census Bureau has not included in its findings those who fell into the poverty zone in 2008 thanks to the foreclosure crisis – so far the worst recession year. It has also played down real unemployment. Officially about 10% are unemployed but according to economists – if the seasonal workers and workers that are being discouraged are taken into account the figure will be more than 16%. It is not surprising that as usual the highest poverty rates are among the Blacks and Latinos.

But in spite of this staggering harsh fact of raging impoverishment, “poverty” remains a dirty six letter word that has been ignored. During the campaigning last year there was a faint streak of hope when the Democrats spoke loudly about fighting poverty. It was on the top list of their agenda. There were thundering speeches in 2007 April about the poor having been failed – especially the poor among the Blacks. But after this short outburst the candidates buried the issue.

Barack Obama, the leading among the Democrats, has remained tight lipped on poverty. He has a reason for this. The poor do not have active representation amongst them strong enough to take up their cause. The only exception was when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 60’s took up the cause but the cause was buried when he was murdered. The poor broke into squabbles amongst themselves. Only a small insignificant section focused on anti-poverty measures, arranging for funds and taking initiatives to bring down the poverty rate. This met with modest success but only for a brief period. It became sidelined and victimized by the Vietnam War. Conservatives began to beat their drums that the fight against poverty was actually a scam to remunerate the lazy and indolent. This was followed by sharp cuts in the budget.

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