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WEDNESDAY. AUGUST 7. 1963
MEDFORD MALL. TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, OREGON
Millions of Americans Remain Desperately Poor in Midst of Plenty
' Editor'! notei The Labor
ruiurtnunl announced laii
..ir that U.S. amDlovment
roa in July to a racord total
o( nearly 71 million jobi. But
SS out of avery 1.000 p.rions
k nud iobi don't hava
have iham. And many who do
have job. earn barejy anougn
to kaap lbam alie. Thii ii a
report on the other aide of
the track on poverty.
u i nms r&SSELS
Washington-fllPD-The average
tmaricnn familv had an in.
come of $7,140 last year. One
family out ot live naa n in
come larger than $iu,uuu.
These are spectacular fig
ures. They thoroughly justify
the cliche that Americans are
living in an "affluent so
ciety," enjoying the highest
living standards the world
has ever known.
But they do not justify the
assumDtion widely held to-
day even among well-read
people that mass poverty
has- virtually disappeared
from this country.
In the midst of plenty, mil
lions of Americans remain
desperately poor. They may
not be as close to actual star
vation as some of the people
who live in underdeveloped
countries. But their poverty
is real and grinding, and all
the harder to accept because
it contrasts so painfully with
the prosperity that surrounds
them.
How many poor people
are there in America? The
answer depends on what in
come level you choose as a
dividing line between mere
deprivation and actual pov
erty. Dr. Robert J. Lampham, a
University of Wisconsin
economist now on the staff of
President Kennedy's Council
of Economic advisers, believes
it is conservative to say that
poverty prevails in any
household where a single per
son is living on less than
$1,250 a year, a couple on
less than $1,750, or a family
of four on less than $2,700.
34 Million in Poverty
Applying this yardstick to
the latest official figures on
income distribution, he calcu
lates that more, than 34 mil
lion Americans arc now liv
ing in genuine poverty.
Others say that Lampham's
figures are too low. In a
, study published earlier this
year, entitled "The Other
America" (MacMillan, Mi
chael Harrington) estimates
that from 40 million to 50
million Americans are "exist
ing at levels beneath those
necessary for human de
cency. The conference on
economic progress nsjerl
that at least 38 million per
sons fall into (he "really
poor" category. The AFL-CIO
puts the figure at upwards of
42 million.
Pinpointing a precise num
ber of poor people is not ter
ribly important. The signifi
cant fact on which all Investi
gators agree is that a great
many Americans from one-
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fifth to one-fourth of the to
tal population are not shar
ing in the prevailing
abundance.
Who are the American
poor? Why are they missing
the gravy train?
Before joining the White
House staff, Dr. Lampham
conducted a lengthy study of
these questions for the Joint
Congressional Economic
Committee.
He found that about one
fourth of the very poor -some
8.5 million persons by his
present calculations-are over
65 years of age. They are liv
ing on inadequate retirement
npnsinns. on the charity of
relatives, or on "old age as
sistance" checks from public
welfare agencies, which dur
ing 1962 averaged just a little
over $75 a month.
Another segment of the
world of poverty is populated
by Negroes. Because they of
ten are under-educated, or be
cause they lack the skills de
manded by an increasingly
technological society, or simp
ly because they happen to
have dark skins, Negroes are
the "last to be hired and the
first to be fired" in the North
as well as the South.
Dr. Lampham lound about
7 million Negroes among his
34 million impoverished
Americans. That's twice as
many as would be expected
on a purely statistical basis,
since Negroes constitute only
10 per cent of the U.S. popula
tion. Thus the circumstance
of being born non-white dou
bles a person's chances of be
ing poor.
Aside from old age and
race, the factors which loom
largest in determining which
families are poor are the sex
and education level of the
breadwinner.
Only one American family
out of 10 is headed by a wom
an. But these fatherless house-holds-whether
made so by
death, divorce or desertion
constitute 24 per cent of the
families living on incomes of
less than $2,000 a year.
A woman who is trying to
support young children with
out a husband or other male
relative to earn a living is us
ually entitled to public wel
fare under the ever-controversial
"aid to dependent chil
dren" program. Some Amer
icans have formed an unshake
able opinion that families on
ADC have it pretty soft. This
may be. But the figures show
that the average ADC pay
ment currently is about $128
per month for a family of
four. This comes to about
$1,500 a year and is way un
der Lampham's "conserva
tive" cut-off line for real pov
erty. Most Poorly Educated
Any American youngster
who is- thinking of dropping
out of school-or who is mere
ly wondering why he should
work so hard to get an educa
tion-should ponder another of
Dr. Lampham's findings.
About two-thirds of the very
poor families in the nation
are headed by breadwinners
who have no education beyond
grammar school. This figure
includes persons of both races
and both sexes, and thus over
laps with some of the previous
categories.
It is obvious, of course,
that none of the factors cited
by Dr. Lampham-age, sex,
race or educational level-directly
cause poverty. What
they do is to make it hard to
get and keep a good job. The
immediate cause of poverty
in nearly every instance is
the unemployment or under
employment of the family
breadwinner.
Even in a "full employ
ment" economy, there would
be some people who could not
earn a decent living. The far
ther a nation slips from full
employment-or, to put it dif
ferently, the higher its rate
of chronic unemployment-the
bigger become its "pockets"
of poverty.
That's why Secretary of La
bor Willard Wirtz calls unem
ployment "our No. 1 domes
tic problem." It is a problem
that has been growing stead'
ily worse in recent years. Its
ramifications will be explored
in another dispatch.
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