America Is In Poverty, Really?

The Census Beaureau reported on Thursday that one in seven Americans lives below the poverty level.  At first glance that is a seemingly staggering statistic.  In the land of opportunity with free enterprise, surely they have this figure wrong!  No, it is right, but does it tell the whole story?

The poverty level is defined as a family of four living on a household income of less than 22,000 dollars a year.  While I realize that $22,000 a year won't buy you as much here in America as, say, in Ethiopia, there are some astonishing statistics that we should consider before we start feeling sorry for ourselves as a nation.

Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. .

1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

(http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty)

So, America is struggling and times appear as though they will get worse before they get better.  However, before we rush to judgement and overthrow capitalism because the American experiment is suddenly not working, let's consider these statistics and consider how wealthy some of America's poorest are in comparison with most other nations. 

Let's work on fixing these "poverty" problems by embracing free market concepts not by resorting to the socialist ideas that drove many of these countries into poverty in the first place.  The answer to our issues are less government not more government.  I am amazed when liberals taunt such ideas as "trickle down economics".  We vilify the rich and act as though they have no right to their wealth.  All the while we fail to realize that if "they" are not wealthy, they do not pass that wealth down to the rest of the population through employment. IT IS ABOUT JOBS!!!  People have to work and as long as we punish the rich and encourage companies to take their jobs to foreign markets we will continue to slump. I was educated at a small school and have no Ivy League experience, but I wonder how we can take problems with such obviously simple solutions and create confusion!

I have a relative who has been on a couple of mission trips to Africa.  He can barely speak about the conditions he has seen without tearing up.  He has seen abject poverty.  America hasn't.