Re-thinking: The Face Of Poverty

NY Times

OAKRIDGE, Ore. — For a few decades, this little town on the western slope of the Cascades hopped with blue-collar prosperity, its residents cutting fat Douglas fir trees and processing them at two local mills.

Into the 1980’s, people joked that poverty meant you didn’t have an RV or a boat. A high school degree was not necessary to earn a living through logging or mill work, with wages roughly equal to $20 or $30 an hour in today’s terms.

But by 1990 the last mill had closed, a result of shifting markets and a dwindling supply of logs because of depletion and tighter environmental rules. Oakridge was wrenched through the rural version of deindustrialization, sending its population of 4,000 reeling in ways that are still playing out.

Many people excuse doing nothing about poverty because of the assumption that external improvements make no real difference. But if external changes can bring rising levels of poverty, external changes can bring lower levels of poverty.

But the key to reducing poverty isn't change, it's effective change.

Should we blame the government and politicians for laws and programs that are an ineffective waste of tax dollars?

Yes and no.

We have more power than we realize to influence government and politicians. Corporate lobbyists don't have to be the only voices your representatives hear. Visit Congress.org to see some of the ways you as an individual can influence your representatives.

Many public efforts taken to clean up poor urban areas are in fact efforts to clean areas of poor people. That's easier for people to accept in urban areas where it's assumed that the poor are that way by choice and are a morally deficient blight.

Expressed in 2005 dollars, the average pay for a full-time worker in rural Oregon fell to $27,600 in 2005 from $34,200 in 1976. Over the same period, average pay in urban counties in Oregon climbed to $37,800, putting the rural-urban gap at $10,200 and rising, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

Since this problem is systemic, the solution can't be limited to individual change. That means personal responsibility won't be enough to keep this rural-urban gap from continuing to widen. Technology should be a tool to give those in rural areas access, but that requires infrastructure.

And if you ever catch yourself sneering at the urban homelessness, read this San Francisco Gate article. (hat tip to Sinister Girl)

You never know if some natural or economic disaster will turn the tables on you and strip you of resources you assumed were permanent.

If nothing else, you can help by going through your pantry periodically and donating to a food shelf the non-perishables that you aren't likely to eat rather than letting those items sit there until they go bad.

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