This is perhaps the greatest challenge now facing our society. What were the multiplier effects of federal expenditures? One Nation, Pulling Apart - - About. Poverty in America Today. The United States is a nation pulling apart to a degree unknown in the last. A decade of strong national economic growth in the 1. The unemployment rate increased a lot during the great depression. People who lost their jobs could not feed themselves, pay their rent, and support their family. This forced families together. Is Poverty Still Falling in Venezuela? Part of the government’s thinking on poverty was influenced by new research on the effects of. The Head Start training and technical assistance system was redesigned to support programs through six National. The Great Depression and the New Deal. The New Deal programs would employ and give financial security to. Blacks in the Depression and the New Deal. The Great Depression of the 1930s worsened the already black economic. The following is the first in a series of excerpts from “Rebuilding America” to be featured on HumanEvents.com. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice. Many Great Society programs are now so popular it is hard to imagine the country as we know it. Other Great Society initiatives are being whittled. As a historic civil rights law marks its 50th.America's communities falling far behind median national measures of. Despite the investments in transportation and public. Income. inequality is on the rise. The number of communities falling behind the. This tendency has been most pronounced. American economy. According to our estimates in 2. These. communities are located in timber, agricultural, and mineral and energy. Deep South including the. Mississippi Delta, the eastern coal belt of Appalachia, historic New Mexican. Native American communities, and along our borders. More recently, newly. At a smaller spatial scale, communities in persistent. Washington, DC, Detroit, Michigan, and. Los Angeles, California with limited job opportunities, high levels of poverty. The problem of persistent poverty is a complex one that includes communities. People at risk. are women, children, and people of color, single- parent families, and the. Large numbers of the nation's citizens live at or below the poverty. How can the richest country in the world still. Today, as a nation, we are significantly different than we were in 1. We are a more diverse population and a more. Certainly progress has been made over the intervening forty years in terms. If. anything, the gap between the economically secure and the poor is more severe. Increasingly, the nation is composed of persons. In many families today, children cannot say they expect to be. This is perhaps the greatest challenge now facing. Forty years ago, public officials took a stand against economic. For a short period of time we made huge strides in reducing. America is again facing this serious challenge. Once again. we can make a difference if we choose to look this issue in the eye and invest. Project Summary. This accelerated research, data development, and distribution research. The meaning of distress can move from the abstract. By combining statistical analysis. This project has reexamined community social and economic conditions. The work was developed at a highly spatially disaggregated level. The Spatial Distribution of Distress: Several reports examine the following. What explains the level and persistence of economic distress over the 1. Are explanations for persistent distress the same or similar for longstanding distressed locations versus new entrants? Are there obvious differences by region and by state? Do these differences persist or change through time? Are there substate regional spatial trends in the incidence of long- term economic distress? Have the patterns changed through time? Does changing spatial scales highlight additional patterns of economic distress, such as that found in urban areas? Policy Assessment and Evaluation: six reports provide details on the following questions: To what degree was the historic policy problem of economic distress understood empirically and at what level of detail? To what extent and how was policy shaped by differences in perceptions of the problem between the President and key members of Congress? To what extent has welfare reform by default shifted the level of responsibility for economic distress alleviation to the state level? What room, if any, is there to reformulate existing economic development policy to function with a greater sensitivity to persistent distress and new manifestations of distress over time? The Impact of Federal Funds. To what extent is there an historical spatial bias in expenditure levels based on size of population concentration and remoteness, economic base, region, and ? To what extent did federal expenditures vary both across place and time and in what ways? What were the multiplier effects of federal expenditures? Were some places more likely than others to draw private sector expenditures in conjunction with federal dollars? To what (if any) extent were federal expenditures correlated with changes in economic distress levels over time? Are there obvious differences in the effect of expenditures based on the type of and timing of investment? Work in this project has lead to the following deliverables: Extensive new analysis of the changing patterns of community economic distress that will show that we now live in. Wealth and Poverty. Questions surrounding the biblical perspective on wealth and poverty are important to Christians for two reasons. First, a biblical view of wealth is necessary if we are to live godly lives, avoiding asceticism on the one extreme and materialism on the other. Second, a biblical view of poverty is essential if we are to fulfill our responsibilities to the poor. The popularity of television programs such as . At one extreme are those who preach a prosperity gospel of . At the other extreme are radical Christians who condemn all wealth and imply that rich. Christian is a contradiction in terms. What, then, is the truly biblical view of wealth? At first glance, the Bible seems to teach that wealth is wrong for Christians. It appears even to condemn the wealthy. After all, both Jesus and the Old Testament prophets preached against materialism and seemed to say at times that true believers cannot possess wealth. If this is so, then all of us in Western society are in trouble, because we are all wealthy by New Testament standards. But a comprehensive look at the relevant biblical passages quickly reveals that a biblical view of wealth is more complex. In fact, Scripture teaches three basic principles about wealth. First, wealth itself is not condemned. For example, we read in Genesis 1. Abraham had great wealth. In Job 4. 2: 1. 0 we see that God once again blessed Job with material possessions. In Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, wealth is seen as evidence of God's blessing (Deut. But even though wealth might be an evidence of God's blessing, believers are not to trust in it. Proverbs, Jeremiah, 1 Timothy, and James all teach that the believer should not trust in wealth but in God (Prov. James 1: 1. 1; 5: 2). Second, when wealthy people in the Bible were condemned, they were condemned for the means by which their riches were obtained, not for the riches themselves. The Old Testament prophet Amos railed against the injustice of obtaining wealth through oppression or fraud (4: 1. Micah spoke out against the unjust scales and light weights with which Israel defrauded the poor (6: 1). Neither Amos nor Micah condemned wealth per se; they only denounced the unjust means by which it is sometimes achieved. Third, Christians should be concerned about the effect wealth can have on our lives. We read in Proverbs 3. Hosea 1. 3: 6 that wealth often tempts us to forget about God. Wealthy believers may no longer look to God for their provision because they can meet their basic needs. We read in Ecclesiastes 2 and 5 that people who are wealthy cannot really enjoy their wealth. Even billionaires often reflect on the fact that they cannot really enjoy the wealth that they have. Moreover, Proverbs 2. Jeremiah 9: 2. 3 warn that wealth often leads to pride and arrogance. So the Bible does not condemn those who are wealthy. But it does warn us that if God blesses us with wealth, we must keep our priorities straight and guard against the seductive effects of wealth. A Biblical View of Poverty. The Bible classifies the causes of poverty into four different categories. The first cause of poverty is oppression and fraud. In the Old Testament (e. Prov. 1. 4: 3. 1; 2. Many times, governments established unjust laws or debased the currency, measures that resulted in the exploitation of individuals. In the book of Job we learn that God allowed Satan to test Job by bringing misfortune upon him (1: 1. Elsewhere in the Old Testament (e. Ps. 5: 3) we read of misfortune or of God's judgment on a disobedient people. When Israel turned from God's laws, God allowed foreign nations to take them into captivity as a judgment for their disobedience. The third cause of poverty is laziness, neglect, or gluttony. Proverbs teaches that some people are poor because of improper habits and apathy (1. The final cause of poverty is the culture of poverty. Proverbs 1. 0: 1. People who grow up in an impoverished culture usually lack the nutrition and the education that would enable them to be successful in the future. Poverty and Government. While government should not have to shoulder the entire responsibility for caring for the poor, it must take seriously the statements in Leviticus and Proverbs about defending the poor and fighting oppression. Government must not shirk its God- given responsibility to defend the poor from injustice. If government will not do this, or if the oppression is coming from the government itself, then Christians must exercise their prophetic voice and speak out against governmental abuse and misuse of power. These laws should have significant penalties and be rigorously enforced so that the poor are not exploited and defrauded. Second, government must provide a legal system that allows for the redress of grievances where plaintiffs can bring their case to court for settlement. A second sphere for governmental action is in the area of misfortune. Many people slip into poverty through no fault of their own. In these cases, government must help to distribute funds. Unfortunately, the track record of government programs is not very impressive. Before the implementation of many of the Great Society programs, the percentage of people living below the poverty level was 1. Twenty years later, the percentage was still 1. We need a welfare system that emphasizes work and initiative and does not foster dependency and laziness. One of the things integral to the Old Testament system and missing in our modern system of welfare is a means test. If people have true needs, we should help them. But when they are lazy and have poor work habits, we should admonish them to improve. Our current welfare system perpetuates poverty by failing to distinguish between those who have legitimate needs and those who need to be admonished in their sin. Poverty and the Church. The church has the potential to offer some unique solutions to poverty. Yet ever since the depression of the 1. Great Society programs in the 1. The first was through the gleaning laws listed in Leviticus 1. Deuteronomy 2. 4: 1. As farmers reaped their crops, they would leave the corners of their fields unharvested, and anything that fell to the ground was left for the poor. The second method used to help the poor was the tithe. In Leviticus 2. 7: 3. The funds were distributed by the priests to those who were truly needy. In the New Testament, the church also had a role in helping to meet the needs of the poor. In 1 Corinthians 1. Paul talks about a collection that was sent from the churches to the Jerusalem believers. We also find many scriptural admonitions calling for Christians to distribute their resources to others compassionately (2 Cor. James 1: 2. 7). These verses concerning the gleaning laws and the tithe seem to indicate that both the government and the church should be involved in helping the poor. Ideally, the church should be in the vanguard of this endeavor. Unfortunately, the church has neglected its responsibility, and government is now heavily involved in poverty relief. I believe poverty relief should be a cooperative effort between the government and the church. As I noted above, government can provide solutions to exploitation and oppression by passing and enforcing just laws. It can also provide solutions to economic misfortune through various spending programs. But it cannot solve the problems of poverty by addressing injustice and misfortune alone. Poverty is as much a psychological and spiritual problem as it is an economic problem, and it is in this realm that the church can be most effective. Although salvation is not the sole answer, the church is better equipped than the government to meet the psychological and spiritual needs of poverty- stricken people. Most secular social programs do not place much emphasis on these needs and thus miss an important element in the solution to poverty. Breaking the Cycle of Poverty. As I stated earlier, one of the causes of poverty is the culture of poverty. People are poor because they are poor. An individual who grows up in a culture of poverty is destined for a life of poverty unless something rather dramatic takes place. Poor nutrition, poor education, poor work habits, and poor family relationships can easily condemn an individual to perpetual poverty. First, in the area of capital investment, churches should develop a mercies fund to help those in need. Christians should reach out to those in poverty by distributing their own financial resources and by supporting ministries working in this area. Such an outreach provides churches with a mechanism to meet the physical needs of the poor as well as a context to meet their spiritual needs. A second solution is for Christians to use their gifts and abilities to help those caught in the web of poverty. Doctors can provide health care. Educators can provide literacy and remedial reading programs. Businesspeople can impart job skills. This kind of social involvement can also provide opportunities for evangelism. Social action and evangelism often work hand in hand. When we meet people's needs, we often open up opportunities to reach them for Jesus Christ. This leads to a third solution. Christian involvement can lead to spiritual conversion. By bringing these people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we can break the culture of poverty. Second Corinthians 5: 1. Jesus Christ. Being born again can improve attitudes and family relationships. It can give new direction and the ability to overcome handicaps and hardships. A fourth area of Christian involvement is to call people to their biblical task. In the New. Testament, Paul reminds the Thessalonians of their church rule: . Christians should gently but firmly admonish those whose poverty is the result of poor work habits to begin taking responsibility for their own lives. The church can help those addicted to alcohol or other drugs to overcome their dependencies. Christians can work to heal broken families. Dealing with these root causes will help solve the poverty problem. The Christian Lifestyle.
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