By Walter Williams, syndicated columnist
If you're a poor adult in America, for the most part, it's all your fault. That's true, at least today, whether you're black, white, brown or polka dot.
According to the definition the U.S. Bureau of Census uses, a family of four with an income over $18,244 is not poor. The poverty cutoff for a single-person household is $9,359, and that for a two-person household is $12,000. With those definitions, the poverty rate was 11.7 percent, or about 33 million Americans living in poverty in 2001.
If you are poor, it's likely your fault
The greatest percentage of poverty is found in female-headed households. Over 70 percent of female-headed households are poor. A large percentage of poor people are children (17 percent); fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
Is poverty preordained? I think not. A married couple, both working full time at a minimum-wage job that pays $5.15 per hour, would earn an annual income of $20,600. Keep in mind that few adults earn wages as low as the minimum wage and those who do, earn a higher wage after a few months on the job. If a married couple both working at the minimum wage had no children, they would not be poor; if they had two children, they wouldn't be living in the lap of luxury, but neither would they be below the poverty threshold.
Let's look at poverty in female-headed households. Divorce and death of the father might explain a small part of why there're so many female-headed households. But the bulk of it is explained by people having children and not getting married in the first place.
Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. They might have bought into the nonsense of "experts" like John Hopkins University sociologist Professor Andrew Cherlin, who said, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, according to Cherlin, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That's a call for fathers to be replaced by a government welfare check.
According to a NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll, the leading cause of poverty identified by both the poor (75 percent) and non-poor (65 percent) was drug abuse. Again, it's not like you're walking down the street and you're struck with drug addiction; to use drugs is a conscious decision. Drug-users tend not to be very productive. They drop out of school, abandon their families, have scrapes with the law and don't hold down jobs. Would anybody be surprised that poverty is one result of drug usage?
Most middle-class Americans, including black Americans, are no more than one, two or three generations out of poverty. How did they manage this feat; what's the secret for avoiding poverty?
I think it's a no-brainer. Finish high school and take a job, any kind of a job. Today, but not when I graduated in 1954, if a person graduates from high school, with even a C average, there is a college or some kind of skills training program somewhere for him, and often financial assistance to boot. So if a person doesn't take advantage of today's available opportunities, particularly those during the boom of the 1990s, and engages in self-destructive behavior, whose fault is it?
Note: Williams originally penned this work in 2003.
Is poverty preordained? I think not. A married couple, both working full time at a minimum-wage job that pays $5.15 per hour, would earn an annual income of $20,600. Keep in mind that few adults earn wages as low as the minimum wage and those who do, earn a higher wage after a few months on the job. If a married couple both working at the minimum wage had no children, they would not be poor; if they had two children, they wouldn't be living in the lap of luxury, but neither would they be below the poverty threshold.
Let's look at poverty in female-headed households. Divorce and death of the father might explain a small part of why there're so many female-headed households. But the bulk of it is explained by people having children and not getting married in the first place.
Having children is not an act of God. It's not like you're walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people. They might have bought into the nonsense of "experts" like John Hopkins University sociologist Professor Andrew Cherlin, who said, "It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes." The real issue, according to Cherlin, "is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income." That's a call for fathers to be replaced by a government welfare check.
According to a NPR/Kaiser/Kennedy School Poll, the leading cause of poverty identified by both the poor (75 percent) and non-poor (65 percent) was drug abuse. Again, it's not like you're walking down the street and you're struck with drug addiction; to use drugs is a conscious decision. Drug-users tend not to be very productive. They drop out of school, abandon their families, have scrapes with the law and don't hold down jobs. Would anybody be surprised that poverty is one result of drug usage?
Most middle-class Americans, including black Americans, are no more than one, two or three generations out of poverty. How did they manage this feat; what's the secret for avoiding poverty?
I think it's a no-brainer. Finish high school and take a job, any kind of a job. Today, but not when I graduated in 1954, if a person graduates from high school, with even a C average, there is a college or some kind of skills training program somewhere for him, and often financial assistance to boot. So if a person doesn't take advantage of today's available opportunities, particularly those during the boom of the 1990s, and engages in self-destructive behavior, whose fault is it?
Note: Williams originally penned this work in 2003.
If the system was properly funded, perhaps there would be more programs with emphasis on job training and parenting, which could help break the cycle of generational welfare dependence without allowing small children to starve by proving a point to the parents.
in the US, everyone is educated enough to know that having children you can't afford is self defeating.
the major reason it continues here is the government check
I discovered that I showed up to work to often and literally did the job. I've never failed a drug test, the reason being I've never liked drugs. Nor could I afford to go to a doctor just for the heck of it.
One thing in the story I noticed is minimum wage jobs and the assumption that these people working them get raise's. In most case's wrong. They are worked short hours so they are considered part time. I've saw people worked 40 hours a week all the time till almost 6 months. Then just before the law would say they are full time they get laid off or on short hours. That way they stay part time. They may make a little better than minimum wage but they never get the benefit of full time employment.
Also some places have high turn overs. In other words you make just enough money to get there every day. I had a manager come to me and say none of the people working for you have a phone! I told him, "We pay them minimum wage, So we're lucky they find a way to get here!"
A education or training is a good thing for anyone to have. But this being Georgia it's who you know or who you are related to.
I got an education. I worked for 24 years and I now make a decent living.
Don't tell me that I am succesful because of who i'm related to or who I know.
I am succesful because I WORKED for it!!
If everyone else will work, they will be successful too.
I think they have different rules for them. I know people who are in jail. They are male, and they have jobs waiting on them to get out.
if you aren't racist, then you must be sexist.
what level of education do you have? what degree did you obtain?
my wife is educated. has a master's degree. she has no trouble finding work and in fact had she not stopped working when we had kids, would be making much more than me.
btw, she also worked in a job with people she didn't know before she went to work there.
it's not about who you know, it's about what you are willing to achieve.
just as this article says, people who are willing to work for what they want, get it. that includes taking the time to get an education and doing the job no matter what it takes.