Poverty Disturbs Children's Brain Development and Academic Performance - Scientific American

Income inequality is growing in the U.S., and the problem is much worse than most people believe. For children, growing up poor hinders brain development and leads to poorer performance in schools, according to a study published this week in JAMA Pediatrics.

It has long been known that low socioeconomic status is linked to poorer performance in school, and recent research has linked poverty to smaller brain surface area. The current study bridges these converging lines of evidence by revealing that up to 20 percent of the achievement gap between high- and low-income children may be explained by differences in brain development.
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A recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that in 2013, 51 percent of students in U.S. public schools were from low-income families. Children who grow up in low-income families are exposed to more environmental stressors, such as less access to healthy food, unsafe neighborhoods and stressed parents. Pinpointing the specific causes will be difficult but in future studies Pollak and his group hope to identify how different social programs, such as free lunch programs or housing vouchers, can help children who grow up poor. “I used to think about poverty as a question of social policy. Now I think of it as a biomedical problem, an environmental condition or toxin that’s affecting children,” Pollak says.

Poverty Disturbs Children's Brain Development and Academic Performance - Scientific American

How The Conservative Obsession With Policing Poor People's Shopping Carts Got Started | ThinkProgress

In the long run, this is what it boils down too,

The law would also make it harder to buy spaghetti sauces and spices to flavor recipes, a constraint seemingly at odds with conservative rhetoric about what’s wrong with public assistance programs.

“We hear an awful lot in the post-welfare reform era about moving people to self-sufficiency,” Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) legal director Ellen Vollinger told ThinkProgress. “Telling adults they can’t make the same choices within the grocery store that others make, and then prepare the meals they want with the ingredients they want, doesn’t seem at all consistent with the argument that these changes move people to self-sufficiency. I always thought that was a little strange.”

I call it the "complication factor."  Make things complex and confusing, that individuals who honestly need the help will give up in frustration; too many unnecessary hoops to jump through.  Those "gaming-the-system" not so much, it is a game to them; they have nothing to lose.

But most of all, the administrators argued that even a perfectly-designed ban would fix a non-existent problem. “[I]mplementation of this waiver would perpetuate the myth that participants do not make wise food purchasing decisions,” the rejection letter said, when “research has shown [they] are smart shoppers” whose nutrition intake varies little from that of higher-income people.

Instead of focusing on how much soda one drinks, or whether I supplement my protein intake with seafood on occasion (I don't eat beef), finding a workable solution should be paramount.  “It isn’t the case that SNAP clients are less interested in good nutrition than anybody else,” Vollinger said. “They’re very interested in it. They just can’t afford it.”  Instead of cutting budgets, programs that show a promise of working should be encouraged.

The agency’s more recent attempts to incentivize healthy shopping and eating in SNAP are more aggressive than education. Food stamps recipients can swipe their EBT cards at farmers’ markets and get twice as much to spend in market-only voucher tokens, thanks to a $100 million program tucked into the 2014 Farm Bill. (Mississippi rescinded its request for a junk food ban waiver because it decided “to focus on improving SNAP participants’ access to farmers’ markets” instead, a USDA official told ThinkProgress.)

The farmers market policy grew out of a narrowly-targeted pilot program in the mid-2000s, and the USDA has funded other incentive-based pilot programs aimed at promoting nutrition on a SNAP budget. One such program in Massachusetts credited 30 cents back to a SNAP recipient’s EBT card for every dollar they spent on a targeted list of fruits and vegetables. After about two years, the pilot program had demonstrated a significant jump in the intake of fruits and vegetables among participating families as compared to those who were left out.

How The Conservative Obsession With Policing Poor People's Shopping Carts Got Started | ThinkProgress

L.A. restaurants push for tips to count toward minimum wage - LA Times

The battle over boosting the minimum wage in Los Angeles has turned to the dollar bills tucked under an empty coffee cup, the spare change dropped into tip jars and the hasty calculations jotted down on meal tabs.
As L.A. leaders weigh raising wages for businesses across the city, scores of local restaurateurs argue that the city should count tips toward the added amount they would have to pay workers to reach the proposed $13.25 or $15.25 minimum wage.

Doing so, they say, would ensure the wage increase helps those who need it most and reduce the financial burden on businesses.

"There is just no room for us to be able to afford this increase and stay in business," said Caroline Styne, who owns several restaurants and cafes around Los Angeles. "None of us is refuting the fact that people making $9 an hour cannot get by on that. I'm talking about people that are already making well over that."

Borna Sammak of Brooklyn leaves a tip after placing an order at the Manifesto Cafe in Los Angeles. (Jenna Schoenefeld, for The Times)

 

Restaurant servers may get $9 or $10 an hour in wages but as much as $30 or more hourly when tips are included, restaurant owners have argued at public hearings, citing industry research. They maintain that including tips in calculations of minimum pay would not harm workers. If tips were unusually low one day, they say, the restaurant would have to make up any difference to ensure employees receive the required minimum.

"We're willing to pay people to get them to minimum wage," restaurant owner David Dickerson told lawmakers. "We're just asking that tips be part of the equation."

Labor activists warn that counting tips toward the citywide minimum wage would violate California law and leave those waiting tables, scrubbing cars or turning down hotel beds more vulnerable to being illegally underpaid. Most tipped workers have low incomes, they say, both inside and outside the restaurant world.

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The question of how to handle tips has posed a dilemma for Los Angeles lawmakers, who say their intent is to pull Angelenos out of poverty. Beacon Economics, hired to analyze the wage boost for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, estimated that nearly a fifth of Los Angeles County workers earning less than $13.25 an hour do jobs that usually involve tips.

L.A. restaurants push for tips to count toward minimum wage - LA Times

A Very Real Story About Food Stamps Only The Working Poor Will Truly Understand | If You Only News

We were allotted $426 a month for a family of four.  This is the point where conservatives think people start living large off the government and their tax dollars, but the truth was so far from that its ridiculous.


We became the working poor.  My wife was given 38 hours a week at her job, which meant she wasn’t eligible for benefits like insurance.  For months, I found nothing, but not for a lack of trying.  We ended up selling off the things we loved, borrowing from friends and family and searching the trash on the street for scrap metal on garbage day.

The only relief came on the 10th day of the month, when that $426 came and we could actually go shopping.  The relief was short-lived, however, as what was a blessing became a lesson in stress management.

[,,,]

Before you judge, before you criticize, before you assume you know what people who use that EBT card are all about, consider this:  It could happen to you.  Before you decide that people on public assistance are living large on your dime, set aside $106.50 and feed yourself for a month on it.

The working poor live this nightmare, and unless something is done to change the rising tide of minimum wage jobs and wealth inequality, our story will become more and more common.

A Very Real Story About Food Stamps Only The Working Poor Will Truly Understand | If You Only News

This Is What Poverty Looks Like | ThinkProgress

The poverty in Beattyville and many other Appalachian towns is the result of a culture holding onto its traditional values in a world that no longer shares those values. Historically, Appalachia consisted of discrete, tight-knit communities that were self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Local agriculture and tradesmen served nearby residents, and communities lost few members to the outside world. A strong, almost tribal sense of community became central to the region. In his book Yesterday’s People, Jack Weller describes this ethos as “a private system of justice based on the personal relationships common to the clan.” These trends continued through the 19th century, but the world around Appalachia began to drastically change during the following century and eventually outpaced the region’s ability to adapt.

The resulting decline that spread across the region and crumbled once-thriving towns like Beattyville is intimately tied to Appalachia’s connection to place. Weller’s book explains how the unforgiving land, terrain, and climate cast the mold of an individualistic, self-sufficient population in Appalachia, but adds that it also had its detriments. When pioneers first settled in the region, the soil proved infertile and the rough topography made building houses, and later infrastructure, a challenge. When an abundance of oil and coal were discovered and extracted, little of the money came back to the towns that were built on the natural resources, leaving communities with little more than pillaged land.

Today, in an increasingly interconnected and digital world, the rugged terrain that shaped Appalachian towns like Beattyville alienates them from the rest of society. Beattyville is tucked away in a narrow valley, and the only roads into town are Route 11 and Route 52—windy, two-lane stretches that snake through heavily wooded hills. Transportation into and out of the area is a challenge, especially for truckers and other commercial travelers. And while Beattyville is one of the more established towns in Lee County, the mountainous topography makes cell phone reception spotty at best and has prevented the installation of town-wide DSL, leaving it critically isolated both physically and digitally.

“The irony is deep,” writes Michael Harrington in The Other America, “for everything that turns the landscape into an idyll for the urban traveler conspires to hold the people [of Appalachia] down. They suffer terribly at the hands of beauty.”
Today, many high school graduates and young professionals are drawn to opportunities outside of Beattyville, while older generations continue to uphold the virtues of communal self-sufficiency. Many younger residents view this model as no longer viable, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take pride in their town. Most proudly refer to Beattyville as “home” and say that if they left at some point, they would inevitably come back. Returning home, however, may not be enough to win over the older generation that remains. As Mayor Smith admitted, if a resident returned after leaving, “they would likely be viewed as an outsider by [those who remained] in town.”

Thus Beattyville is at a crossroads, where individual opportunity and communal self-sufficiency seem at odds with each other. What’s at stake is cultural longevity, and the test will be to overcome the dire poverty that is reinforced by the same connection to place that has defined the region’s culture.

This Is What Poverty Looks Like | ThinkProgress

Rick Perry: The Bible proves that poverty is inevitable - Salon.com

Texas may have the country’s highest rate of people who lack health insurance and rank in the top 10 states with the highest poverty levels, but Gov. Rick Perry can’t be bothered. In an interview with the Washington Post published today, Perry suggested that the Bible proves that poverty is “always going to be with us.”

As he prepares to hand over the reins to Gov.-elect Greg Abbott next month, Perry is turning his attention toward mounting a second White House bid, despite facing a criminal indictment and vivid memories of how he spectacularly imploded during his disastrous 2012 presidential campaign. It remains to be seen whether Perry will succeed in his effort to have the abuse of power charges against him tossed out, but for now, the Republican is beefing up on public policy, seeking to avoid the kinds of embarrassing stumbles that doomed his last campaign. Among the issues on which he’s consulted experts, the Post reports, is income inequality.

But Perry doesn’t see inequality as a particularly big problem, and he’s certainly not going to champion an all-out war on poverty.

“Biblically, the poor are always going to be with us in some form or fashion,” Perry told the Post.

Rick Perry: The Bible proves that poverty is inevitable - Salon.com

Preying on the Poor: For-Profit Probation Edition | American Civil Liberties Union

Borrowing from the payday lender playbook, companies like JCS often sign contracts in cities and counties strapped for cash. For the county, the deal seems like a sweet one: The company will collect outstanding court debts for free and make all their profits from charging probationers fees. But the problem is that many of these people were put on probation because they were too poor to pay their fine in the first place and for them, the additional fees are huge. People find themselves scrambling for money they don't have and forgoing basic necessities to avoid being thrown behind bars for missing a payment. The impact on communities, especially low-income communities of color, is devastating.

Sadly, the for-profit probation business is booming. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are sentenced to probation, often for misdemeanors including unpaid parking tickets. Instead of being able to just pay those fines and move on with their lives, many get sucked into spiraling debt traps they cannot escape. There are hundreds of thousands of people like Hali out there, for whom small court fines have ballooned into hundreds of dollars of debt.

The for-profit probation racket isn't benefiting society; it's only benefiting these companies' bottom line. We need to remember two things: 1) If probationers miss a payment and end up behind bars, taxpayers foot the bill for this imprisonment; and 2) Our communities are not better off when we force people in poverty to choose between their liberty and putting food on their table —and needlessly lining the pockets of for-profit probation companies in the process.

Preying on the Poor: For-Profit Probation Edition | American Civil Liberties Union

Indiana GOP candidate: ‘No one has the guts’ to let poor people ‘wither and die’

BUSTED!! Hyperbole my ass, it is the same ole rhetoric coming from another Reich mouthpiece, "the poor are lazy, the left are enablers." This time people a fighting back as they realize it is the policies of the Reich that are destroying the middle class and below; that millions of Americans work full-time jobs yet still have to rely on help from the government.
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The candidate made the comments in a discussion thread on the Mad Mac page, which covers local politics.

“For almost three generations people, in some cases, have been given handouts,” Johnston said during the discussion. “They have been ‘enabled’ so much that their paradigm in life is simply being given the stuff of life, however meager.”

“What you see is a setting for a life of misery is life to them never-the-less,” he continued. “No one has the guts to just let them wither and die. No one who wants votes is willing to call a spade a spade. As long as the Dems can get their votes the enabling will continue. The Republicans need their votes and dare not cut the fiscal tether. It is really a political Catch-22.”

“The voters are the ones in charge,” Johnston said. “(H)owever when only 10-11 percent show up to vote, not much will change. People simply are not hurting enough, or simply happy enough that they will do nothing. consequently the dole continues.”

However, Johnston told the newspaper he didn’t advocate the end to programs such as welfare or food stamps.



Indiana GOP candidate: ‘No one has the guts’ to let poor people ‘wither and die’

What I Realized When I Finally Decided to Sign Up for Food Stamps | Alternet

This statement is the key for me as a SNAP recipient, "What it has let me do is purchase better quality foods." Having dietary restrictions can make food shopping and cooking a challenge. It can be disheartening at times, but I try and make a game of it especially living where I do (middle of butt fuck nowhere), I do not have the choices those in suburbia do. Without SNAP it would be Ramen, hotdogs, and Encore entrees. Food, but not healthy.
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I have previously written how three days before my 60th birthday I came to a decision that I once considered unthinkable. On that day, I gathered up my financial information, took my book, entered the Social Services office in Waterbury, Connecticut, and asked if there was someone I could see to obtain some assistance. I pretty much already knew for what I was eligible, and had known for the past year, but since I was self employed I needed help to complete the forms that are designed for those on an hourly pay. I needed to talk to someone.

The receptionist behind the glass partition took my name and social security number and directed me to the waiting room informing me someone would call me. I had gotten there at around 11:30 a.m. and took the last of the available seats, opened my book and steeled myself for a long wait.

There were over 50 people in the waiting room. Mothers with children some with infants, middle age couples, young men and woman by themselves, some in work clothing -- guard uniforms, medical scrubs, fast food outfits, business suit or tie. This was not what I had expected.

The Social Services department is directly on a bus route and not located in the best part of town. I am ashamed to say that I expected to find the unemployable or the lazy or the addicted or handicapped. I expected something different, something else. I expected to be surrounded by... by "them."



What I Realized When I Finally Decided to Sign Up for Food Stamps | Alternet

The Tea Party, the John Birch Society, and the Fear of “Mob Rule”: An Interview with Claire Conner | Political Research Associates

This article is from 2013 but still very pertinent and offers interesting background information concerning the JBS and what we now call the Tea Party. I found it interesting that the author speaks to the elimination of the 16th Amendment as I have a few articles that speak to the "new" impetus within the Reich to do just that. You will notice that much of the JBS ideology has been carried forward in regards to poverty, food insecurity, and voter rights to name a few. Fascinating read,,,

For example, the John Birch Society said that Social Security should never exist, because it is a giant embezzlement. They also held that the 16th Amendment to the Constitution—the amendment creating a federal income tax—should be repealed because the federal government did not have the authority to collect those sorts of taxes. The John Birch Society basically believes that anything the federal government does, beyond what is specifically mentioned in the Constitution, is wrong.

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I said to my mother one time, “What would happen if we actually did all these things?” What if there was no Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation, food stamps—no safety net at all. And she said, “Oh, it would be glorious. It would be what the Constitution intended.” I’d say, “Mom, the Constitution is not going to feed a hungry child”. I can still see her face looking up from her teacup, saying, “That’s not my concern, dear.”

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Robert Welch made no bones that he thought democracy was the worst form of government—not just for his organization, but for a country. The John Birch Society believes that democracy is mob rule. So, that explains a lot about the way the government is organized. It also explains a lot about some of the things that are happening in the United States today, in terms of that belief system.

A whole bunch of people on the Right don’t think that everyone ought to vote. Why? Because if you’ve got everybody voting, you have yourself a mob. And that idea comes from [National Review founder and editor] Bill Buckley, who is sort of a patron saint of the Right. Buckley, the John Birch Society, my father, and a very prominent political science professor [who taught at Yale], Willmoore Kendall, all believed that the franchise, or the right to vote, had to be limited, as it was in colonial in times, when you had to be White, free, over a particular age, and a landowner in order to vote.

The Tea Party, the John Birch Society, and the Fear of “Mob Rule”: An Interview with Claire Conner | Political Research Associates

One Day Below the Poverty Line | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty

Last night I prepared food for my LBL practice day today. Three cups of rice, two eggs and one cup of edamame. Came to about $1.40 and 1400 calories.

I am doing what I can to prepare myself for this experience by being more mindful about hunger and actually willing myself to feel less hungry. I wonder, is that really possible? The food I prepared last night looks like enough, and I'm grateful I have even this much, when so many do not.

It was strange to decide whether to eat my two eggs at breakfast or to have one this morning and the other at dinner. I wonder what would be the most efficient way to do it if I were a farmer with a heavy work load ahead of me today.

I also wonder, if someone came to me having not eaten at all for a few days: would I share what I have? Right now I would, but if (when) I get hungry, will my answer change?

[,,,]
The reduced and bland food intake are two aspects of this, which are obvious and challenging. Another, which is not captured in this exercise, is the visceral experience that there may be less food than yesterday, or maybe none at all today. I may experience that feeling somewhat in Haiti in as much as I am able to have access to the very cheap food I have committed to eating. I had just a small glimpse of this. It is very disturbing... actually it filled me for just a moment with a lot of anxiety.

One Day Below the Poverty Line | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty

When A Doctor Finds Herself On Food Stamps, It Turns Into Something Amazing (VIDEO) | LiberalAmerica.org

Kudos to Tiffany Willis of Liberal America for bringing us this story and the program behind it,,,

Dickinson describes her first grocery store trip to use her SNAP benefits; her little girl — who loves cucumbers — was so excited that when she returned to the car, she was sitting in the back seat hugging her cucumbers.

A project by the non-profit group Hunger Free Colorado – ”Hunger Through My Lens” — gives digital cameras to food stamp recipients like Dickinson and asks them to chronicle what it’s like to be hungry in America. The project’s mission is “to empower people who are living in poverty and to promote awareness about hunger issues.” The resulting photographs have become a part of a traveling exhibit.

When A Doctor Finds Herself On Food Stamps, It Turns Into Something Amazing (VIDEO) | LiberalAmerica.org

▶ Fuck The Poor? - YouTube

Not going to give anything away other than this also is applicable to us here in the US,,,

 



▶ Fuck The Poor? - YouTube

See also: Original posting from Upworthy with transcript -
A Guy Hung An Offensive Sign Around His Neck To Make A Solid Point. And … It Worked.

When we ignore the people around us who are struggling to get by, isn't it a lot like putting on the first sign this guy wears?

The War on the Poor and Working Families - YouTube

The "safety nets" will be first then minimum wage, IF this "war" is not stopped. How much time has been wasted raging against the ACA (50 repeal votes and counting)? How much time and energy has be squandered fighting against marriage equality? The list is endless, "teach the controversy" bills, "religious liberty" bills, anti-abortion bills. Where are the jobs in all that?

"They're waging a war against the poor and working class,,,when you're desperate, you will take what ever they're willing to pay you, even if it is next to nothing,,,Without extended unemployment benefits, a declining real minimum wage, no Medicaid, no food stamps, no education, job training, or jobs program and no union, you'll do exactly as they tell you, and that's fine with them."

The War on the Poor and Working Families - YouTube

Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry | Money | theguardian.com

It is unconstitutional for any person to have an economic interest in the criminal justice system,,,We don’t pay judges based on the percent of fines they impose, or police officers based on the number of tickets they issue. This shouldn’t be any different.”


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The cost to taxpayers of Hayes’ eight-month jail sentence: $11,500, according to Georgia court documents.

Despite the fact that the US supreme court ruled in 1983 that offenders cannot be jailed when they can’t afford to pay their fines, an increasing number of poor, low-level offenders are doing time because they can’t keep up with fees they owe to courts and private probation companies. To some it resembles a variation on the old Victorian workhouses and debtors’ prisons, moved from Dickensian England to the modern United States.

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More than 1,000 low-level courts across the US rely on the so-called “offender-funded” probation model, signing contracts with for-profit companies that oversee probation requirements like monitoring, drug tests and fine collection. The decades-old, for-profit probation industry is deeply rooted in the south, and especially in Georgia, but courts in states as far-flung as Michigan, Montana and Washington have also embraced aspects of privatized probation.



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Those companies make offenders pay for their own probation by charging them fees. It saves the states and counties a lot of money. It also makes the companies a lot of money: Human Rights Watch estimated that private probation companies in Georgia alone rake in nearly $40m in fees a year.

While states save and companies profit, the offenders pay a lot. There is no cap on the amount of fees a private company can charge minor offenders, and the longer the probation period, the higher the fees.

In some cases, the probation fees can add up to twice as much – or more – than the court-ordered fines.



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“Private probation companies have a really perverse financial incentive in each case,” said Chris Albin-Lackey, author of the recently-released Human Rights Watch report titled “Profiting from probation”.

Company employees behave more like “aggressive, muscular debt collectors” than probation officers responsible for administering justice, Albin-Lackey says. Others have noted that the courts are to blame for looking the other way.

Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry | Money | theguardian.com

See also:  
US: For-Profit Probation Tramples Rights of Poor

Do hard times spark more crime? - latimes.com

As concern about economic inequality rises to the top of the issue agenda, it is instructive to note that the upturn in poverty of recent years has not been accompanied by a rise in violent crime. To the contrary, since 2008, unemployment and homicides have been inversely related.

Is this a puzzling anomaly? Most people assume that hard times cause crime spikes. They reason, plausibly enough, that financial pressures — as a consequence of, say, becoming unemployed — lead to stress, anger and violence.

Many criminologists agree. The "strain theory" of crime holds that high or rising unemployment and poverty rates may be indicators of increasingly unequal opportunities, and that periods of sharply unequal opportunity are likely to produce more crime.

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What explains this puzzling lack of consistency? The answer seems to be that crimes of violence are unique; unlike property crimes, they are not economically motivated. Murder and its junior partner, assault, for instance, are mainly precipitated by such things as anger, sexual jealousy, perceived insults or threats, and long-standing personal quarrels, and they are frequently facilitated by disinhibitors such as alcohol or drugs. These factors, it appears, are unaffected by economic downturns or upswings.






Do hard times spark more crime? - latimes.com

Marco Rubio: Minimum wage plan ‘stale’ - Lucy McCalmont - POLITICO.com

Uhm, so Mr Rubio, what exactly is YOUR plan again? The only thing I have heard from you and your ilk is how you want to regulate my uterus and whom I am allowed to sleep with. I'm not so sure that helps the job market or lifts people out of poverty. All we see are your threats to eliminate programs altogether: slashing SNAP, not extending unemployment and hindering medicaid. None of this does anything to lift us out of poverty.

And what exactly is "opportunity inequality?" Sounds like a catch phrase for doing away with minimum wage, something your handlers would love. You haven't offered any solutions just more whinny rhetoric,,,

“The president’s focused on income inequality, the difference between the rich and the poor and the gap that’s grown, and that’s the wrong focus. It doesn’t give you a complete picture,” the Florida senator said.

Instead, Rubio says “opportunity inequality” needs to be the focus of reform and proposes control of anti-poverty programs should be handed to the states as the current government programs do not help people emerge from poverty.

“I do not believe, in fact, I know that Washington and its one-size-fits-all approach is not conducive to finding the kind of innovative solutions it will take,” Rubio said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.”

Rubio also has the Democrats in his cross hairs, saying their focus on unemployment benefits rather than finding long-term solutions “is indicative of the flaw in their thinking.”


Marco Rubio: Minimum wage plan ‘stale’ - Lucy McCalmont - POLITICO.com

Kentucky County That Gave War On Poverty A Face Still Struggles : NPR

Maybe this is why the Reich's ideology concerning poverty is so out of touch with reality.  There are no faces or names for them, just the numbers:  "Mueller says the locals didn't know their role in this new, domestic war. For the White House, though, coming to Martin County gave poverty a face — and a name."

In my mind, it highlights the simple gesture of U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy and other Democrats that have taken the SNAP challenge. They at least are doing exactly what LBJ did, "Johnson visited the Fletchers on the porch of their home — a small wooden structure with fake brick siding. Photographers took what would become one of the iconic images of the war on poverty: the president crouched down, chatting with Tom Fletcher about the lack of jobs.


Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson stood before Congress and declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America." His arsenal included new programs: Medicaid, Medicare, Head Start, food stamps, more spending on education, and tax cuts to help create jobs.

At the time, 1 in 5 Americans was poor. Today, things are better, but tens of millions of Americans are still living at or below the poverty level. That raises the question: Did the war on poverty fail? In the coming year, NPR will explore this question and others about the impact and extent of poverty in the U.S., and what can be done to reduce it.

People in the isolated hills of Martin County, Ky., rarely saw outsiders, let alone a president. So when President Lyndon Johnson visited in 1964 to generate support for his proposed war on poverty, it was a big deal.

[,,,]
Mike Howell runs the Big Sandy Area Community Action Program where the Vinsons went for help. The program is a direct result of the war on poverty. Howell agrees that the war has yet to achieve its goals, but says the reason is a lack of support. The burst of enthusiasm after President Johnson's visit has waned, he says. Every year, his program has to fight for funds.

Kentucky County That Gave War On Poverty A Face Still Struggles : NPR

The Return of the Welfare Queen - NationalJournal.com

Spawned by Ronald Reagan to turn blue-collar whites against the Democratic Party, then buried by Bill Clinton with a law "ending welfare as we know it," she's been excavated under the first African-American president as Republicans inveigh against the costs of health insurance and food stamps for the poor.

Twenty-five Republican-led states have—astoundingly—rebuffed billions of federal dollars under Barack Obama's signature health care law to offer Medicaid insurance to more poor people. To justify this unprecedented rejection of federal relief, these governors and state lawmakers say they just do not believe Washington will keep its promise to pick up the tab. Republicans in Congress are egging them on, denouncing Obamacare's disastrous launch as proof of the arrogance and folly of big government.

But all of this opposition carries an unmistakable undertone of class warfare, a theme easy to exploit in states such as Kentucky, packed with low-income white voters who have a strong distaste for the federal government. To hear the rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, Medicaid and food-stamp recipients are a bunch of shiftless freeloaders living high on king crab legs and free health care, all on the backs of hardworking Americans.

[,,,]
The rhetoric about rewarding indolence is also pervading the debate over the farm bill, passed with subsidies for big agriculture—but no food-stamp funding for the first time in four decades. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said he's heard "so many times" from constituents standing in line at the grocery store behind a shopper buying king crab legs. "Then he sees the food-stamp card pulled out and provided. He looks at the king crab legs and looks at his ground meat and realizes because he does pay income tax, he doesn't get more back than he pays in. He is actually helping to pay for the king crab legs when he can't pay for them for himself."

The mythical welfare queen was accused of driving a Cadillac and pumping out babies to keep the government checks coming; under the "food-stamp president," as Republican Newt Gingrich dubbed Obama, she (or he) nets free health care and expensive shellfish.

The Return of the Welfare Queen - NationalJournal.com

Food Pantries See Growing Need In New Mexico, One Of Poorest States, As Food Stamps Take Hit

While reading through the few comments left, one point I had not considered before popped out at me
 A possible motivating factor as to why the Reich is intent on cutting aid to our governmental assistance programs, "to force the poor to seek aid from churches and church groups. Fundy's are licking their chops at the thought of all of these impoverished as potential acolytes." What an intriguing means of proselytizing.


"One of the things the families are saying now is that Casa de Peregrinos used to be an emergency food program, and now it's more of a necessity. They actually budget around what we give them," Alba said. "A lot of the families just don't have a choice there, that's just what they have to do.

[,,,]
"It isn't good for society to have such a large number of people without proper nutrition," she said. "SNAP is the basic food safety net in our country and any cuts for that drive up demand. These cuts that are being proposed -- the number that we're hearing, they're so massive. There's just no way that private sector food programs, like Roadrunner Food Bank, can ever hope to meet that need. We won't be successful in filling that gap."

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"The House (farm) bill will cut over $40 billion from the SNAP program," Udall said in an interview. "So what you're talking about is cutting 32,000 New Mexicans off the program if you do that."

About 40 percent of people on SNAP are children and 13 percent are seniors. More than half are working families, he said.

"I can't stand by and accept cuts to a program that's helping feed almost a quarter of New Mexicans, especially when New Mexico leads the nation in child hunger," he said. "I'll fight against these cuts in my roll on the Senate appropriations agriculture subcommittee."

Congressman Steve Pearce, who represents southern New Mexico, has a different view and has voted twice in favor of the House version of the farm bill. He said the bill's measures will protect SNAP through reforms that will deter people from abusing the program while saving taxpayers billions of dollars, including the $40 billion reduction from SNAP.


Food Pantries See Growing Need In New Mexico, One Of Poorest States, As Food Stamps Take Hit