THIS GUEST BLOG POST IS A MUST READ FOR PEOPLE OF EVERY RACE, CREED AND COLOR *
"COMBATING THE POVERTY CRISIS IN BLACK AMERICA"
IS A RE-PUBLISHED PIECE BY POLITICO VOCALIST
+ AUTHOR OF "ME & MY BROKE NEIGHBOR" BRANDALE RANDOLPH
Combating the Poverty Crisis in Black America
While the recently released figures by the US Census Bureau under state the magnitude of the crisis of poverty in Black America, there are immediate solutions.
The US Census Bureau has just released its annual figures on poverty in the US.
(Download the census data here) While headlines everywhere scream and point toward the overall figures of a record 43.6 Million Americans living below the poverty threshold, there is very little focus on the poverty crisis among African Americans.
Out of the 43.6 Million Americans living below the poverty threshold 9.9 million of them are African American. Before we dig deeper into that we need to establish how poverty is being defined by the Census Bureau. The Poverty threshold figures are as follows and apply only to households under the age of 65.
Poverty Threshold for 2009 by Size of Family (Appendix B)
One Person $11,161
Two People $14,787
Three People $17,282
Four People $21,832
Now let’s recap, 9.9 Million African Americans don’t even meet the above poverty thresholds. As stated in
last weeks post, an overwhelming and growing number of African Americans are among the working poor. In other words, because of many of the factors mentioned in that post many African Americans whom are not considered to be living under the above poverty thresholds are struggling to make ends meet.
The next chilling statistic found in the report is the data related to median household income. Median Household income is different than the average income. The average is when you add everything up and divide by the number of people. Obviously, the presence of billionaires and millionaires would throw these figures off. Therefore, the Census Bureau uses the ‘median’ to get a sense of the normal income for African Americans. The figure is just as upsetting.
African Americans have the lowest median household income of among all of the races in the United States. The median households for other races are as follows.
Asians: $65, 469
Whites (Non Hispanic): $54,461
Hispanics: $38,039
Blacks: $32,584
Two more troubles statistics also came from this report. First, a whopping 67.9% of African American Households have incomes of less than $50,000. And once again, according to figures in my last post, it takes slightly more than $50,000 to raise a family in many of the metropolitan cities here in the United States. Of the 67.9% of African American households who don’t earn at least $50,000 in annual income, 23.5% of African American households don’t even earn $15,000 per year.
To put that in perspective, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Working a 40 per week job at $7.25 per hour for 52 weeks will be approximately $15,080. Yes, just earning minimum wage for a 40 hour work week is a struggle for 23.5% of our households.
That was me being the thermometer, now I will shift gears and become the thermostat. Lets change the temperature.
How do we as a people fix the crisis of black poverty in America? We have to effect a three prong approach.
The three most immediate ways of fighting African American poverty are:
- A renewed focus on formal education
- The pursuit of 21st century jobs & Career training
- Frequent exercising of our collective local voting power
Education
The discussion on the eradication of poverty begins and ends with a renewed focus on education. Though higher education is not a guaranteed ticket out of poverty, there are no statistics that indicate that formally educated African Americans suffer poverty, unemployment and incarceration at the same rate as undereducated African Americans. All of the recent reports, indicate the exact opposite. As race, we need to make formal education a renewed priority in our homes and communities.
In the coming weeks, several of my colleagues will be speaking on public education reform, please be sure to read and review all of the related post on the subject.
The Pursuit of 21st Century Jobs and Career Training
Many of the jobs and places of employment where our parent and grandparents found work are gone. Now is the time and the perfect opportunity to invest and focus on retraining for obtaining the jobs of the future. The new ‘green economy’ has not hit much of America yet. While there are those who would rather have us blame illegal immigrants for ‘taking our jobs’ , many of those jobs are not the kinds jobs that we as a race should desire. As a matter of fact I would argue that we should get ourselves in position for careers in clean energy, sustainable living & construction, mass transportation, multimedia communication and health care. We are and can be qualified to engage in these careers once they hit our economy.
Exercising our local Collective Voting Power
Yes, using our collective voting power is a tool that can effect change in our poverty rates. Immediate changes in the two areas mentioned above can be made if African American got serious about their voting power. While we focus too much on the president and what Washington is doing, many African Americans are not holding our local politicians accountable for the present state of our communities.
Do you want to see real public education reform in your community? Imagine 15,000 angry parents in a local school board meeting threatening to oust the entire school board during the next election, if changes are not made to the local public school system.
Do you want to see more 21st Century jobs and facilities for 21st century jobs made available in your local community? Organize a phone-a-thon to your local city councilmen in which he is questioned about the federal stimulus money that was supposedly dedicated to create jobs in your community.
We have a very long way to go to deal with the poverty situation here in America, the quickest way to get moving, is not to continue to go in the same direction.
