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“What is riskier than living poor in America?” Seriously! What in the world is riskier than being a poor person in America? I live in a neighborhood where people are shot on my street corner. I live in a neighborhood where people have to figure out how to get their kid into school because maybe it will be a good school and maybe it won’t. I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. There is a huge safety net that whenever you fail will catch you and catch you and catch you. Being poor is what is risky. We have to create a safety net for poor people. And when we won’t, because they happen to look different from us, it is the pervasive ugliness.” – Melissa Harris-Perry
ON MSNBC this weekend, Harris-Perry went off. One of her guests, Monica Mehta, billed as a business and financial expert, talked about the risks of entrepreneurship, something she felt was missing from Mitt Romney’s speech. Harris-Perry’s rant begins at around 8:15 in the clip above.
It’s important to add that in the last study done by the National Center for Children in Poverty, poor white kids lead the way in this tragic American reality.
The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) in the United States is $22,350 for a family of four; $18,530 for a family of three; $14,710 for a family of two. Utilizing research, the National Center for Children assesses that families need income twice the level of poverty to make it into the “low income” bracket: $44,700 for a family of four; $37,060 for a family of three; $29,420 for a family of two.
Hello Taylor. We have Columbia, MO and Steven’s College in common.
Melissa Harris Perry. And your blog. Just one thing. If your point is that there are more white people on welfare than Black people and that therefore welfare isn’t about Black people, you’re right. However I think the point might well be added that it is the Republicans hammering away at linking Black people to Welfare that is fueling the acceptance of their position that Welfare means lazy Black people. When I looked at the graph my response was that the percent of the population of each group also needs to be presented. What is the total population of Black people, of Hispanic, of White non Hispanic. So it is 35% of poor people are Black and Black people are 20% of the total US population. That gives a much truer picture. Thanks for taking this on. Eileen
Thanks for commenting, elderowl!
My point actually was just to broaden the definition of “people in poverty.” That it’s not only children, as well as African Americans, but also white.
No doubt about the welfare wink & nod.
All of what is posted about is true, but you can always drill down to specifics.
Thanks again, Eileen.
Cheers for Harris-Perry, and to the slowly but consistently growing attention, and open conversation, about the reality of poverty in this nation.
Many years ago, on a trip to Mississippi to visit a friend’s relatives, I went out for a walk one day and wandered into the wrong side of town. Of course it was on the other side of the tracks and all black. As someone in my twenties who had always lived in a northeast city I was unprepared for what I saw. People living in wooden shacks, children playing in mud filled streets, women doing laundry in pails outside their shacks. I was told later that their was no plumbing. I could have been in a shanty town in any dismally poor country in the world. I saw a similar, but not as bad example of being dirt poor in America years later in Ohio. In this small town one person owned the phone company, one person owned the power company and many of the residents had been cut off in the dead of winter for not paying their bills. Most of the townspeople worked in low wage manufacturing. Although many owned their own homes they were not homes most people would want; they were ramshackle, every driveway had a car sitting on blocks in various states of disrepair, the streets and sidewalks were falling apart and most houses had weeds growing on the small patch of earth out front. Most people lived paycheck to paycheck and their children looked malnourished. Healthcare was the emergency room. It was the 1970′s but it could have been the 1930′s. Of course Mr. Ryan would like to eliminate prenatal care and child nutrition programs in order to fill the belly’s of his rich friends. Perhaps one day the whole country will look like these two places. The idea that this is the richest country in the world has always been one of the great lies of the rich. It is not a rich country, there are just some very rich people who don’t like to share.
Poverty in this country must be addressed and I thank you for posting this Taylor.
For most of my life I have seen the face of poverty because of the work I was involved in. When I retired I made up my mind that I was going to tackle the poverty that I saw in my state. I didn’t have to go far to find it. I chose my church based on its location – right in the middle of poverty. For two years my husband and I have run Grannie Annie’s Kitchen. We have, along with my sister, been the primary funders of the kitchen. It’s open to all who want a great breakfast. Every thing is freshly made; I even use my grandfather’s pancake recipe. In the beginning I had about 10 people show up for breakfast; it is now more than 50 every Saturday between 8 and 10 am. Many families show up. I could tell you stories that would break your heart. I found out that many are living in their cars; a friend and I now scour the streets looking for people living in their cars because they have no where to go. I am involved with Family Promise and my church is part of a group of churches who take families in and put them up for a week at a time. We cook for them, help their children with homework and spend evenings socializing and listening to their problems.
I have many many children whose parents have lost their jobs and cannot afford a pair of shoes. Yesterday one of my guests who comes in every now and then to see one of my volunteers came up to me wanting to know about a young mother with 3 children. I told him I couldn’t tell him much because I didn’t want to violate her privacy, but that she was in need. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of bills saying, “Look, I’ve been coming in to eat every so often because it’s the best breakfast in town. You may think that’s funny because I am very well off but I love watching what you and your husband do.” He then handed me $200 and told me to give it to the mother but not to tell her who gave it to her. He didn’t want her to think he had an ulterior motive. When I handed it to her the tears wouldn’t stop. She told me she didn’t know how she was going to buy clothes and shoes for her children for school but now she could. (BTW – she works at a minimum wage job because the company she had worked for 12 years went out of business.) This man then came back and handed me another $200 and told me to give it to her and also told me he would come back to help out in the kitchen and other families. I felt as though it was Christmas.
Poverty is a real issue in this country and it is time we faced it in a humane way. It doesn’t take much for someone to lose their job, their home and their savings these days. It could happen to anyone.
Wow, Jane. Just wow. Very touching story.
Thanks for the great post, Taylor and the current statistics. I loved the rant by the way.
Reminds me of a time a few years ago when things were very tight. I had gone into a used bookstore in the town where I live and admired a book on Civil War Naval History. The owner told me I could borrow the book and I was thrilled. After awhile close to Christmas he said he needed it back because someone wanted to buy it. I took it back and told him I really loved the book but I had to feed my family so I couldn’t afford it. A couple of days before Christmas I got a call to stop at the store and when I did the owner handed me a wrapped parcel and said it had been left there for me. Inside was the book and a letter that I have to this day and can’t read without tearing up that said the a gentleman who had been in the store when I brought the book back had overheard what I had said and after I had left purchased the book and left it with the bookseller to give to me before Christmas, he said anyone who loved a book as much as I clearly did but needed to feed his family first deserved to have that book. He ended by saying pass a good deed on to a stranger. I have many times since then done anonymous giving to people clearly in need and always get a little misty eyed remembering that stranger and his gift.
Thanks for sharing your story, JA.
I’m sorry, but I really cannot stomach Melissa Harris-Perry. Everyone on MSNBC except Joe Scarborough acts like they work for the White House and the DNC, but Perry might as well wear a FORWARD OBAMA 2012 sash on camera. It would at least be honest. This woman goes into raptures whenever the President clears his throat, for christ’s sake.
But at least Perry didn’t commit the outrageous betrayal of journalistic standards that 18-year old kid who precedes her on the weekends, Chris Hays, did today. Hays had a “panel” consisting of five Democratic candidates for office to talk about a variety of subjects. What were their credentials for commenting on the important issues of the day- I mean, besides being the Dem candidate for Ryan’s seat in Wisconsin, the Dem candidate for the open US Senate seat in Maine, etc? NONE. They were there for free publicity, PERIOD. And this is not the first time that Hays has pulled this crap.
I know that if I want to hear “Obama stinks” 24/7, I can go to Fox. And if I want to hear “the Republicans are so stupid Obama is awesome” 21/7 (except for the Scarborough show, which is unwatchable on multiple levels) I can turn to MSNBC. I don’t want either- so I don’t have a lot of respect for any of them, thanks anyway.
Perry should just get a job in the White House, and make it official.
Agreed -Melissa Harris-Perry is a phony. But this notion about risks of entrepreneurship is interesting. What’s the biggest risk of leaving employment and going into business on your own? The risk nobody talks about- the high cost of health insurance. That’s the reason everyone is afraid to take a risk. And at least the DEms tried to do something about it. What did the W Bush Republicans do about this issue for 8 years? Nada.l
This is related to a point I was going to make – that one of the things that limits who can be an entrepeneur in America these days is that you can’t afford to be one unless you can buy your own health insurance. What’s worse, if you’re in any sort of professional business, you will have to provide your employees health insurance, too. Better hope you don’t have foreign competition.
For this and other reasons, the poor and the middle class will gradually be frozen out of such opportunities.
Curious why the Dems have not made this more of an issue. They’ve really dropped the ball on communicating why the middle class needed Health care reform.
“Perry should just get a job in the White House, and make it official.”
I wish she would….the Dems need someone other then Biden who won’t hesitate to call out the repugnantklan/teabagger/UBERChristian wingnuts for the dishonest hate fest that they spew 24/7/365.