War on Poverty

War on Poverty: An Opinion

Written by Gloria M. Matthews

“The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty.

As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the government's role in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies.[1] These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1935, and the Four Freedoms of 1941.

The popularity of a war on poverty waned after the 1960s. Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which, as claimed President Bill Clinton, "end[ed] welfare as we know it." Prof. Tony Judt, the late historian, said in reference to the earlier proposed title of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act that "a more Orwellian title would be hard to conceive" and attributed the decline in the popularity of the Great Society as a policy to its success, as fewer people feared hunger, sickness, and ignorance. Additionally, fewer people were concerned with ensuring a minimum standard for all citizens and social liberalism.[2]

Nonetheless, the legacy of the War on Poverty policy initiative remains in the continued existence of such federal programs as Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America, TRIO (program), and Job Corps.”

The “War on Poverty” was clearly not the first of its kind to tackle poverty.  Based on this information founded on Wikipedia, it was continuation of the New Deal (1933-1935) by Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms of 1941.  Really, the government saw a responsibility to ALL of its citizens and wanted to help those who just could not help themselves.  So, what happened?  How did we get into a place where poverty is no longer being about the undereducated, unemployed, homeless, and very poor living conditions?  It has now spread to the point where middle class families struggle to put food on the table, low-income individuals who are trying to make it out of their statuses can’t get the help they need and people who have misused the system to the point of causing restrictions to be placed more and more to reduce the abuse and misuse of a system that was originally meant to help people get back on their feet.  Here, many would call those who use the system to support them and not support themselves “Generational Welfare Individuals and Families”.  They feel that the government should take care of them and their families for years to come without working a dime for income.  Why would people agree to live such a life?  Why?  This has many people crying foul over all the social programs that are meant to help people get an education and a job and lead them to become self-sufficient and eventually taxpayers.  So, what went wrong?  What happened?  How did people not understand that in order to be a functional state, the goal was for everyone to have a job and for everyone to be a contributing member to supporting their country through taxes meant to help support the local, state and national governments and potential programs that could have possibly expanded our horizons even more - Maybe creating the world’s number one educational system to say?

Yet, I’m not for either major party in the US.  It’s great that we have the freedoms that we do have, but I mean really, this society has become so focus on the “I want” attitude instead of focusing on the real needs here stateside.  Yes, poverty exists, just not in the manner one could imagine.  There are barriers out there and there are laws against such barriers and yet many have gotten clever in getting away with discrimination and unfair treatment.  It’s not about who fits into the image of the job environment but who can contribute more, in my perspective.  There is such a strong emphasis on image from women’s bodies to the government and everything in-between.  This focus on image, in my opinion, has create such a false sense of humanity, respect, dignity and understanding of real issues under the surface.

Yes, I would love to see my peers without health insurance have access to basic care and get the necessary care they may need to prevent future medical bills and debt from rising on them.  I would like to see many people have medical access for their care.  However, when people were asked to give their two-cents for a potential Universal Health Care system, I can’t help but wonder, did those in Washington purposely change the language as a scare-tactic to have no one support such a move?  Here is my question to my readers:

-Do you have health insurance?  Yes or No

If you respond Yes answer the following:

-Are you satisfied with the coverage? Yes or No

If no, explain why?

-Would you support a customizable plan based upon your overall health?  Yes or No

-Would you like to sit down with your doctor and discuss what your health needs are?  Yes or No

-Would you like to have an additional coverage to cover unexpected medical issues? Yes or No

If you pay Co-pays:

-Are the co-pays affordable for your budget?  Yes or No

If no, explain why

-Are co-pays the reason for delaying medical help?  Yes or No

If yes, explain why

-Are co-pays putting you in debt?  Yes or No

If yes, explain why and how it affects you financially

If you responded No answer the following:

-Do you qualify for low-income insurance?  Yes or No

-If you answered Yes, can you afford the premium amount due?  Yes or No

If No, explain why and how it will affect you financially.

-If you answered No, can you afford regular health insurance?  Yes or No

If No, explain why and how it can affect you financially.

Now, I would not be surprised if the economy had a severe effect on individuals and families who could possibly afford health insurance but they just can’t afford an added expense to their budget as they could possibly be in debt in other areas of their finances.  So what do you do with folks who are already buried under their own personal financial debt?  How do you help folks get back onto a healthy financial track?  Many folks cannot afford their own personal financial advisor, so where can they turn for sound financial advice at no cost to them?   These are questions that many should be thinking about.  Questions that tackle issues from the bottom up to speak.  Start with the people, the people who have the power to make the changes needed in this country.  Start with those who are really struggling, families whose finances may look great but are accumulating debt faster than what is coming in, how do you help people keep expenses down and income above those expenses?  How about families who were looking to improve their credit and decided to buy a car or a house that comes with additional expenses of their own?  How do you cover additional expenses with no additional funds coming in besides the loans (which is an additional expense)?  Sounds like you really need to be rich reading these questions right?  To me it’s starting to look that way and feel that way.  I would love to have a three bedroom house with a backyard plus a car, but the expenses add up and my income is nowhere near covering any of it.  So renting an apartment seems to be the only logical and financially sound thing to do.  So how can one tackle these financial issues on a personal level?  Ask yourselves these questions, look at all the outside factors that influences your answers and point it out.

Location - very, very important.  What is going on in your communities?  What are you witnessing?  Are you seeing a rising need for food, shelter or financial help in any shape, size or form?  Are you ignore those issues that will adversely affect you down the road later?  So many people turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to issues that are contributing to a broken system that is not clearly working for everyone.  Yet, people ask, ”Aren’t their services to help them or people who have experience with these issues?”  The answer will be a shocking yes there are people available but have most likely been put out of the job because of funding cuts or low intakes or other issues that eventually shut down those services or have limited them.  So really, you got to start locally and then look statewide and then nationally.  You can’t just see what is good, but you also got to acknowledge the bad and how to make the necessary improvements needed without losing money or misusing funds.  Logical thinking is needed.  Thinking with moral obligation to help people help themselves and to make sure they stay on their feet for the first five years.  After five years they must prove they can budget and meet with someone every three months to show they are financially responsible and are doing what they are suppose to be doing.  If they need help with getting something, the person they meet with can help them understand the financial language use in a purchase or a lease to avoid taking on too much debt or unnecessary expenses.

No everyone in this country is a financial wiz.  I do see a need where individuals and families need to understand finances.  I do see a need where everyone who is not making more than $35,000 a year are in need of health insurance but they may have student loans eating up a good chunk of that income on top of renting, car payments and bills.  There could be folks making more than $35,000 a year and something is taking a big chunk of that income and leaving no room to afford health insurance.  There are folks who make less or bring in less than $35,000 a year and if they have a two year degree and took out loans, they are in the worst possible position financially if they are completely on their own with no help from family.  So really, if education is becoming a burden in terms of financial issues, it would make no sense for someone who already owes more than they originally took out to go back to school for a four year degree with an outstanding educational debt to go back to school in terms of their finances not looking good after graduation.  The question then becomes, can someone still pay the high amounts due with a low-income based job because the hiring process is not only time consuming but it costs the college grad transportation expenses which is not so cheap long-term wise.  Yet, minimum wage jobs barely pay the bills.  So what are those folks to do in any of those situations, they went to school got their degrees but end up back home or sharing an apartment with people they know or crashing at friends houses because they too are living in a new form of poverty.   Does anyone see this? Does anyone notice this?

This is a multi-layered situation and yes, so many factors at play.  I’m not concerned with politics for it is obvious they are now fighting for the rich and those below them cannot have what they have.  Lost wages, reduced wages all lead to less income and less income means an overwhelming cutting back on a lot of expenses and some expenses cannot be cut back or else it will lead to giving up everything one has worked hard to get and keep for something smaller and affordable.  That is a kick in the gut when an individual or a family have to give up or leave behind a home they called home for years or maybe less to only go backwards instead of forward.  Yes, the economy has everything to do with how people fare and if our government truly cared about the people as a whole, I do not think any individual or family would be without.  I don’t care about political agendas or which party is trying to make the other look bad or which party is advocating for the people. I care about the individual voices and the voices of those who have to live and work 365 days a year.  Those are the voices that truly need to be heard.  Ask the right questions and I’m pretty sure you’ll get the answers you need to solve many of the issues today.  Don’t ask a question to get the answer you want because you ain’t gonna solve anything with a false answer that will lead to a failed solution that won’t work.  So wake up folks, get real and ask the right questions to get the answers you NEED to solve issues that need REAL solutions.  Everyone deserves a fair shot at living a decent life with decent pay.  Everyone deserves to have some form of help that should help them stay afloat or deal with issues that could potentially hinder them.  Everyone should be given a fair shot at life overall, regardless to their backgrounds.  There are people who want to do well, they just may not know where to start.  SO pay attention and look around you, don’t be quick to judge explore what is going on and get to know what the situation is about and the issues among those situations.  Not everything is clear-cut.  It’s like peeling the layers of an onion and people usually stop peeling when the problems and issues becoming too overwhelming to handle and the trick is to keep peeling until you get to the core of the issues.   Think about it.  If this got you thinking, write out your thoughts and ask more questions.  There is no one size fit all answer or solution, realistically.  So why not start with the everyday individuals and families and hear their voices instead.  Washington is a hot mess and I don’t think their reliability is very good at all.  So who is really listening?