photo by Lara Herscovitch
Forty percent of Americans cannot meet their basic needs. But you wouldn’t know that, listening to or reading most news outlets – almost no U.S. news organizations have made poverty a beat.
As an activist and full-time writer, my response – together with Joanne Goldblum, CEO of the National Diaper Bank Network – is Broke, a podcast we created earlier this year and which we co-host. (We’re also putting the final touches on a book with the same working title.) Our focus is on poverty in America, which we investigate and discuss with both wonkishness and passion. Listeners have been saying that we sound like two pissed-off, well-informed people who have known each other forever. And that’s pretty much on the mark.
Finding topics is never hard, particularly with the Trump administration constantly adjusting regulations to increase hardship for struggling families. Our latest episode, US makes cruelty the rule, focuses on changes to the so-called “public charge” rule. In short, the administration is aiming to punish immigrants who are in the country legally for accessing benefits such as SNAP and Section 8.
Acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli has called the rule change a deterrent to immigration. The administration acknowledges that it will hurt U.S. citizen children and cause real hardship. This is their calculation: ‘We want fewer people immigrating to the U.S., and we believe that making kids go hungry is an acceptable strategy to achieve that end.’
That’s evil. And we need to say so out loud.
Broke doesn’t focus exclusively on Trump or GOP policy. In the previous episode, we examined how Clinton-era changes to cash assistance continue to cause high rates of child poverty in the U.S. Before that, we dug into our country’s dirty little secret: one in three U.S. families cannot afford the diapers their babies need, which in turn causes both economic and medical harm. We investigated SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), including the question of why food assistance is always on the chopping block (and speaking of the chopping block, why healthy alternatives like fresh produce are always more expensive than unhealthy processed and sugary foods).
We ask each other, and our guests, lots of questions. Questions like, why is there so much judgement and stigma of people who are struggling financially? Why is there easy acceptance of government assistance for mortgage interest deduction or other tax rebates, but not for food and other basic needs? Why do so many assume that individuals receiving nutrition and other assistance aren’t working (when most are)? How, as a country, are we ok that there are so many hungry people here – including children in school?
Every episode includes suggested actions that listeners can take to push back against bad policy that harms families. Getting angry is the beginning, not the end. There’s plenty we can do, through direct action and through policy change, to advance economic justice. When I was born, the top tax rate was above 90%. Today one-percenters pay less than 25% in taxes – with a significant number paying no federal income tax at all. You can’t tell me that we don’t have the resources to end poverty.
Things don’t have the be the way they are. In much of the world, we manage to take care of people pretty reasonably well. This is the wealthiest nation in human history, we can do it here too.
Colleen Shaddox (Cohort 1) is an activist and writer who concentrates on poverty, immigration and mass criminalization; her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets. She also works for the Connecticut Health Investigative Team (C-HIT). Joanne Goldblum is founder and CEO of the National Diaper Bank Network, a former Huffington Post blogger and has had opinion pieces in the New York Daily News, U.S. News & World Report and The Washington Post.
To contact Colleen and Joanne directly: americanbroke@gmail.com or 203-508-0879
The subject of poverty is a critical area of complexity. However, the reality in America is that poverty is always with us. Should it be? Can we develop some agreement around what the alleviation of poverty would look like? Can we create some basis ideas that would ensure that people maintained a basic standard of living based on safe housing, nutritious food, and healthcare? Probably not! Real capitalist suggest the answer to these and other straight forward questions questions are – no – because in Capitalist society it would make people lazy. At least that’s the answer behind door number one. But, behind door number 3, business men/women are being subsidized with millions of dollars in cost overruns, crop payments, and contracts for profits well about anything not-for-profit organizations could make if they spend less than it cost to serve the needy. Interestingly, not-for-profit organization must return saving on the investment, but profit organizations get to keep money when they are efficient. Most of the times these days the people making the most money these days do not produce anything of real value, like a tangible product.
I admire your willingness to take up this conversation. Hope, others will help you grow the voices and make a better world.
Amos