"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the cornerstone of the America dream that this country was built on. Capitalism, democracy and the chance of moving up the social latter are all ingredients of the American way of living. We tend to think that the poor are responsible for his or her own poverty and economic opportunities exist for everybody as long as they work hard. With hard work one can move up on the social latter and acquire a better social position. If you cannot accomplish a move up the social latter it is because you don’t work hard enough and therefore the salary you get is the one you deserve.
The US department of Health and Human Services guideline on poverty states that a family of four must earn more than 22,050 dollars a year not to be considered poor. When the 2009 census numbers were released last week the numbers of people living in poverty had increased. Almost 15 percent of the working population age 18 to 64. That means that 45 million people in this country are living in poverty, or in other words one out of every seventh American.
Are really all of these people to blame for the poverty they find themselves in, or could this be a result of something else?
One obvious reason for the rise in poverty levels is the last years’ financial crisis that put a toll on the economy of the country and increased the unemployment levels around the country. Middle class families are often praised for building our country and for being the class that keeps the country running. Someone living in a middle class family is often thought of as having a comfortable standard of living, economic security to some extent, and work autonomy. The middle class is dependent on oneself to sustain one self, not needing governmental help in doing so. It is often thought that the jump from poor or lower classes to middle class is doable for everybody. The leap is supposedly not that great. We now see increasing numbers of unemployed middle class workers and the fall from middle class to poor is not so far. What then, if the cornerstone of our economy falls and crumbles? Will the numbers of poor people in this country just keep on rising?
The Majority of people living in poverty are working or want to work. The problem seems to be that this group often has limited education or lack the required job skills. That makes the jobs available low-paid and unstable. Minimum wages are for most parts of the country around 7.25 dollars and this level is because of a recent increase. Before the increase the minimum wage was more or less the same for several years. If bread costs around $ 5 and bus fare to work is $2.25 it is easy to see how the minimum wage per hour makes little or no room for healthcare or other necessities like housing and education.
To whom you are born, where you are raised, and what part of the society you belong are all factors that will play a role in where on the social latter you will find yourself. Without a solid education it is getting harder and harder to move up or even keep your place in the social hierarchy. A solid education often requires money or at least a belonging to a school district. To belonging to a “right” school district one must live in the right area and here the real estate prices are high. But when your parents’ income is one of the factors for your own success what then? If your parents’ are in the bottom 20 percent of the income bracket, you have only a 7,3 percent chance of ending up in the top 20 percent of the income bracket. So is it really possible to achieve the liberty, equality and upward mobility for all?
The answer is “no” and we probably don’t really want equality and liberty for all. Our capitalistic way of living is thriving on the fact of income inequality. We love our free market and our way of living. As long as we can hide under the banner of “You can do anything you want” our conscience is clear. Achievement is the center on the idea that one’s position in society is determined by ones efforts. We hear about how Abraham Lincoln made it from a cabin in the woods to the White House. Americans love stories about the “underdog” in society that “makes it big.” We cheer and applaud and grant a higher social status to the “underdog,” while for most people this is yet another Hollywood ending. The matter of fact is that the premise for upward mobility hardly is present for so many groups in our country and that we are seeing a rise in poverty all around our nation.
We have only seen such high levels of poverty across our nation once before. That was in the 1960’s when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “war on poverty”. How you can declare a “war” on a concept is beyond me, but anyhow they introduced governmental stimuli programs, ranging from education to healthcare. Whether the governments’ social welfare programs really helped turn the economy around is debated, but at least a whole generation at the time had education and healthcare for a price they could afford.
The financial dominant group, which is about one percent of the nation, owns the majority of stocks, bonds, trusts, non-corporate businesses and non-home real estate. As long this one percent sits happy and healthy in their drivers seat with all the power, income and the chosen lifestyle it is likely that the rich will be come richer and the poor will increase in numbers.
We believe in the American dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. In that way we can keep our social structure with all it’s social stratifications and hope that nobody challenges our status quo! After all, we are the number one nation in the world, built on democracy and capitalism with a true chance of pursuing the American dream.
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