Words'nTone

On Wednesday I had the privilege of speaking to a group of area caseworkers, the frontline staff to many of our local human service agencies, on the topic of poverty, welfare, and self-sufficiency.  Most likely I didn’t have to try to convince that (small) crowd of the need for government to provide a means to assist and help the poor and marginalized in our communities.  I didn’t have to spend time on that part of the issue, that side of the debate.  Although I have spent many a thread and posting here on the biblical support for community-wide, governing entity support for the poor (and will likely continue to set forth that biblical support), I am amazed at the lack of acknowledgment and understanding that there is a socioeconomic self-interest for all community residents in caring for poor and offering assistance to them within the framework of our government and social structure.  And if you don’t like the idea of self-interests here, stop utilizing the American socioeconomic framework and its constitution to support a christianized view that argues againt government assistance for the poor.  You can’t have it both ways.  For our form of government is propped up by its cousin, capitalism.  Capitalism is a form of economics that is built on the concept of self-interest.  Either you want capitalism’s benefits or you don’t—and if you do, then you have a self-interest in what happens to and with the poor.  It is not in your self-interest to allow the poor to remain poor, for the conditions of poverty costs.

While presenting data on the subject of poverty, I showed two sets of information that not only has implications socially and morally, but economically as well.

Children in fatherless homes are:

    
• 5 times more likely to live in poverty

    
• 9 times more likely to drop out of school

    
• 37% more likely to abuse drugs

    
• 2 times more likely to be incarcerated

    
• 2.5 times more likely to become a teen parent

    
• 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders

    
• 32 times more likely to run away

And if that’s not enough, here are some statistics on the relationship between children living in poor families and education.  Students from poor families are:

    
• 9 test points lower in average IQ scores by age 5
      
• 2.0 times more likely to have repeated a grade
      
• 3.4 times more likely to have been expelled
      
• one-third less likely to attend college

One would think a God-ward morality would be enough to demand that communities address these issues and hold accountable our government representatives on the matter of policy regarding poor children.  There is also an economic, and as well, a quality of life issue that face us through this data.  It is not in the best interests for any community to leave children who are in fatherless homes or children in poor families without addressing these issue withinto public support and with programs that would help alleviate and ameliorate these conditions.

Each of the outcomes from the data represented above have an economic cost that works againts our self-interests.  Not only is there a moral aspect to the conditions of children living in poverty, additionally, the future conditions indicated by this data suggests that we’d do well to have policies and programs that alleviate the barriers of poor children that prevent full, prosperous, healthy and productive lives.  And, our own self-interests (i.e., the furtherance of our own socioeconomic experience and quality of life in America) suggests that collectively we should support some form of government assistance for these populations.  There is a return of investment.  Of course I am not suggesting that individuals or churches should not be offering assistance, but that both are needed—required, really.  We should, collectively, through the mechanism granted to us through our form of government—voting, advocacy, and redress—support public policies that will ameliorate the conditions of poverty, especially fatherless homes, in order to address and remove the barriers that prohibit self-sufficiency.  We should advocate and hold our government representatives accountable for such policies.  You see, our self-interests is at stake here, yours and mine both, for not addressing the issues of poverty, especially as it relates to educational attainment and family life, will not benefit our socioeconomic environment, in fact it will cost it and remove potential for prosperity.

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This thread is continued for the next three days, for a total of four parts…

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