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5/ TheBucknerClarion.com November 20, 2014 'Poor' Changes Faces More Working Americans Feel Poverty's Sting For most people, the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney two years ago is a distant memory. However, one thing that stands out is the fact that neither of them addressed poverty. In fact, the moderator, Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour, never posed any questions that mentioned poverty. Since then, to hear a politician— including the president—utter the words "poor" continues to be few and far in between. Here's why: It's a common belief that poor people don't vote. During the course of the 90-minute debate, President Obama neglected to mention poor or poverty and Romney inadvertently said the word only to backtrack and use a more vanilla term, "low- income." Consequently, perception about who society deems poor and who isn't continues to blur. The federal poverty line is $11,670 for an individual, $15,730 for a family of two, $19,790 for a family of three and $23,850 for a family of four. Society considers these people poor. However, individuals surviving at income levels slightly above are called the working class – and sometimes even lumped into the so-called middle class. Last year, the New York Times published a piece on the "near poor," or people whose incomes are less than 50 percent above the poverty line. This segment of society totals some 51 million Americans. If this is true, then more than 100 million, or one in three Americans, are considered poor or very close to it. Research data predicts that more than half of all Americans will experience at least one year of poverty or near poverty at some point during their working years. The poor and so-called middle class are no longer distant cousins. For working class and middle class people, normal life changes like unemployment, childbearing and health issues can be game changers. Dr. Donna Beegle, an expert who educates people about how to get out of poverty, has firsthand knowledge about the subject. In a recent gathering in Cape Girardeau, she shared her own experiences about climbing out of poverty, the negative perspectives people living in it can have and steps to overcome those feelings. Before becoming a speaker and author, Beegle struggled as a poor, single mother of two children, and dropped out of school only to end up homeless and drawing welfare benefits. "I used to think the people who were making it, they were so much better and so much smarter than me," she told the Southeast Missourian. "That's what poverty teaches you. That you aren't right. You internalize that. You start to believe it." Now, Beegle travels around the country teaching what is known as an "Opportunity Community Model." The model's goal, according to her website, is to create a community approach that bridges the gap between social service operations and the people who need them through a system of collaboration. The ultimate goal is to enable people living in poverty to realize their strengths and reach their potential for moving forward. "You have to admit that you have skills," Beegle said. "And you have to know people are willing to help. But you have to ask." To dismiss the needs of more than 100 million citizens is a humanitarian crisis regardless of where one sits politically. Unfortunately, dismissing the plight of the poor is the state of American politics. But it wasn't always that way. Politicians used to utter the word, "poor." In his third inaugural address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self- serving wealth." And President Lyndon B. Johnson took the opportunity on his first State of the Union address to declare "War on Poverty," enacting a number of programs that still carry modern day safety nets. Among them are the nation's By Tonia Wright community action agencies. Daniel Weeks published an article about America's growing poor in The Atlantic earlier this year. He writes, "Fifty years after Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty, tens of millions of 'second-class' Americans are still legally or effectively disenfranchised." He goes on to say that "members of the impoverished underclass" are 50 million strong. Nearly half, some 20.5 million, live in deep poverty on less than $12,000 annually for a family of four—the highest rate since record keeping began in 1975. Coupled with that are another 100 million citizens struggling to stay a few paychecks above the poverty line and fully half of the U.S. population is either poor or near poor, according to Census Bureau data.

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