In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau claimed that 37 million Americans lived in what John Edwards calls "incredible" poverty. How many times have you turned on the local news only to hear another story about soup kitchens, the homeless or the unemployed? Whatever channel you watch, you are being exposed to America's overblown notion of "poverty."
Yes, I said it - overblown. Sensationalist news coverage leads Americans to falsely believe that poverty is a serious and oppressive problem and that economic mobility is nonexistent. This sentiment is closely tied to the economically unsound liberal argument that capitalism leads the rich to become richer as the poor become poorer. They talk of the disappearing of the middle class and the expansion of the lower class. But what exactly is poverty? And is the middle class really on the verge of collapse?
I, myself, have never lived this American notion of poverty. However, after having firsthand encounters with poverty in India and Costa Rica, I firmly believe that the opposite is, in fact, true and genuine poverty hardly exists. Furthermore, the American dream is still very alive.
Numerous high schools and colleges across the states are making students read best-selling book Nickel and Dimed as a part of their summer reading or course curriculum. In the book, social-commentator and columnist Barbara Ehrenreich decides to do the unthinkable and work for minimum wage and live in a lower class American slum, emerging with a New York Times bestseller on the supposedly squalid and oppressive conditions people live under. She uses her experiences of not being able to make ends meet to argue that the poor live in a black hole of poverty that they cannot dig themselves out of. The book is actually a part of the reading for the Introduction to Business course here at Hopkins.
But what exactly does Ehrenreich consider to be ends meet? She complains that she did not have a table to eat KFC while watching one of "the half dozen available channels" (pg. 159). Meanwhile, people in India and Costa Rica regard TV as a luxury that only the most well-off enjoy. In fact, the kinds of extravagances - home, cable, food, stove, central heating - that the working poor have in America, not even the middle-classes have in India or Costa Rica.
There is no comparison between what Americans call poverty and what Indians and Costa Ricans call poverty. In India, the working poor live under tarps mounted by the side of the road, and their children often beg the streets nude - only coming "home" to join their families by a street-side fire for warmth. Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire? I would say that Danny Boyle downplayed the severity of Indian poverty.
The most blatant proof of this disparity is if you compare a beggar in America to a beggar in India or Costa Rica. The former will usually be fairly ragged looking but have a big belly - a sign of opulence in third-world countries. The latter will be deathly skinny and often unclad.
The fact is that American capitalism does not oppress the poor like many liberals and the media would like you to believe. No, it raises them to new levels of opulence that few others enjoy. The figures speak for themselves. In India, 300 million people (30 percent of the population) subsist on less than $1 a day, spending half to two-thirds of their income on two meals a day. Meanwhile, the 37.3 million people (12.5 percent of the population) that the U.S. Census Bureau claims live at or below poverty make between $30 to $38 a day depending on if they are single or married (from 2007 statistics).
What, unfortunately, American schools are not having their students read is the response to Ehrenreich's book, Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25 and the Search for the American Dream by Adam Shepard. Using a little bit of the temporary social benefits that the U.S. government provides (a homeless shelter and food stamps), but mainly his own self-discipline, intelligence, ambition and hard work, Adam Shepard successfully climbed from having merely $25, a sleeping bag and the clothes on his back to having an apartment, a pickup truck and almost $5,000 in savings within 10 months. He worked as a day laborer and then found a job with a moving company. He says that Ehrenreich's experiment failed because "She postured to fail." He adds, "I postured to succeed, and I did." He also points out that Ehrenreich spent $40 on pants and lived in motels. Shepard, on the other hand, made the necessary sacrifices. His experience proves that American capitalism does not oppress the poor but rather allows for upward mobility granted hard-work and discipline.
The moral of the story is do not listen to everything you see or read - America is not an impoverished and oppressed society, but is still the awe-inspiring land of opportunity where the golden starred dream shines bright and high!
