Free Republic

Ferguson became a Selma-like moment for the 2010s – to the extent the stark images caused a nation to stop and reflect on the state of racial relations in America. Moreover, a new generation of activists, who were not weaned on the nonviolence of the Civil Rights Era, is coming to the fore. Ferguson, Mo. — Burly, with tattoos and a bandanna over his face, Anthony Pruit stepped up to the Missouri State Highway Patrol captain trying to cool the tensions that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., in protests and riots this summer. “We hurt, we broken, and we ain’t all criminals,”...

They are impoverished in industry and suffer from severe poverties of honesty, decency and shame. Their fake poverty is as fake as their concern for the poor No group has been hit harder by the Obama economy than American liberals. From Marin County, where bundlers have had to struggle to scrape together a few ten grand bills to attend Obama fundraisers, to Washington D.C. whose bedroom communities now have seven of the ten highest household incomes in the country, poverty is hitting poor rich little liberals really hard. In 2006, Alaska had the highest household income. But voters chose Obama...

When Republicans want to support their position that Americans have become dependent on welfare, they frequently point to the number of workers on food stamps. In 2012, Senator Rand Paul called the program “out of control.” In 2011, Senator Jeff Sessions told the Daily Caller, “There is no doubt, if this country isn’t willing to look under the hood of the food stamp program as we try to bring our surging debt under control, we are obviously not serious about what we are doing.”Paul, Sessions and their Republican colleagues are right that the number of food stamp beneficiaries grew considerably...

Consumer spending fell in July for the first time in six months, as Americans cut back on purchases of new cars and other retail goods, the government reported Friday. The drop in spending was a bit of a surprise: economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted a seasonally adjusted 0.1% increase. The growth in incomes, meanwhile, slowed to 0.2% pace in July from 0.5% in each of the prior two months. It was the smallest gain since December and also below Wall Street expectations.

Fifty years after the “war on poverty” was first waged, there are signs a new offensive is needed. Newly released Census data reveals nearly 110 million Americans – more than one-third of the country – are receiving government assistance of some kind. The number counts people receiving what are known as “means-tested” federal benefits, or subsidies based on income. This includes welfare programs ranging from food stamps to subsidized housing to the program most commonly referred to as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. At the end of 2012, according to the stats, 51.5 million were on food stamps, while...

Our current welfare system is clearly a mess. The federal government currently funds 126 separate anti-poverty programs, at least 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals. For example, there are 33 housing programs, run by four different cabinet departments, including bizarrely the Department of Energy. There are currently 21 different programs providing food or food purchasing assistance. These programs are administered by three different federal departments and one independent agency.  There are eight different health care programs, administered by five separate agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. And six cabinet departments and five...

One hundred ten million! That’s how many Americans now live in households that receive some form of means-tested welfare benefit from the federal government. According to a report from the Census Bureau released last week, that’s the highest absolute number in American history, and it represents 35.4 percent of the American population. Think about it — more than one out of every three Americans live in households that are now on welfare. Looked at another way, America’s welfare state now has nearly three times the population of the largest actual state. Because many of these households include more than one...

Count yourself fortunate, or something, if you’re among the 48 percent of Americans who can cough up a spare $400 in emergency cash without having to beg, borrow or steal. According to a Federal Reserve report on American households’ “economic well-being” in 2013, fewer than half of all Americans said they’d be able to come up with four Benjamins on short notice to deal with an unexpected expense. The report, released last week by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, indicates a disparity between how Americans view their financial situation and the reality of where their finances actually...

Dana Loesch on Monday shared the story of her upbringing, saying “poverty is a choice” and she knows “a thing or two” about it. “I spent my childhood in a house headed by a single mom, and sometimes, we would have milk, gravy and biscuits twice a day to save money,” Loesch began, filling in on The Glenn Beck Program. “I borrowed notebook paper from my cousin because we were pinching pennies. We didn’t have cable. We didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t have any of the stuff that kids today have. We rented a tiny house in a small...

Now and again, American inequality is on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable. But American-style inequality? We have plenty of that too, we’re just better at hiding it – as I say in my Telegraph column today. I came across a striking fact while researching this piece: if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and join the US...

The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often...

As the events in Ferguson, Missouri continue to unfold, a common excuse being offered for the riots and looting is poverty and income inequality. An article written by retired NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar outlines what he calls the reasons for a coming race war that stems from class warfare and systemic racism. The article was so full of liberal talking points and delusional distortions that I had to take a break after each paragraph. He, like others, claims that the rich are somehow holding back poor blacks in order to maintain control of their riches. He also claims the rich...

Economists say regional poverty trends are ‘alarming.’ Redlands-based economist John E. Husing issued a dire warning Wednesday, as elected officials from across Southern California pledged to reignite Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty: “If we do not solve this problem, we are not going to want to live in Southern California. The communities are going to become unhinged.” Husing is one of several economists who looked at findings from the 2012 American Community Survey and state Employment Development Department to find out where poverty is concentrated in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino and Imperial counties. Some of the results...

We all know the slogans meant to express empathy and solidarity: "We are Columbine." "We are all New Yorkers." "I am Trayvon Martin." The "We are Ferguson" messages have already begun, and we will likely see more. The well-intended connections seldom work. Most of us are not Columbine because most of us did not lose children in our community in a high school mass shooting. We are not all New Yorkers because only some of us experienced the aftermath of 9/11 at Ground Zero. I am not Trayvon Martin because I am not a black male. Are we Ferguson? That's...

109,631,000 Americans lived in households that received benefits from one or more federally funded "means-tested programs" — also known as welfare — as of the fourth quarter of 2012, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau has not yet reported how many were on welfare in 2013 or the first two quarters of 2014. But the 109,631,000 living in households taking federal welfare benefits as of the end of 2012, according to the Census Bureau, equaled 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the United States at that time. When those receiving benefits from...

A new study suggests that 25 percent of troops in active duty, Guard and the Reserve use food banks to provide groceries and meals for themselves or their families. The study sponsored by Feeding America, the nation's largest food bank network, is conducted once every four years and was based on data collected in 2012. It found that four percent of surveyed households who used a food bank contained a currently serving military member. Based on those results, Feeding America officials estimated that 620,000 of their 46.5 million customers, or about 25 percent of the military population in 2012, used...

Okay, So I know of a few people who are shall we say very Lower middle class who used to be Mid-Middle class until recently due to the wonderful economy as of late. I know they are wanting to prep, but are unable to make ends meet and I have been rotating out my own personal prepping stock to just keep them fed day to day. (don't worry I am not giving them expired food, just food that is nearing expiration). The question recently arose about if they should get an EBT card and use it to buy their own...

MADISON, Wis. – In the land of cheese and bratwurst, a surprising 740,000 Wisconsinites are worried about going hungry. A recent study by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health shows a significant portion of the state's population is worried about not having enough to eat. Lead researcher Dr. Javier Nieto said it isn't just a problem in the rural areas of the state. "We also found more than six percent of respondents in suburban, wealthier areas, also responding 'yes' to the question about whether families have been concerned about having enough food for their family in...

Despite the economic recovery, more than 46 million Americans — or one in seven — used a food pantry last year. And a surprisingly high number of those seeking help were households with military members, according to a new survey by Feeding America, which is a network of U.S. food banks. The — conducted in 2013 — found that almost 620,000 of the households using Feeding America services have at least one member currently in the military. That's one quarter of all U.S. military households. , who's president and CEO of the Maryland Food Bank in Baltimore, says she isn't...

Ferguson is not just about systemic racism—it's about class warfare, and how America's poor are held back Will the recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, be a tipping point in the struggle against racial injustice . . . By focusing on just the racial aspect, the discussion becomes about whether Michael Brown’s death—or that of the other three unarmed black men who were killed by police in the U.S. within that month—is about discrimination or about police justification. Then we’ll argue about whether there isn’t just as much black-against-white racism in the U.S. as there is white-against-black. (Yes, there is. But,...