Ending Poverty is important because, as Nelson Mandela said: Ending Poverty is vital because the world economy is at a crossroads.

Transcription

1 Ending Poverty is important because, as Nelson Mandela said: "Poverty is not an accident...it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings." Ending Poverty is vital because the world economy is at a crossroads. Globalization has teamed up with the electronic revolution to move the world away from a labor-based economy with lots of decent jobs. We have entered a technology-based economy where computers run everything from gigantic factories to keeping us connected, and good jobs that support families are increasingly scarce. This is responsible for the exploding gap between the 1% and the 99% and the destruction of the social safety net. This gap will become permanent if we do not develop a new vision of a technology-based future that works for everyone. Ending Poverty is important because it is spreading rapidly, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty in It is growing almost as fast as the incomes of the world s richest people. In the U.S., the world s richest nation, the number of people living in poverty reached 49 million when measured by new Census Bureau formulas. That s 16% of the population, or 1 person in every 6, the highest proportion in 15 years. And nearly half the U.S. population falls into the government category of low income. Is this Ending Poverty is important because poverty robs people of choices and opportunities. People who are poor are more likely to be denied the tools and the skills necessary to succeed in our society. Is this

2 Ending Poverty is important because a rising tide no longer lifts all boats. According to Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, the wealthiest 12,000 Americans, only 0.01% of the population, earned more money in 2010 than the bottom 24 MILLION Americans. For the past 38 years, working class incomes didn t rise despite the national prosperity, he said. Is this Ending Poverty is important because, like American segregation, it s based on a lie that has achieved the status of a cultural myth. People blame the poor for their plight, when in fact poverty spreads through denial of opportunity. It s a classic case of blaming the victim. Is this Ending Poverty is important because today s technology makes it possible to eliminate it altogether. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ending Poverty is important because it is the great moral and spiritual challenge of our time. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ending Poverty is important because contrary to popular belief, if you are born into a family that is poor, you are likely to stay poor. The Pew Economic Mobility Project reports that in America today, men in their 30s earn 12% less than their fathers did at the same age, and notes, Gone are the days when a stable, single income was enough to launch the next generation toward growing prosperity, People who go from rags to riches are the exception in the U.S., not the rule. Is this Ending Poverty is important because generations ago the United Nations declared it a violation of basic human rights, as well as a violation of human dignity. Is this the American dream? Ending Poverty is important because it grinds people down. Extreme poverty neighborhoods, where at least 40% of the people live below the poverty line, attract predators who... crappy schools, lousy jobs, higher crime and bad health. Is this Ending Poverty is important because it gums up the working of society and drags everybody down, even the wealthy who think wrongly that they can gate themselves off from poverty s social consequences. Is this

3 Ending Poverty is important because ending poverty is a sacred duty in every religion. The Hebrew Bible teaches that if we live life obedient to God, there should be no poor among you (Deut. 15:4). Care for the poor (zakat) is one of the five pillars of Islam. The Hindu Mahatma Gandhi wrote that exploitation is the essence of violence. Jesus said that he came to preach good news to the poor, and said, Blessed are you who are poor, and, Woe to you who are rich. (Luke 4:18 and Luke 6:20 and 6:24). Ending Poverty is important because the early Christians showed how it could be avoided even in primitive times. They owned all their goods in common and there were no needy persons among them. (Acts 4:34). Ending Poverty is important because it s trapping more people. The Brookings Institution reported one-third more Americans living in extreme poverty neighborhoods in 2009, compared to Is this Ending Poverty is important because more than half of all people in poverty are women. Women earn less than men, and bear our future generations who will need affordable healthcare, childcare, education and economic stability. Is this Ending Poverty is important because the poor really are getting poorer while the rich get richer. Two late 2011 reports show a historically high number of Americans in poverty officially 16%, or 49 million people while the incomes of the richest 1% of Americans soared by 275% over the past 28 years. Is this Ending Poverty is important to children because it hits them most. In the U.S. in 2009, 1 in every 5 children, or 20%, were living in poverty. For some groups, like African American children, the poverty rate was above 50%. Is this Ending Poverty is important because Everything about life is worse if you are poor, as 2002 Nobel Laureate research psychologist Daniel Kahneman notes, Poverty casts a shadow over every life experience. Is this Ending Poverty is important to children because they are the future. Studies show that poor environments stunt educational growth and the thinking skills young people need to thrive and produce wealth and avoid incarceration. Is this

4 Ending Poverty is important because people who are poor do not have the resources to hire lawyers, doctors, tutors, or other experts who might help them ride out hard times. Is this Ending Poverty is important to the middle class because in the last three decades the tax base that supports the nation has been shifted from highly profitable corporations and wealthy individuals onto the backs of the middle class, contributing to growing unease and poverty in the middle class while corporations reap record profits and the rich keep getting richer. Is this Ending Poverty is important because it hits hardest at the racial and groups that are already the most disadvantaged in U.S. society. The latest U.S. Census figures put poverty at 14.3% for non-hispanic whites, 12.5% for Asians, 28.2% for Hispanics, 25.3% for Native Americans and 25.4% for African Americans. Is this Ending Poverty is important to African Americans because slavery, followed by legal segregation, was the mechanism the ruling classes used to keep the wages of all workers, white as well as minority, as low as possible for hundreds of years. The effects linger on long after the old Jim Crow laws are gone. Is this Ending Poverty is important to millions of undocumented immigrants because they are criminalized for coming here to work, when the reason they left their communities in the first place was that the American mechanized free market system has destroyed their local economy and left them no way of surviving in their own ancestral land. Is this Ending Poverty is important to Indigenous Peoples First Nations Peoples and the community at large because ending poverty will empower and restore these vibrant Peoples, and simultaneously present an opportunity for healing the psyche of the western mind and world. Indigenous Peoples are the poorest of the poor. Family and societal structures are destroyed when rural community members are forced to migrate to urban areas in search of some form of livelihood, only to wind up homeless and unemployed. For Indigenous Peoples, poverty is extreme because of continued theft of land and resources as well as cultural and linguistic annihilation. Ending Poverty is important because poverty is an outcome of colonizer carnage. Ending Poverty is important because so much of it is about a forced movement and migration of people from rural to urban areas. This is to seek what opportunities are left as family-owned farms and country industrial labor work have been dismantled. Is this the American dream?

5 Ending Poverty is important because poverty attracts crime. Poor neighborhoods are constantly invaded by powerful predators looking for ways to exploit weaker people. This breeds violence and fear. Is this Ending Poverty is important because people who are poor are much more exposed to bad housing, bad food, bad jobs, bad health, insecurity, powerlessness, violence, hopelessness and living on the edge. Is this Ending Poverty is important because the ruling elites use poverty as a weapon to keep themselves rich, powerful and in control. Poverty limits how much opportunity the working class and the middle class can access. In the U.S. today, the great bank bailout of 2008 was the largest transfer of public wealth into private hands in world history. This Great Giveaway put about $20 trillion of your tax money into the hands of the worlds largest banks, multinational corporations and financial institutions. As a result of that, as well as the wars we are financing and the refusal by both parties to raise taxes on the super-rich, we are being told the country has a budget crisis that requires slashing public services for all the working people who need them most. Is this