We live in the richest nation in the world, yet 37 million Americans live in poverty. They make up 12.7% of our population, the highest percentage in the developed world.
These numbers paint a bleak picture.
Under the Bush Administration 5.4 million more people have fallen below the poverty line. Despite the brief period of discussion following Katrina, this has mostly gone unnoticed. The debate around poverty has mostly taken place in the academy and has been lacking from the public sphere. Our nation is in desperate need of leadership on this issue.
Follow me below to see how two Democratic Presidential candidates have taken steps to fill this void and have brought the fight against poverty back onto the agenda.
Both former Senator John Edwards and Senator Barack Obama have each declared that they will seek to end poverty in America. After years of watching social spending being cut, these declarations will hopefully bring new visibility to the issue and put it back on the national stage at the heart of the progressive agenda.
In his announcement speech Senator Obama hit the right notes:
And as our economy changes, let's be the generation that ensures our nation's workers are sharing in our prosperity. Let's protect the hard-earned benefits their companies have promised. Let's make it possible for hardworking Americans to save for retirement. And let's allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country's middle-class again.
Let's be the generation that ends poverty in America. Every single person willing to work should be able to get job training that leads to a job, and earn a living wage that can pay the bills, and afford child care so their kids have a safe place to go when they work. Let's do this.
We all know of the Senator's skill with rhetoric, but has he shown the ability to turn words into action? According to John Bouman, the Director of Advocacy for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, he has. Bouman, who has worked on welfare and poverty issues in Illinois, discusses Obama's record as a State Senator at the DMI Blog,
In 1997, Senator Obama was the lead Senate negotiator on the bill to implement the Welfare Reform Act. In spite of the disadvantage of being in the minority party, he made sure that Illinois took advantage of state options to maximize work activity and help families. This included leadership to ensure that virtually all of the "welfare dividend" derived from reduced welfare rolls was reinvested in work-supporting investments such as the child care program and post-secondary student assistance programs.
He sponsored both the Victims Economic Security and Safety Act, which protects the workplace rights of victims of family violence and sexual abuse, and the ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In 1998, Obama was a leader in our state's adoption of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and in 2001, Obama led in building that program into the Family Care Program that now offers health coverage to the 400,000 working parents.
Senator Obama engineered an expansion of the state earned-income tax credit in 2000 and made the credit permanent and refundable in 2003.
In 2004, he sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, which has paved the way for a plan to implement a health care system for all Illinois residents. Find article
This record shows that he has already won battle after battle for economic justice all, especially working people in low and middle income families, and not just the healthy and wealthy. And now in declaring that he "wants to win the next battle for justice and opportunity" he's ready to take that experience to the national stage.
John Edwards' commitment to the issue is more well known. He has called for a national goal of eliminating poverty within 30 years, and much of his 2004 campaign focused on his two Americas theme. Since the last election, Edwards has continued his focus on the issue by becoming the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC Law.
On September 19, 2005 he gave a speech at the Center for American Progress titled Restoring the American Dream: Combating Poverty and Building One America. In it he displays real knowledge of the issue and makes the important connections between race and poverty, where many won't go.
The trouble is that for too many Americans — not just in the Gulf but everywhere — the American Dream has become too distant. You can see it in the numbers: millions of parents work full-time but still live in poverty. The typical white family has about $80,000 in assets; the typical Hispanic family, about $8,000; the typical African-American family, about $6,000.
"Income is what you use to get by, but assets are what you use to get ahead." This huge asset gap is one reason so many families are barely getting by. And again, it's not just the poor: middle-class incomes are stagnant, and more people file for bankruptcy than graduate from college each year.
He goes on to finish by appealing to our shared values and instilling a sense of urgency.
stand with me today and pledge to work for an America that doesn't ignore those in need and lifts up those who wish to succeed. Pledge to hold your government accountable for ignoring the suffering of so many for far too long. And pledge to do your part to build the America that we have dreamed of — where the bright light of opportunity shines on every person — an America where the family you are born into, or the color of your skin, will never control your destiny.
Ending poverty will take strong leadership which has been lacking for decades. Two prominent presidential candidates already having pledged to work for this goal is a positive step towards putting the issue back into the public discourse.