A Surprising Cause of Poverty

Why are there so many more poor people in America?  And why are the rich making so much more money?  It seems, as some say, to be a classic case (whatever that means) of “the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.”  Certainly looking around in my own community it appears that there are some very rich people.  Just today I heard that a man in my old church made a net profit of about $3 million in just three years … doing something part-time. 

I actually know quite a few people who work part time (most of them not by choice).  But I don’t know any that even make a decent living wage, let along six figures or more.  Of course, this man was already wealthy, living in a gated community on a golf course.  So the adage seems true enough.  I mean there is always plenty of circumstantial evidence to support this claim that the rich are getting richer.  America’s wealth is getting more and more concentrated at the top of the economic food chain.  And poverty in our country is expanding like some kind of a mushroom cloud.

To be honest, I haven’t questioned the claims.  I just accepted them.  My own family is definitely worse off financially.  And I can see that my money went into someone else’s pocket.  But why?  What are the reasons for this?  What keeps Americans – who live in the richest country on earth - trapped in poverty?  What facilitates the transfers of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich?  For many years now, I’ve observed the world around me and drawn my own conclusions about why this might be.  

·        Executives in major corporations outsource jobs to third world countries like India & China.  This puts the people who used to do those jobs in the unemployment line or in the ranks of the underemployed.

·        Retailers, such as Wal Mart or Albertson’s, and restaurant chains, among others, refuse to give their employees more than 32 hours a week --- so that they can avoid paying for benefits for those employees.  They hire more people than they would typically need … but don’t give any of them enough hours to make a living wage.  So they are the working poor.  (It’s been widely reported that many Wal Mart employees qualify for food stamps!)

·        Automation has made process lines, among other things, more efficient.  Everyone from auto workers to bakers, even when their jobs aren’t sent offshore, still experiences reduced employment because technology eliminates many of their jobs. 

·        The Internet is changing everything.  E-mail is wiping out the postal service (and its workers).  On-line shopping is wiping out sales clerks, inventory clerks, and other retail support jobs.  On-line delivery of movies has decimated Blockbuster video rental stores across the country. 

I’ve quietly seethed about the injustice of it all, but smugly considered myself so clever to at least have all of this insight and understanding of the problem.  At times, I’ve day-dreamed about how I might fix it.  For example, I considered running for mayor and passing municipal laws that would require retailers and restaurants in my city to give every employee at least 40 hours per week (and have clean bathrooms).  I’ve also considered applying to be the CEO of a major corporation and moving jobs back to the U.S. from India.  But as it turns out, I really haven’t had time to do either of those things.  So I just smugly seethed.

The Presidential election campaigns may have finally “moved the needle for me.”  You see, I’ve been listening to people (other than me) rant and rave about the injustice of the plight of the poor and rich in our country.  Of course, most of them blame Obama.  (They seem to blame him for everything.)  There’s a verse in the Bible that admonishes God’s people to examine and test our ways.  The point is to examine our thoughts and test them against what’s really true and right.  So was my motive to examine my thinking on this subject and test it to see if I’m as wise as I thought. 

I’ve been doing some digging see if my thinking about that is correct.  And I’ve been surprised to learn that it wasn’t.  I’ve been wrong.  Very wrong, it seems.  You see, one of the leading causes of the exponential growth of poverty in America has not been what most of us have been making so much noise about (i.e., shipping jobs overseas, tax policy favoring the rich).  Instead, perhaps the single biggest factor has been the huge surge of low-wage immigration.

Now in my part of the country, we’re all used to seeing skilled Asians in top technology and financial services jobs, engineering, and even medicine.  I was in a meeting just last week and observed the number Asians in charge of the Americans even.  But it turns out that they don’t actually represent the majority of immigrants to the U.S.  Most don’t arrive on our shores with the engineering MBA in hand.  Most don’t graduate from our medical schools and decide to stay.

Since 1970, there’ve been almost 30 million immigrants welcomed to America.  An enormous percentage of them arrived here without any professional skills at all.  In fact, many lack even a basic education.  Statistically, they are three times more likely than native-born Americans to lack a high school diploma.  (This is despite the fact that about 25% of all Americans drop out of high school without a diploma.) 

Even before our most recent recession, they were 50% more likely to be poor than native-born Americans.  In fact, the best data available seems to indicate that even the great-grandchildren of low-skilled Latino immigrants continue to struggle economically --- three generations after immigrating to the U.S.  (Sources:  U.S. Census Bureau, Pew Study, U.S. Dept. of Education, CNN)

This isn’t Obama’s fault.  It’s not Bush’s fault.  It’s not Clinton’s fault.  It’s a trend that’s been consistent for more than 40 years.  In case you aren’t aware of it, 30 million immigrants represent about 10% of the entire population of the U.S.  I’m starting to understand the size of the problem a little more clearly.  Now if I could just come up with some solutions ... I could run for President!

(Sources: U.S. Immigration Bureau, U.S. Dept. of Education, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg)

Why the Poor?

Jesus said, "There will always be the poor among you." I've wrestled with that over the years. I wish He hadn't said it. I wish it weren't true. My gut has told me for a long time that it is though.

I recently heard a credible economist talking about the "bottom global billion." She explained that there are about a billion people in the world today who qualify as officially poor. They are the poorest of the poor, living well below the poverty level by any definition.

It appears that the "bottom global billion" is destined to become the "bottom global two billion." Sociologists and economists have noticed that the poorest people have more babies and reproduce more consistently. For some strange reason, when people become affluent, they stop reproducing. The wealthiest countries in the world seem to have the lowest birth rates. And the poorest countries in the world have the highest birth rates.

Now I've talked before about how God supplies most people with the personal and financial abilities to respond to the needs of others. If we all realized how God has blessed (i.e., equipped) us, and if we all used our resources to do God's will, hunger and poverty would be eradicated from the face of the earth.

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Jesus said there will always be the poor among you. But God has always had a plan for them. He wants you and I to take care of them. So if that was the plan all along, why do you think Jesus said what He said about the poor? I think it's because Jesus saw the future. He knew we would spend our money on gated, golf course communities. He knew we would spend our money on cruises. He knew we would spend our money on granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, updating mature homes, paying our kids' cell phone bills and buying cars we don't need to take us places we don't really need to go. Instead of helping the poor.

It seems that Jesus knew we would spend millions of dollars on dogs and cats. He knew we'd buy a stroller for our kitty and proudly prance around the neighborhood with her (like one of my neighbors did this week). He knew we would buy nail polish for the poodle and take the lab to a doggie spa. He knew we would pay for the collie to go to doggie day care so she wouldn't be lonely at home while we work. Instead of caring for the poor.

Jesus saw the future and He knew we would make it a priority to shop for new clothes often. He knew we would stuff our closets so full of clothes that we'd have to weed them out and empty them every once in a while. Heck, I bet Jesus even knew we'd have to have yard sales and garage sales to get rid of all the crap that piles up in our houses - because we're so busy accumulating stuff. Instead of helping the poor.

Oh I know. You'll get mad at me. You'll say I'm being mean. Someone will write and ask me who I am to be judging everyone else. Maybe someone will question my granite counter tops and my RV. (They'd be right.) But you see, I'm not judging. I'm observing. I see it in myself. I see it in my family. I see it in my peers, neighbors, co-workers and even in my church.

And don't talk to me about that bag of food you put out for the mailman to pick up yesterday. Or that money you dropped into the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas time. Don't tell me about little Juan in Peru that you sponsor for $30 a month. Those things make you feel good. And while they do some good, they will never eradicate poverty and suffering. And we both know that you are capable of doing considerably more than you are. (I am too!)

There will always be the poor among us - because we refuse to take care of them. It is that simple.

P.E.A.C.E. Plan

Rick Warren says there are five (5) giant problems in the world today – which affect billions of people in every nation. He calls them the “Global Giants.”

Spiritual Emptiness
Billions live without hope, and often in conflict. They don’t know that they’re not an accident. They don’t know that God created them for a purpose and that Jesus Christ died for them so that their past can be forgiven, that they can reach that purpose for living and that they can have an eternal home in heaven.

Self-Serving Leadership
Jesus said leadership is about serving, and if you want to be great, you must learn to be the servant of all. The goal of leadership is not to see how many people help you or what you can get, but rather to see how many people you can help and what you can give.

Extreme Poverty
Half the world lives on less than two dollars a day. Three billion people are in extreme poverty.

Pandemic Diseases
Billions of people are still suffering – and dying from disease that we have cures for. In many cases, these diseases are also preventable (see extreme poverty and self serving leadership above).

Rampant Illiteracy
Half the population of the world – three billion people – are functionally illiterate. That means they cannot read or write well enough to function in modern society.

Warren says that these “giants” loom so large that no one person or organization (including government) can provide significant relief. The United Nations hasn’t been the solution. Governments haven’t. Businesses haven’t. He says that none of these have the advantages that the church has. Warren points out that the church has the biggest distribution system, the most people, and the greatest motivation – love.

So he has developed what he calls the P.E.A.C.E. plan (this guy loves acrostics).

P – Promote reconciliation – to address spiritual emptiness
E – Equip leaders – to address corrupt leadership
A – Assist the poor – to address extreme poverty
C – Care for the sick – to address pandemic diseases and suffering they cause
E – Educate the next generation – to address illiteracy and lack of education

The P.E.A.C.E. plan is a massive effort to mobilize 1 billion Christians around the world – through their local churches – to attack these Global Giants.

Now each church and each individual is able to develop their own projects in the P.E.A.C.E. plan, building on their passions and skills. So a wide variety of things have been popping up. There seem to be common themes though. They look like this:

P – Promote reconciliation – to address spiritual emptiness – has centered on planting churches and para-church ministries to reach the unreached and unchurched.

E – Equip leaders – to address corrupt leadership – has centered on hosting seminars for church and other leaders with curriculum to cast better vision for their role as leaders.

A – Assist the poor – to address extreme poverty – seems to be centering around two themes. First there is temporary assistance for the desperate. It’s short term aid in a crisis, food for the starving, etc. Second, it is a “hand up,” teaching the poor how to be self sufficient and giving them the tools to become self-sufficient.

C – Care for the sick – to address pandemic diseases and suffering they cause – seems to be getting a little less traction because it is more complicated. There are certainly initiatives like medical missions, doctors without borders, etc. But we have not yet seen people at the grass roots level doing much to address preventable diseases by attacking the things that cause them. It will require safe drinking water, safe food, immunizations, education about risky behaviors, etc.

E – Educate the next generation – to address illiteracy and lack of education – seems to be centered on building schools where schools don’t exist for children. Again, this is getting less traction because it is more complicated. We don’t have teachers and mentors for the children. If the parents aren’t educated, then it is harder to educate the children – as there is no assistance from or partnership with the parents. (Many of the uneducated children have no parents!)

Okay, I agree with Rick Warren and I like what's going on so far in mobilizing churches and Christians globally. But I have some suggestions.

Promote reconciliation – certainly we can plant new churches to address spiritual emptiness. We can launch para-church ministries to street gangs, etc. But we can partner with existing organizations that address such issues too. We can see ourselves as peacemakers and engage in reconciliation ourselves. We can make sure our churches are healthy by making solid disciples of the people who attend them. We can make sure our churches are healthy by making sure our own church leaders are healthy.

Equip leaders – we can certainly train leaders better. But the corrupt leadership in the world isn’t corrupt from lack of training. We need to do more. We can start by being more intentional and responsible when we elect leaders at any level of government. We can pray for the leaders who are elected. We can forget the party lines and look for God’s chosen leaders in our governments. We can teach leaders how to fail - and make it okay for them to fail. We can pray for leaders in places where they’re not elected. We can work to hold leaders accountable. We can care about what leaders do. We can know who our leaders are.

Assist the poor – Jesus said, “There will always be the poor among you.” What do you suppose He wants us to do with them then? The Bible is clear that God expects us to help them. We are to sacrifice for them. When was the last time you made a real sacrifice for the poor --- instead of giving out of your excess? We’ll donate our old clothes, donate our old car, and donate our old furniture. But that’s not sacrifice; that’s giving out of our excess. What would it look like if we did more than that? Can you get involved in a micro lending program and risk some of your wealth to lend to the poor? Would you be willing to risk some of your 401K or IRA in such an investment?

Care for the sick – is going to require that we get our hands dirty. The sick are sick and dying from preventable diseases because of ignorance and indifference. Let’s face it. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone. There is enough water for everyone. But it’s not in the right places at the right times, and it’s sometimes contaminated. Could we provide clean drinking water to everyone in the world? Yes, technology enables that. But technology costs money. Money requires sacrifice. Clean drinking water, to prevent some curable diseases, cannot be provided out of our excess.

Educate the next generation – will require that we educate ourselves too! We must not be ignorant. We must value education. It seems many of our Asian cultures already value education more than most of us. When is the last time you read a book? When is the last time you read to a child? Can you volunteer with your community’s adult literacy program? Can you donate books to your local library? Would you be willing to become a school teacher? Can you mentor a child to improve their educational chances? Will you work for at-risk teens to keep them in school? Can you teach immigrants English as a second language?

I think Rick Warren has identified the Global Giants clearly. What is less clear to me is that Christians as a whole care enough about this – or are thinking big enough about this.

If we really believe that God, working through ordinary Christians in local churches globally, can save the world --- how big can our thinking get?