Black poverty differs from white poverty

Washington Post ^ | 12 August 2015 | Emily Badger

[Jan_Sobieski]

Since we started the war on poverty in 1965, when the poverty rate in America was 15%, we have spent 19 trillion on this war and in 2015, the poverty rate is still hovering at 15%. 19 Trillion is virtually the same number as our national debt.

I vote we spend another 19 trillion on this war. I am certain that this will win the war!

[Pietro]

Moral poverty forges the chains that impoverish and enslave a culture for generations.

Perfectly put!

[Yaelle]

Is being rich then that much better for blacks?

Also, if a black family, a white family, a hispanic family and an asian family have an income of $100k a year, who enjoys it more? (Don’t say the government)

[trisham]

LOL!

[gr8eman]

The author of this piece (of crap) should be made to live in a real poor neighborhood...in Zimbabwe.

[sphinx]

The poor will always be with us. Excessive concentration of the poor causes a serious compounding of problems. How to spread the burden, break up the big concentrations, and move poor people to neighborhoods with job opportunities, better schools, and less crime is a legitimate question.

For another day.

For the moment, per the story, I find it curious that the spatial distribution of poor whites and poor blacks is so different. Poor is poor. Culture is important, but poor whites have the same tendencies to illegitimacy, alcohol and drug abuse, poor educations, and spotty job history as the poor of any other color. So why the difference in geographical concentration when one controls for income?

I wonder if the missing factor is length of unemployment/poverty. The analysis apparently looked only at poverty, defined presumably in terms of income, not long term dependency. It may be that the white poverty statistics are more heavily weighted by people facing temporary setbacks who will be back on their feet relatively quickly. That would help explain spatial differences. If you are out of work for six months or a year, you may get counted as poor, but you probably don't move in that time period (except to take a new job). If you haven't worked in 15 years, you are probably in the projects.

The rate of illegitimacy is also a factor. It is around 25 percent among whites (a catastrophe) and over 70 percent among blacks (an off the charts catastrophe). Single mothers and their children dominate our poverty statistics, and it doesn't matter if the baby momma's name is Tiffany, Maria, or Lakeesha; it's a trap that is hard to escapee. White are likelier to be married, and less likely to have illegitimate kids. That helps explain different rates of long term poverty, with its spatial correlates.

That said, the biggest difference between black and white poverty, I think, is that white people don't have a massive excuse industry telling them that they are helpless victims, that they are fools to try because the system is rigged against them, and that dysfunctional behaviors are culturally acceptable. A poor white person gets the message that he needs to shape up, and if he doesn't, he's just a bum. I'm not sure the same message is prevalent in the black community.

[Army Air Corps]

Grievance Industry response: That’s racist!

[Smokin' Joe]

It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores.

Then kindly keep this neighborhood cancer out of my neighborhood instead of metastasizing it with Section 8.

While there have always been criminal elements among the poor, it was my experience that poor whites tended to be from more rural environs.

Poor whites were more likely to ask for work rather than steal for sustenance, although where/when I grew up, poor blacks would ask for work, too (rural setting). It wasn't hard to pick out who was poor in those days (for starters, they were skinny), and many cash payments for jobs large and small were accompanied with gifts of clothing and shoes, offered with questions like "Do you know anyone who could use these things? I hate to just throw them out if someone can use them, and the kids/wife/husband don't fit in them any more."

Of course, that may have changed, and I cannot attest to how blacks treated other blacks in those environs, except to say that the vast majority of stabbings and shootings in the area occurred at night clubs with a predominantly black clientele.

Since then, the desire to be respectable has been replaced with the huge infusion of self-esteem which makes people think they deserve certain material goods or lifestyles without effort, and that anyone who lives with more or better does so at the expense of those who live with less. The idea that the 'pie' can be made larger so there is more for all is not even considered, and envy is milked like a prize dairy cow.

The idea that poor people could be honorable in their dealings, or that they can improve their lot simply through hard work has become socially unacceptable in some circles, and the thought that the poor would steal makes their situation less likely to be alleviated by offers of work from those with something to lose.

[SunkenCiv]

"Down With Jimmy Carter's Ethnic Purity Approach!"

[ichabod1]

They TRAFFIC in poverty!

[T-Bone Texan]

Drug dealing

[ichabod1]

It is estimated that almost 90% of all violent crime is perpetrated by blacks.

I can't buy that... the illegals are committing plenty too.

[Smokin' Joe]

I was made aware, decades ago of a generalized pecking order nearly like a caste system where African Blacks looked down on Caribbean Blacks who looked down their noses on American Blacks. To marry someone lower on the food chain would be like Royalty marrying a scullery maid.

The gentleman who told me of it first was from Tobago.

[Myrddin]

There is a difference. The poor whites don't spend their time committing crime, driving down property values and forcing rational people to move away from the criminal element. It is a self-inflicted problem. I live in a city with a median income of $30k. It's 93% white. Almost no violent crime (aside from the black football and basketball players at the local college doing a drive-by shooting on each other). Absent those two teams, the city would have almost no blacks. Property crime to support drug abuse is the most common variety. Most of those are quickly caught and redirected to the graybar hotel.

[Myrddin]

Moving violent blacks into neighborhoods full of armed whites is going to fill graveyards. It's a really bad idea.

[GeronL]

world ends

minorities hardest hit

[GeronL]

“Now there are tennis shoes on the power lines all around the park, and we all know what that means”

I’ve seen that, but I didn’t know it meant anything

[Myrddin]

The author is apparently unfamiliar with trailer parks.

My city is full of trailer parks. It's a consequence of Idaho liquor laws. The number of liquor licenses is based on population. Building trailer parks was a way to bump up the population numbers quickly. Today, they are full of classic white trash. My wife is a police/fire/EMS dispatcher. She can cite the names and recurrent criminal behaviors of many of the trailer park inhabitants. It's a regular Peyton Place. My wife tried to attend church when we first moved to the area. It wasn't long before she realized that she knew the dirt on nearly everyone in the ward. It's worse than being the ward bishop. Not at all a comfortable place to be.

[Chickensoup]

if you can, move now.

[GeronL]

We will always have a bottom 15%