Shame on us and our supposedly "great nation."
According to an Aug. 30 article in "The Star Press," one-third of Muncie lives in poverty. Muncie ranks ninth among the top 10 most impoverished cities in the country with populations greater than 65,000. The list also includes Gary and Bloomington.
According to a recent census report, the poverty rate in the U.S. declined by 0.3 percent, from 12.6 percent in 2005 to 12.3 in 2006, and this marked the first decline in poverty in a decade.
These numbers bare the truth of how unfair the U.S. really is.
Have we become so caught up in "we're number one" exceptionalism that numbers such as these demand screaming headlines just to get our attention?
Readers who think the recent decrease in the poverty rate vindicates President George Bush's pro-billionaire economic policies should bear in mind that the drop in the poverty rate follows a dramatic increase that occurred during his presidency.
Maybe the numbers demand such huge headlines because they go against what we're taught.
Laissez-faire economic ideology so dominates the country that we are socialized to assume that anyone, no matter how impoverished, can become Andrew Carnegie. After all, there are lots of real-world cases of that happening, so anyone can do it, we are told. It's a wonderful excuse for eliminating all forms of social assistance because we can simply assume that anyone who doesn't go from alcoholic homelessness to four bedrooms and a golden retriever in Carmel is too lazy to work hard. Stop feeling socialist compassion for poor people. Look up to those hard-working and high-achieving rich people, such as Paris Hilton.
Some people do go from rags to riches. Others work hard their whole lives and remain poor.
The bootstraps myth is entrenched in the American psyche. According to a 2005 New York Times poll reported by National Public Radio's "Your Money," 80 percent of Americans still buy it. According to the same broadcast, however, people in Canada, the UK, France and Germany find upward mobility easier than Americans.
We have a skewed sense of priorities in this country.
To get a sense of where Bush's economic priorities lie, read the following statement he made while having dinner with fat cats in 2000: "What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base."
In other words, while we're taught to despise welfare and those who use it, in 2004 millions of Americans still voted for a president who has created a nanny state for the rich.
Bush regularly fulfills the presidential duty of disingenuously touting economic growth and new jobs, but doesn't seem to mind the rapid changes in this country's labor market over the last decade, probably because they have been such a huge benefit to his "base."
According to a 2005 Bureau of Labor Statistics projection, seven of the 10 fastest-growing employment sectors over the next seven years will be in areas that require little or no post-secondary education or training, including retail sales, janitorial work and waiting tables. These will take the place of some of the 3 million manufacturing jobs we have lost since 2000 to developing countries where companies can pay workers poverty wages.
We're always told that America is the greatest nation in the world. What kind of great nation has more than a tenth of its population living in poverty, and 47 million of its people unable to afford decent health care? What kind of great nation gives rich people tax breaks and then lets them ship its jobs overseas and pauperize its people?
Here's the answer: a nation that knows how to sell an image to delusional and credulous people raised on myths.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
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