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Today's Poll: In the U.S., whose responsibility is it to lift a person out of poverty?

By Howard B. Owens
Tim Miller

The person is responsible for lifting themselves out of poverty.

That does not mean, though, that government shouldn't do everything possible to help.
- Give assistance when they are down (with the stipulation that the assistance is temporary)
- Offer opportunities for training
- GOOD SCHOOLS FOR EVERYBODY - make sure the schools in impoverished areas have the same opportunities and tools available that non-impoverished areas/districts have
- Clear away unnecessary hurdles - Send in the EEOC if race-based, religion--based, sex-based, or any other discriminatory hiring is blocking some from getting hired.
- Make transportation and child care available. Maybe not on a permanent basis, but at least long enough to let the person get on their feet

Sep 26, 2012, 11:07am Permalink
jeff saquella

as long as taxpayers keep paying for poverty level people to milk the welfare system then they will never help themselves......they will only help themselves to more welfare benefits

Sep 26, 2012, 12:16pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

This poll question was inspired by my reading of Coming Apart by Charles Murray.

It's an empirically based challenge to anybody who thinks the welfare state does anything to lift people out of poverty, rather than just encourage disengagement from community and discourage industrious action and undercut matrimony.

There's a strong case to be made for young men being less likely to get married and then take and hold a job in order to raise a family. The statistical evidence from the past 50 years strongly indicates that a system that guarantees food and shelter encourages sloth.

In lower economic parts of the country, there are more single mothers, more young men who have never married, more men of prime working age who are permanently unemployed or underemployed, higher petty crime rates, more health problems children, etc.

By and large, most working class areas remain working class areas filled with moral, hard-working people, but a greater number of people than ever are just simply not even trying any more.

Sep 26, 2012, 4:52pm Permalink
Jack Dorf

That's the main reason redistribution of wealth is a bad thing. Why try to improve yourself when things will be handed to you and why continue to work hard and earn when it just results in you earnings being given to someone else. There is a huge difference in a hand up, which I am 100% in favor of and a hand out which I am 100% against.

Sep 26, 2012, 5:51pm Permalink
Mark Brudz

According to the CATO Institute: Welfare spending increased significantly under President George W. Bush and has exploded under President Barack Obama. In fact, since President Obama took office, federal welfare spending has increased by 41 percent, more than $193 billion per year. Despite this government largess, more than 46 million Americans continue to live in poverty. Despite nearly $15 trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, the poverty rate is perilously close to where we began more than 40 years ago.

Also according to the CATO Institute, Federal welfare spending alone totals more than $14,848 for every poor man,woman, and child in this country.

On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a State of the Union address to Congress in which he declared and“unconditional war on poverty in America.” At the time, the poverty rate in America was
around 19 percent and falling rapidly. This year, it is reported that the poverty rate is expected to be roughly 15.1 percent and climbing.

Between then and now, the federal government spent roughly $12 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another $3 trillion. Yet the poverty
rate never fell below 10.5 percent'

It is easy in an election year to attach blame on a particular party, however the progressive movement as a whole is probably more likely the blame, and that encompasses both parties since it's inception.

BTW Howard, 'Coming Apart' is an excellent read, and I would likewise recommed it to everyone.

Sep 26, 2012, 6:24pm Permalink

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