Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released a new report titledAi??Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011.Ai??The report has some shocking statistics about how much work must be done to ensure a strong and secure middle class in the United States.
The Economic Policy Institute used the Census data to put together its own report thatAi??contextualizesAi??some of this data. Here’s some important facts from their report, titled State of Working America:
- Nearly A Fifth Of American Children Are In Poverty:Ai??The report finds that 21.9 percent of children under the age of 18 are in poverty (the poverty threshold for a family of four is $22,811).
- Millions of Americans Depend On Social Security To Be Kept Out Of Poverty:Ai??EPI estimates that 21.4 million Americans were kept out of poverty thanks to this social insurance program.
- Unemployment Insurance Is Keeping Millions Out Of Poverty:Ai??2.3 million people kept out of poverty in 2011 by unemployment insurance.
- Incomes Fell For Many Middle Class People From 2010 to 2011: There was a negative 1.7 percent change in average household income between 2010 and 2011 for the middle 20 percent of earners. Meanwhile, the top 5 percent saw a gain of 5.1 percent.
Poverty would be solved by recognizing and creating human equality. ALL humans are equal in VALUE because they are human, and one cannot be more than human or less than human. In truth, superiority or inferiority are measures that compare performances, not intrinsic worth. For example, my mother was superior to me as a dancer; she was a prodigy who made her stage debut at age 2 1/2 and was offered a position with a ballet company at age 13. Despite beginning dancing lessons at age 3, I had two left feet and was clumsy. When I was teaching, one youngster was turning in very poor work and earning F’s during the first week of school; by the third week of school through diligence, he had improved to where he was earning A’s — his PERFORMANCE changed from inferior to superior, but his worth as a human did not change since he remained human.
To apply this to human society means that erecting artificial barriers to the development of human potential through a system of privileging some people over others is unethical. I remember that, when I was a child, schools were still segregated. I remember seeing Governor Wallace stand in front of the Little Rock school on television when it was integrated. And in Arizona and Georgia today, brown children will have to prove they are legal in order to attend school. Public schools are being financially eviscerated in many states on the premise of budget cuts, but really the motive is privileging some children over others, which is why the Chicago strike is so very important. Sneakily, corporations infiltrate charter schools by funding them and administering them IF these schools promote the “right” attitudes, beliefs, behaviors that corporations desire in their future workers: unquestioning obedience, fear of retaliation, etc. All these tactics are designed to privilege some students over others.
Healthcare access is another way of privileging a few over the many. The big one, though, under capitalism is distribution of resources via the monetary system. Since the only way to access a resource, whether this is nutrition or shelter or transportation or whatever is through money, then the inequitable distribution of money in salaries becomes the means of privileging an elite.
I disagree. People are like cars, some are Mercedes and some are Hyundais. Every human has limitations. Person A may have an IQ of 127 and Person B an IQ of 79. Some people are ethical and honest, others lie, cheat, and steel.
genetic human engineering is the hope for the future. Society is disintegrating at a rapid pace. Growth in populations which promote crime, substandard education goals, and do not possess the fundamental drive to achieve is anything are society’s greatest enemies. It needs to be contained before we become a society of LOSERS!
Elizabeth, you are ascribing worth to qualities, abilities and behaviors. You are correct in suggesting that humans DIFFER in these attributes, but these differences do not make them NOT HUMAN. Dogs differ in their colors — some are brown, some are white, some are black: do their differences in coloration make some of them NOT DOGS? There are numerous varieties of tomatoes, each variety with different attributes — are some of them NOT TOMATOES? Sure, humans behave in different ways, and different cultures have always preferred certain behaviors over others; but, even the members who violate the taboos remain humans. People who lie, steal, and cheat do not LOSE their humanity by doing these actions; they simply show us other aspects of BEHAVIOR which we can evaluate as being superior or inferior.
Yes, they are still human, but inferior. That is the point. Don’t waste money on inferior people. People with no potential, self-respect, or goals. Spending money on them only enables them to continue to be inferior.