More than 45 million Americans live in
poverty. Brooke Gladstone went to Ohio to talk to people who are poor and how
they got there. She also interviewed welfare advocate Jack French. French says
that the poverty crisis in America has less to do with liberal or conservative
politics and more to do with the American population that does not want to
change their mind about poor people. For so long many people have been taught
the idea that poor people are poor because they are lazy or stupid or spend
their money on drugs and alcohol. If they only were willing to work hard or if
only they were capable of making smarter decisions they wouldn't be poor. French
says these are the misunderstandings that everyday Americans deal with all the
time when it comes to poor people. He also mentions that the attention that
poor people were getting, others didn’t want to hear it, no amount of attention
poor people were given would make others want to change. The population wanted
to cling to that idea because it justified them not sharing.
Gladstone also mentioned that poverty means
that you’ve slipped off the knifed edge, that a piece of paper or the flu has
cost you your job, your home and your family. It means selling your TV for bus fare;
you don’t have the money to bury your loved one. People are less sympathetic,
there is hardly anyone left of welfare. In Ohio 75% of the cash assistance
welfare cases are child only cases, there is only 15,000 adults left on cash assistance
on Ohio. They don’t have these kids living in orphanages, they live with
grandparents instead because the families have fallen apart and they no longer
support families that stay together. So the conservatives have won the day and
we are still not happy about it.
