I just read an article about poverty in America:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166705/week-poverty-welfare-reform-bad-worse - the stats are truly staggering . I truly feel for so many people in poverty. I personally know how it feels to be a child in poverty. I guess I should consider myself lucky because I turned 18 in 1996, the same year that the TANF welfare reform was put in place. Now, many more families are in poverty and funding is being cut.
I feel that I understand both sides of this issue, because I can understand the government's point of view as well. Governments are in a financiawl crunch of their own. Many states are bankrupt and the Federal Government is nearly $15trillion in deht and sliding deeper everyday. So, they cut the poor because their vocal constituents say, "people should work for any money they get." Meanwhile, the US has lost millions of jobs.
What is the solution? We need to rethink our entire economy, starting with how we provide services to the poor.
I do not believe we need to raise minimum wage or simply hand out more cash. Instead, let's begin a discussion with housing. Housing stats were not addressed in this article other than the mention that spending cuts lead to more people being homeless.
We at America's Third Party propose a Homestead Renewal Program where people can build up government owned apartment buildings and houses they can then live in. In the long run this would save the government the money they are currently using on Section 8 housing. If we address the housing issue, the families would have more money in their pockets from the small jobs they do get.
We do also need to allow people to still receive subsidies (at least food stamps) if they work. I met an individual on SSI who wanted to start a home-based business, but was hesitant to do so because benefits would be cut from both SSI and SNAP.
The governments should have the various benefits agencies work together to find a way to encourage people to work. Perhaps, people who initiall qualify for food stamps and TANF or SSI should have $.50 of cash benefits cut for every $1.00 they earn until they receive less than $10.00 in cash benefits. However, they should still the same amount of food stamps until they receive less than $10.00 in cash benefits. Then, they should cut food stamps (perhaps dollar for dollar they make working) -slowly until the person no longer needs any governmental assistance (besides housing). We need to develop a way to encourage entrepreneurship if possible.
We lay out our solutions for housing further on our website,
www.americasthirdpwrty.com and in even greater detail in our book, Hybrid Capitalism.
