The Mystery of "Poverty"

This post is going to be a departure from the social commentary I normal give voice to.  As I write this, world leaders, captains of industry, scientists, celebrities and plain ol" rich people are convening in Davos Switzerland,- the highest city in Europe based on elevation- at the World Economic Forum to talk about their"commitment to improve the world."  In an Age where people can't seem to engage in civil discourse organically or digitally, this decades-old effort to facilitate the meeting of the minds of the people who by some accounts can ostensibly unfracture a global community separated by a smorgasbord of ideologies, theories and customs is noble. In the meantime, billions of people are still living on the margins as trillions of dollars in assets, resources and innovations are rapidly changing the way the average person lives.

Phillip Alston, a United Nations Special Rapporteur who visited several parts of the country recently published a statement on extreme poverty in the United States of America. Part of his information was gathered from the US Census Bureau using a metric called the Official Poverty Measure (OPM).  The report disclosed that in September 2017, more than one in every eight Americans were living in poverty( approx. 40 million) and almost half of them were living in deep poverty with reported income below half of the poverty threshold.  I keep wondering why I can't just flush the image of the walking dead-homeless, destitute- you know, the invisible people that depending on where you live you try not to see, recognize or acknowledge.  I have read the caricatured narratives about the purported "innate" differences between rich and poor that has fueled an almost hatred for people who find themselves outside of the land of Richistan.

The rich are "industrious, entrepreneurial, patriotic and drivers of economic success.  Conversely, the poor are scammers, parasites, and a word our President is often inclined to say disparagingly, losers.  There is no context given to why and how millions of people in the wealthiest nation in the world occupy an almost existential state of crushing privation, destitution and hardship in the looming shadow of urban sprawl and Silicon Valley and Wall Street hyper-affluence.  Maybe the charlatan, televangelist Peter Popoff can do a national tour and give all of the impoverished a tube of his miracle spring water which according to his commercial magically allows people to make requests for envelopes of large, unearned checks to just show up in their mailboxes.  He seems to be a fixture on BET after midnight.  What does poverty look like?  Does it have an aroma, a language, a pathology or a zip code?  I think I have an awareness of this un-American state because far too many people who have followed the manuscript of the American dream are finding themselves a hair's breadth away from Brokeistan--a place void of the amenities we give no thought to until our incomes, lifestyles are disrupted by things like divorce, extended unemployment ( the average American is 3 months away from being destitute without income) catastrophic illness, disability or the untimely death of the primary provider.

By my estimation, regular folks have as many as 15 or more different expenses: Rent/mortgage, groceries, credit cards, ( yeah, they do) utilities, phone, car note or bus passes, car insurance, health insurance, dental, life, *student loans,( nationally at 2 trillion) cable tv, wi-fi, clothing, gas for vehicle, misc-if you have children you understand. John Maxwell said," A budget is simply telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went."  I love this quote but those living on the margins are stuck somewhere between an episode of Survivor and The Great Race in search of the money that they are supposed to be telling where to go.  All of that intellectual property in the form of forward-thinking innovators gathering in Davos seems to be far removed from the staff at the gas station I frequent every other morning to get my $1.82 cup of Chai tea.  A few of them are what I call the invisible poor.  They work at least two jobs, are not federally subsidized and genuinely aspire to partake in the fullness of life this country offers.  I know this because they are not invisible to me.  I know this because my daily routine takes me through the hedges and highways of those who will never have a place at the table of the World Economic Forum.  The 3000 or more invitees to this prestigious gathering won't include those who intimately know the nuances of economic despair and distress.  That is the great tragedy.