Why Are So Many Americans Still Poor? can we reverse the reversal of fortunes so many are learning to live with?

Like climate change, only the ignorant and uninformed dare deny the obvious anymore: in America the rich are indeed getting richer while the rest of us are, well...not. 15 percent of the population is now officially considered poor. That's 46 million Americans living (if you can call it that) at or below the poverty line! Safety net programs can be thanked for keeping millions more off of these rolls...for now. In fact, according to data put out by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an additional 20 million people would be counted were it not for Social Security. What is less agreed upon are the reasons for this spiraling downturn. Why are the poor getting poorer? Without that consensus, how to eradicate poverty becomes just another endless debate. And the ranks of the poor in America keep on growing. In a July 26, 2012 opinion piece, "Poverty in America: Why Can't We End it?” for The New York Times, Georgetown University Professor of Law and author Peter Edelman gave four reasons the war on poverty rages on: low paying jobs single parent households states reducing/ending cash assistance benefits to needy families ongoing race and gender issues A steep decline in Union membership – down now to 1916 numbers of 11.3% - must be noted as well. Unions protect wages and grow the economy. It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.who said, “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans as a 'right to work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining.” Using income statistics collected by the US Census, the National Educational Association found Right to Work (RTW) states had a lower standard of living than their worker-friendly counterparts. In fact, eleven of the fifteen poorest states in America are RTW states. Nine of the eleven states with the lowest poverty rates are considered worker-friendly. Having a job and working hard is just not enough to make it in America any longer. Low wages, coupled with a lack of affordable housing delivers a one-two punch that can leave the financially stressed reeling. Current Federal Minimum Wage is set at $7.25 per hour. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has determined you would have to earn a 'housing wage' of $15.37 per hour in order to afford a two bedroom apartment at an average fair-market rent.  Seattle, Washington recently addressed this disparity by agreeing to raise minimum wage there to $15 per hour. (Good job Seattle!) Hard times can and do happen to anyone. People just like you, just like me...just like our neighbors are slipping below the poverty line every day. Annually, 3.5 million people in the United States find out first -hand what it means to be homeless. 35% of them are families with children. 23% served our country in the military. The key to winning the battle and the war against poverty is empathy. It is incumbent on the middle class to align themselves with those losing the economic struggle if the status quo is to end. In a world where a CEO's take-home income can be 350 times that of their average worker (Confessions of a class warrior, Robert Reich, 8/12/2010), the 1% standing of the very rich blinds them to the harsh realities of being poor. That ignorance can only get in the way of meaningful change.  A “There but for the grace of God go I...” attitude is what is needed if we are to stop this downward descent into poverty so many of our fellow Americans face. note: I originally posted this on Helium - a content-provider site - they are shutting down and writers have been notified we have until December to remove/delete/re-post our work . So, I re-worked it a little and here you go. It matters so I wanted to make sure it was out there somewhere...