Thanks

Joe

US poverty on track to reach 46-year high; suburbs, underemployed workers, children hit hard

The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net. 

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.

“I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I’m here, applying for assistance because it’s hard to make ends meet. It’s very hard to adjust,” said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.

Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz’s college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.

Now she’s living on disability, with an infant daughter and a boyfriend, Garrett Goudeseune, 25, who can’t find work as a landscaper. They are struggling to pay their $650 rent on his unemployment checks and don’t know how they would get by without the extra help as they hope for the job market to improve.

In an election year dominated by discussion of the middle class, Fritz’s case highlights a dim reality for the growing group in poverty. Millions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.

“The issues aren’t just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy,” said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, that created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.

“I’m reluctant to say that we’ve gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon,” Edelman said.

Stacey Mazer of the National Association of State Budget Officers said states will be watching for poverty increases when figures are released in September as they make decisions about the Medicaid expansion. Most states generally assume poverty levels will hold mostly steady and they will hesitate if the findings show otherwise. “It’s a constant tension in the budget,” she said.

The predictions for 2011 are based on separate AP interviews, supplemented with research on suburban poverty from Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution and an analysis of federal spending by the Congressional Research Service and Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute.

The analysts’ estimates suggest that some 47 million people in the U.S., or 1 in 6, were poor last year. An increase of one-tenth of a percentage point to 15.2 percent would tie the 1983 rate, the highest since 1965. The highest level on record was 22.4 percent in 1959, when the government began calculating poverty figures.

Poverty is closely tied to joblessness. While the unemployment rate improved from 9.6 percent in 2010 to 8.9 percent in 2011, the employment-population ratio remained largely unchanged, meaning many discouraged workers simply stopped looking for work. Food stamp rolls, another indicator of poverty, also grew.

Demographers also say:

_Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 percent for many more years. Several predicted that peak poverty levels _ 15 percent to 16 percent _ will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits, a jobless rate persistently above 6 percent and weak wage growth.

_Suburban poverty, already at a record level of 11.8 percent, will increase again in 2011.

_Part-time or underemployed workers, who saw a record 15 percent poverty in 2010, will rise to a new high.

_Poverty among people 65 and older will remain at historically low levels, buoyed by Social Security cash payments.

_Child poverty will increase from its 22 percent level in 2010.

Analysts also believe that the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the poverty level, will remain near its peak level of 6.7 percent.

“I’ve always been the guy who could find a job. Now I’m not,” said Dale Szymanski, 56, a Teamsters Union forklift operator and convention hand who lives outside Las Vegas in Clark County. In a state where unemployment ranks highest in the nation, the Las Vegas suburbs have seen a particularly rapid increase in poverty from 9.7 percent in 2007 to 14.7 percent.

Szymanski, who moved from Wisconsin in 2000, said he used to make a decent living of more than $40,000 a year but now doesn’t work enough hours to qualify for union health care. He changed apartments several months ago and sold his aging 2001 Chrysler Sebring in April to pay expenses.

“You keep thinking it’s going to turn around. But I’m stuck,” he said.

The 2010 poverty level was $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for an individual, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, believes the social safety net has worked and it is now time to cut back. He worries that advocates may use a rising poverty rate to justify additional spending on the poor, when in fact, he says, many live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

A new census measure accounts for noncash aid, but that supplemental poverty figure isn’t expected to be released until after the November election. Since that measure is relatively new, the official rate remains the best gauge of year-to-year changes in poverty dating back to 1959.

Few people advocate cuts in anti-poverty programs. Roughly 79 percent of Americans think the gap between rich and poor has grown in the past two decades, according to a Public Religion Research Institute/RNS Religion News survey from November 2011. The same poll found that about 67 percent oppose “cutting federal funding for social programs that help the poor” to help reduce the budget deficit.

Outside of Medicaid, federal spending on major low-income assistance programs such as food stamps, disability aid and tax credits have been mostly flat at roughly 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product from 1975 to the 1990s. Spending spiked higher to 2.3 percent of GDP after Obama’s stimulus program in 2009 temporarily expanded unemployment insurance and tax credits for the poor.

The U.S. safety net may soon offer little comfort to people such as Jose Gorrin, 52, who lives in the western Miami suburb of Hialeah Gardens. Arriving from Cuba in 1980, he was able to earn a decent living as a plumber for years, providing for his children and ex-wife. But things turned sour in 2007 and in the past two years he has barely worked, surviving on the occasional odd job.

His unemployment aid has run out, and he’s too young to draw Social Security.

Holding a paper bag of still-warm bread he’d just bought for lunch, Gorrin said he hasn’t decided whom he’ll vote for in November, expressing little confidence the presidential candidates can solve the nation’s economic problems. “They all promise to help when they’re candidates,” Gorrin said, adding, “I hope things turn around. I already left Cuba. I don’t know where else I can go.”

___

Associated Press writers Kristen Wyatt in Lakewood, Colo., Ken Ritter and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami and AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

The following is a video shot in Haiti 2011.  My intention is to have us reflect on the depth of poverty in other places in the world compared to its extent here.  To watch this video, click “Read More”.

As Jesus helped people, He offered them constant access to His exclusive nature and belonging into His exclusive kingdom.  This is what was so offensive about Him that His enemies wanted to see him dead.  Answer this question: Were Jesus’ enemies His enemies because they just loathed a guy who helped heal, feed and take care of people? Of course not.  The reason they considered him an enemy is because he did all of those things with the motive of seeking to save the human race from eternal death through an exclusive belonging; claiming to be the only way to heaven. Thus, claiming all the power in the universe. People really don’t like being told that they have to answer to someone else.

For Jesus, his offer of exclusive belonging was backed by many incredible and amazing miracles.  Those who were helpless found help, the weak were made strong, the strong were humbled, the rejected were accepted at his parties, the sick became healthy, and the hungry were fed.  To top it all off (as this were not enough), emotions of some really messed up people like the woman woman of ill repute, Peter the hothead, Matthew the tax collector and Nicodemus who was too good to be seen with him in daylight, were refined as the these people grew and matured into amazing Kingdom leaders.  The woman would fund Jesus’ ministry, Peter would become the first recognized leader of the church, Matthew would use his knack for details to record the accounts of Jesus’ life for all of history to read, and Nicodemus would bravely step forward to help remove his dead body from the cross when most others had fled in shame.  These were just some of the many who experienced such amazing life change through a very exclusive God and Savior.  Jesus had the credibility to bring this exclusive message of life change because His lifestyle of caring for the helpless backed up his words of conviction.   What is the reason all of these mentioned people changed?  Because at some point, they saw themselves as helpless, no different from everyone else.  They saw that the poor and hungry who He was ministering to were just like them.  While others may have been physically hungry, they were spiritually hungry.  While others were physically bankrupt, they were spiritually bankrupt.  Jesus working as intentionally as he did with the helpless revealed that we are all helpless because of sin’s brokenness.  The physically broken didn’t need a reminder that they were already broken, they knew it. I believe that this character quality was really attractive to the woman, Matthew, Peter and Nicodemus as well as many, many others that would pledge loyalty to Him as King and Savior of the Universe.

Do we as the church offer this same message of exclusivity with the kind of integrity that Jesus backed his offer with?  This is the question that was plaguing me for years as I served in the ministry vocationally.  I could see that the needs of the helpless were deep all around me.  In fact, I didn’t have to look too far to see the effects of a broken society manifested through the poverty, addiction, entitlement and apathy towards humanity in my community, but I had to search really far to find Christians in my church who were actually in ministries that did something about it.  I had to search even farther for church staff who did something about it.  I was discovering that working in a church really wasn’t about working the way Jesus did.  It was more about creating the most attractive venue as possible for people to learn about God.  Ninety nine point nine percent of the time, it was about creating the most attractive venue for people who already had resources and didn’t appear to be broken.  Don’t get me wrong, I spent many years working alongside gifted, dynamic and talented people (staff and volunteers alike)  in the church.  We invested the majority of our time, efforts, and money into the ministries that would make the church stronger on the inside with the expectations that people would be drawn to who we were because of what we were doing.  I believe the conscience intentions for many were pure.  From the nursery to the pulpit and everything in between,  the music, the lighting, the technology, the ushers, the kids’ classes, existed to provide the best experience possible for people to find God.  When all of these factors came together, they culminated in an event (Sunday worship) that gave us a platform for sharing an exclusive life changing message; Jesus is the only way to heaven.  However, results still happen regardless of intention, just ask any court of law.  Therefore, I couldn’t escape the reality of result that the platform that Jesus used to convey His exclusive message looked nothing like what we were being paid to do. To me, this was really offensive especially considering I have been commanded to “teach them everything I have taught you?”

I often think about the ways in which God could have chosen to have Jesus deliver His message that would have made Him look more like us in postmodern America.  I suppose if it would’ve been our way, we would’ve created a scenario that placed Jesus into a powerful family, sent him to the finest in seminary education, and prepped him to not only lead spiritually but be the recognizable face of the church.  After all, He is the Son of God.  We may have also chosen a different time in history to send Him as well.  We probably would choose our time; after all, we do live at the pinnacle of growing human technological achievement that provides incredible connectivity among the nations. What was God thinking?  With internet, tv, and air travel like we have today, we could really market Jesus well (much better than He did Himself) and make Him so much more recognizable to every household than He was then.  We could hire a church marketing rep that could really take us places with brand recognition.  Think about it…. the people of Jesus’ day didn’t have the power of the face that we do today.  All we would have to do is get a picture of him, upload it to Google and tag it as Jesus Christ, and the face recognition technology would take care of the rest.  Every Google image search with His name would provide a return.  This would provide an incredible venue to monetize and use the money for the church (after all, we are a non-profit:) marketing budget.  Once it was a done deal, we could get a logo made (a nice clean, slick one too, like Apple makes for apps…. wait, we could do an app!), we could put that logo on a t-shirt, lunch box and bumper sticker! We could have Him author a self-help book, preach on tv, book a spot on Oprah (I don’t think she’s still on through), align Him with top political authorities and make sure that cameras were rolling when He took relief trips to the Sudan.  If I had my way, I would find a network producer and get a reality show to follow Him around because as we all know, Hollywood is the most influential mouthpiece for anyone in the world.

I once had a history teacher tell me that every educated child in the world knows what the George Washington looks like because of the one dollar bill.  This too got me to thinking….  we could’ve put His picture on money! After all, we are America and our dollar is world renowned in recognition!  That reminds me: I was working at Kmart once in high school and was walking through the automotive section when I noticed what appeared to be a folded 20 dollar bill sitting on a shelf.  I eagerly grabbed it, unfolded it and discovered that it was a fake… someone from a church had left it there, hoping to witness to someone like me.  The inside of it contained a message about why I should feel bad for wanting the money and not Jesus.  Sigh.  If you have ever fallen victim to this method of “witnessing” then you know that someone has already tried to put Jesus’ face on the money (no really, His face was on the fake 20).  Another sigh.   Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that we have invented all kinds of ways to market Jesus in our society to make Him and His exclusive message as attractive as possible to the masses! If we had our way, John the Baptist would have never doubted in prison that He was the one who He said He was, because the marketing and media influence would constantly be there to remind Him of the truth! (Prisoners have tv today, he could’ve seen it on tv… you get it).   While the Bible clearly states that God chose “just the right time” to fulfill His plan through Jesus (Titus 1:3, Gal 4:4, Romans 3:35-26, 5:6), we weak people have subconsciously wandered and have come up with what we see as better ways that run in accordance with our time or we wouldn’t have created the marketing machine of consumer church that we are so familiar with as a society today in America. While we have spent millions on catering to members’ requests of music preferences through staffing and stage production in the name of excellence, Jesus was catering to those who couldn’t walk, hear the music, or see the production and didn’t have a penny to give.  I told you it was offensive.

If Jesus’ exclusive claims backed by His works made Him offensive then then I thank God for the potential the church has to be offensive (Mark chapter 6:6-13).  Furthermore, we are then considered blessed because of our devotion to Him and our faithfulness in walking as He walked. However, if His exclusive claims are attempted to be manifested through a collection of His followers who choose the human power of marketing a message, consumer supply and demand and preservation of denomination, church staffing, buildings and styles instead of the above mentioned, then we are are to be considered frustrated (which is what happens) when these values become threatened. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Do you belong with fellow followers who seek the street credibility of Jesus or those who seek the credibility of each other?  Either way, what are you prepared to do about it?

TAKE THE REALLY SHORT SURVEY HERE:)

God’s word expects us to be people who help the helpless if we are to follow Jesus.  It isn’t optional and its not something set aside for your church’s missions team.  It is commanded. Painfully, I’ve discovered over the last few years that here in my little community (which may not be too unlike yours), helping the helpless can be grueling work.  At first, to most Christians and church volunteers, the idea of local service projects to help the community and the materially poor sounds exciting and fun.  This is usually the reaction I get from people who are seeking to help in our ministry for the first time. After all, they recognize, like I do, that Jesus spent most of his time among those in need proclaiming His kingdom.  At the same time, that stuff we see on Extreme Makeover Home Edition and the volunteers serving Thanksgiving Dinner on the 6 o’clock news every year can be very emotionally and spiritually convicting.  Or what about the guy on the infomercial standing on the garbage dump in Africa asking you to sponsor a child?  This stuff moves us.  So, if you’re like me and every re-run of Ty Pennington saying “Move that bus” still makes you cry, you probably have at one point or another thought, “Hey, I’ll call my pastor and see what we can do as a church to help those in need!”  This is the exciting and fun part.  I have been there… When an idea to start helping people begins to materialize and we get to experience God’s working among those in need, it can be addicting.  We love this stuff!

These events are great, spiritually strengthening experiences that stick out people’s memories.  We bring our cameras, show a presentation on Sunday about it, and even get some testimonials from those who participate.  If the event becomes an annual tradition, its even better because now we have a missional moment to look forward to in our spiritual lives.  Sometimes though, the pastor or ministry leader of such events has an idea to have the one time event turn into a daily, weekly, or monthly routine.  When this happens, you are amazed because you had no clue that that one idea that you had months and months ago could manifest into such a great opportunity. However, you discover in process that finding church volunteers and leaders to commit to long term helping of the needy is a lot more difficult than just asking for once a year hammer swinging or mash potato scooping.   This idea requires a willingness of commitment (a tough virtue to come by anywhere these days) that can best be described as not glorious.  The one time events evolve into committed ministries of outreach, there is no longer Ty Pennington, no news stories, no infomercials, no more cameras, testimonials and no more announcements from the pulpit.  To top it off, you discover the most difficult part of all; you begin to really get to know the people that you are serving and their burdens become yours. The  more they share, the more you learn about them, just like any other relationship you have ever had.  You become stunned by each different scenario of addiction, dysfunction and mental illness that has lead to each different need. You don’t want to become jaded or bitter, but it gets hard to see them with the same eye of compassion that you had when this all first started.  As more and more is revelaed, you begin to realize that a lot of the materially poor in America really aren’t that poor at all.  You discover that many of the people you are growing to love are squandering precious resources of assistance available to them.

This very discovery becomes so disheartening.  Is the church to stop trying and jsut let public assistance programs do its thing?  What about the New Testament?  What abou the people of the first century, the followers, the apostles?  What about Jesus?  What are God’s people to do?

Have you noticed something?  Every Sunday in America,  families and individuals are waking up with a different kind of mission than going to church.  You may first think about the quest for unending recreation and entertainment, but there is a mission of something else as well.  There are many who are on a mission of treking to the local soup kitchen for the free meal of the day.  This isn’t a mission that is confined to some large urban areas either.  I live in a mid-American, mid-Ohio small city of approximately 30,000 people and have had the opportunity through my employment to work with people like this everyday.  I have discovered that while I have worked inside the church for many years, these people have lived this way for over three generations, all here in our small town.   Simultaneously,  our town has been positively impacted by the interdenominational thousands of Christians who have met in their places of worship over that same span of time.  We are mid America, you know, the fly over town.  We aren’t entrenched in the urban sprawl of fast living, and we aren’t isolated from our neighbors either. We are a small city trying to collectively make the most of things that don’t make sense to us.  One of those things that plagues us everyday, is a resounding reality that keeps bearing down on us more and more as time goes by; Our population is relying upon the benefits of food stamps, free and reduced lunches, welfare, medicare (now known as CareSource where we are), supplemental housing and unemployment checks just to live.

Is this just a perception or is it a reality?  If it is a reality, what responsibility, culpability, and role does the church have in the midst of a struggling people?  What we need to look at very deeply is God’s design and expectations of the church according to the New Testament and weigh them sharply against the design and expectations of the church today among the people here in our small city.  Do the people of our city have the expectation that the church exists to bring the kind of hope to the streets as seen in the New Testament (something we will look at in detail throughout these entries), or the do they have the expectation that the church is something else?  If it is something else, then what?  If its the “something else”, then we obviously need to address it. I am of the opinion that its something else, but my opinion is just that, an opinion.  I base my opinion off of the conversations, interactions, and events that encounter daily with my neighbors, educators, co-workers community leaders, and community residents that I have privilege of meeting in our Outreach Ministry at Parkview.  I also base my opinions on the conversations that I have with Church members over the course of the last decade or so.  I want to see if my understanding of scripture is wrong, therefore my opinions too.  I want to seek deeper the thoughts of those around me to gauge not only where they and I think we are at in our understanding of the church’s role in a hurting world, but what the unchurched community around me thinks of this, as well as the Christians involved in other church denominations outside of Parkview. Last but not least, I think it is vital to hear the stories of dedicated Christians abroad as well so that we can gain insight in their way of living compared to the New Testament. We are not in a bubble here in Wooster, our State, the Nation and the world is rapidly changing and we must not be ignorant to the church’s role in all of it.

To accomplish this it is going to take time… I will be figuring out how to put together an unscientific survey (did you expect a scientific one from me:) that is easy to complete, and gets right to the point.  One that is not too lengthy (come on, I’m not the Barna dude), but tries to give everyone a chance to voice their opinions on how we see the problems of post-modern Small City America versus the solutions offered by God in the Bible.  The survey will be offered online as well as offered at local service events that I will be volunteering at throughout this summer.  Looking forward to keeping the discussions going.  What do you think?  Are there any questions that you would like to see me put on the survey? Don’t be afraid to comment or let me know.  Have a thought on this topic?  Email me at jjrubino@gmail.com

You know what is really hard about trying to help the poor in our country…. specifically here in Wooster?  What is really hard is that I have met very few among our poor neighborhoods that think or believe that it is possible to be even poorer than what they are. They think they are on the bottom of the totem pole. I know this sounds harsh, but keep it in perspective.  We are a privileged people in a privileged land that provides checks and food to those who don’t work, can’t work, are disabled, or even to those who choose not to work. In comparison to Christ, we have a lot. When we consider the plight of those in Haiti, our poor are really rich.  With that said we can always remember that Christ “considered himself to be nothing” for our sake.  In giving up his privileges, He was able to provide more, for the empowerment of all who choose to follow.  Our people are suffering from an oppression of benefits and entitlements that have blurred the line of want vs. necessities.  This means that we as the church are in a really tough spot in doing our best to reach the poor: Continue to support the system that enables or revolt through obedience to the scriptures so that we can learn to empower as He empowered.  Stay tuned.