ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240018
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
ADVOCATES for the poor have been saying for years that public stereotypes of poverty are distorted and false. A recent study by an independent research organization, the Population Reference Bureau, confirms the complexity of the reality.
Guess what: Most welfare recipients are white and live outside of central cities. A third will lift themselves out of poverty within 12 months.
If it would be wrong, however, to assume that poor people are all unemployed minorities living in ghettoes and on the dole for generations, it also would be wrong to imagine that poverty has no relation to race or urban conditions, or that poverty is for all its victims a transitional phenomenon curable by welfare, if only the federal government would spend more on it.
True, the Population Reference Bureau's analysis of census data shows that poor white Americans outnumber poor black Americans by almost 2 to 1. Non-Hispanic whites account for 48 percent of the poor. And most people on welfare live in suburban or rural areas.
Even so, the percentage of black and Hispanic poor - 27 and 22 percent, respectively - is alarmingly disproportionate to their percentage in the overall population. And the most intractable poverty - where unemployment and the culture of poverty and transgenerational dependency are concentrated - is among minorities living in America's inner cities.
True, the study shows - contrary to the myth of able-bodied adults who aren't interested in working - that 50 percent of the nation's poor are children or are over 65 years of age. And most of those who are able-bodied are more than willing to work. Indeed, most do work. And the majority of those who receive welfare use it as it was originally intended - as emergency relief or transitional assistance.
Even so, there remains an underclass caught in a cycle of self-perpetuating poverty, crushed by social pathologies and largely alienated from the world of work. The stereotype of the welfare mother with a 15-year-old daughter who also is a welfare mother reflects a real problem, a real tragedy, that can't be wished away or hidden amid aggregate statistics.
The statistics do show that the poor in this country are of every race, every age and many circumstances. Some are suffering temporary setbacks, some are unable to help themselves, many are unprepared to help themselves. Black, white, urban or rural, they are individuals in individual circumstances, many of which don't fit the stereotypes.
They are, in short, our neighbors. This fact speaks to the need to eschew one-size-fits-all policies and to emphasize community-based strategies. It also suggests the need to introduce some semblance of understanding and compassion to the national dialogue about poverty and society's response to it.
The statistics do not, however, define poverty as simply a shortage of cash. Nor do they dismiss the reality that, for some of the nation's poor, culture and attitude block the exit.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 linesby CNB