[marek]

Baby, It's Cold Outside (Source: American Progress Action)

For millions of low-income Americans, it's going to be a long, very cold winter. Fuel prices have skyrocketed – according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the average cost of home heating this winter will be a whopping 24 percent higher than last year. To make matters worse, the number of people living in poverty, who are especially likely to need help paying their energy bills, rose last year by 1.3 million to 36 million people, or 12.5 percent of the population. Yet Congress is underfunding the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP helps poor households – many of which include people who are elderly or disabled – pay their heating bills during the coldest months of winter). About 30 million households qualify for help, but a lack of funding means only about one out of every seven families receives assistance. And initial sampling shows that this year, with temperatures dropping, fuel prices soaring and more Americans living in poverty, requests for assistance could reach an all-time high.

THE CHILLING STATISTICS: Energy costs can be devastating for low-income families. According to a survey conducted by the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, families assisted by LIHEAP "spend three times as much of their income on energy costs as middle-income families." The survey also found a quarter of people the program serves skipped medical care or paying their rent or their mortgage at least once because of energy bills. One out of every five said they skipped meals because they were forced to "use food money to pay a utility bill."

CONGRESS'S FROSTY RESPONSE: In early October, a bipartisan group of 17 governors wrote to Congress, asking that funding for LIHEAP "include a larger base grant and $600 million in emergency funding." Millions of low-income families and frail elderly citizens, the governors wrote, "will likely be forced to choose between eating, paying rent or mortgages, buying prescription drugs or paying their heating bills." Congress didn't come through. In the recently enacted omnibus bill, the paltry increase in LIHEAP funding was "$164 million less than needed to cover the expected 24 percent increase in home heating costs." In fact, according to research by the CBPP, "adjusting for the price of fuel, the 2005 level of LIHEAP funding is lower than in any of the previous five years – 23 percent lower than the funding level for 2001."

BUSH'S COLD SHOULDER: President Bush has shown a decided lack of dedication to getting poor Americans funding for heat. In his first budget, for the 2002 fiscal year, Bush actually tried to cut LIHEAP funding by $300 million as compared with the previous year, despite higher unemployment and a colder winter. While energy costs have soared, "funding for LIHEAP and other energy assistance programs grew 7 percent under the Bush administration, barely matching inflation." When LIHEAP started 22 years ago, the program helped about 7 million families. Today, it only helps about 5 million.

STATES LEFT HOLDING THE BAG: With the federal government failing to provide necessary funding, the burden is falling on the states. Some governors are ready to take on the challenge: In Montana, Gov.-elect Brian Schweitzer announced he intends to make low-income heating assistance a budget priority next year. Wisconsin's Gov. Jim Doyle also got a jump on the crisis, opening LIHEAP enrollment a month ahead of schedule in anticipation of heightened need and the state is "kicking in $18.5 million to help keep Badger State residents warm." Many states are not as lucky. Colorado, for example, is slashing the amount of money eligible families will receive by $100. The state's lawmakers passed a bill to tack a voluntary 25-cent surcharge onto utility bills to subsidize the state's heating assistance program, but it was vetoed by Gov. Bill Owens "because it required utility customers to 'opt out' of paying the surcharge and he preferred an 'opt in' approach."

[Kingcoal]

Having been a landlord and known other landlords, I can attest that when tenants don't have to pay for their heat, they run the thermostat at 80 degrees with the windows open. There is rampant abuse of these programs. In all my experience, I've never seen a tenant on such a program, not-waste the free heat they get.

In one town where I had a rental, regulations required the landlord to maintain a temperature of 70 degrees in the rental during the wintertime. I set my home thermostat to 65. In a lot of old houses, getting 70 degrees throughout the house requires some rooms be 85 degrees.

There may be some who are grateful and respectful of the charity they receive, but they are way in the minority in my experience. I've lost about $10,000 total over the years as a landlord who was generous. What I got in return was having my charitable acts used against me in court.

Anymore I am completely ruthless and draconian. Trust must be earned.

[rerere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'H')aving been a landlord and known other landlords, I can attest that when tenants don't have to pay for their heat, they run the thermostat at 80 degrees with the windows open.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('marek', 'B')USH'S COLD SHOULDER: President Bush has shown a decided lack of dedication to getting poor Americans funding for heat. In his first budget, for the 2002 fiscal year, Bush actually tried to cut LIHEAP funding by $300 million as compared with the previous year, despite higher unemployment and a colder winter. While energy costs have soared, "funding for LIHEAP and other energy assistance programs grew 7 percent under the Bush administration, barely matching inflation." When LIHEAP started 22 years ago, the program helped about 7 million families. Today, it only helps about 5 million.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('an intelligent, scientific article with numbers', '
')More than 3 billion people are living in poverty...

[Specop_007]

When you have 24/7 advertising beamed right at you, you begin to think you HAVE TO HAVE all that new fancy shit.
And at the end of the day, your left broke and wanting more of that fancy shit.
And its still just shit.

[Ludi]

People living a hunter-gatherer way of life would look like they are living in "poverty" by our standards, but in most cases they're comfortable and well-fed most of the time, and don't have to work very hard (about four hours a day). Many or most poor people in our culture have to work very hard to even have enough to eat, usually working very long hours subsistence farming or working for wages. The poor also don't usually have much security, whereas hunter-gatherers had/have a greater degree of security (though different from what some of us would think of as security).

(I hope nobody is going to leap to the conclusion that I'm saying HG peoples are "noble savages" or that I'm saying we should all "go live in caves" or any of the other flapdoodle people drag out whenever anyone tries to have a conversation about HG way of life compared to our way of life.)

Native Americans living their original way of life prior to colonisation weren't "poor" but many Native Americans are very poor now.

"Poverty" is defined differently by different people. I think the UN standards for poverty are something along the lines of "inadequate housing" (too cold, too hot, no water or toilet facilities) and "inadequate nutrition" (malnutrition, not enough calories, famine, starvation). Living simply needn't be the same as living in poverty. One could have a very tiny, simple but adequate house, with sanitation, and one could have adequate food, and do without all the "stuff" we enjoy, but not be "poor."

[Cool Hand Linc]

Ludi:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Poverty" is defined differently by different people. I think the UN standards for poverty are something along the lines of "inadequate housing" (too cold, too hot, no water or toilet facilities) and "inadequate nutrition" (malnutrition, not enough calories, famine, starvation). Living simply needn't be the same as living in poverty. One could have a very tiny, simple but adequate house, with sanitation, and one could have adequate food, and do without all the "stuff" we enjoy, but not be "poor."

[johnmarkos]

The way poverty works in the U.S. is that low wage workers don't earn enough to rent a decent place to live, even though they can afford fast food and consumer crap.

In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, she describs how she worked at several low wage jobs in the U.S. and had to spend over 50% of her wages on (inadequate) housing.

[johnmarkos]

Good points on the idea of poverty, JohnDenver. However, I think the real point of alleviating poverty is alleviating poor sanitation, poor quality housing, inadequate health care, and lack of education. Powerdowners like to point out that the Indian state of Kerala (which I know next to nothing about) has done a good job of improving quality of life (measured by literacy and life expectancy) without a big rise in incomes.

[PhilBiker]

How many of those people "living in poverty" have clean drinking water?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PhilBiker', 'H')ow many of those people "living in poverty" have clean drinking water?

[jato]

Poverty means not having any "energy slaves" (or any other slaves for that matter) working for you.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PhilBiker', 'H')ow many of those people "living in poverty" have clean drinking water?

[Ludi]

That water problem in India could have been solved fairly inexpensively by putting in rainwater catchment systems, which work especially well in India because of the monsoons. The storage tanks just need to be very large.

I don't think lazy people need to be "bankrolled" I think people need to be given the ability to care for themselves, mainly, from my point of view, this can be done using permaculture methods, which enable people to grow their own food fairly easily and even have some to sell or trade, and using permaculture, a household can be set up to provide for all its own basic needs for food, water, shelter, income, within a small amount of space, very efficiently.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') know for a fact that if you give some people money for nothing, they will just sit on their ass all day.

[Tyler_JC]

Ah, they are creating wealth. They are helping society by increasing its net equity. The rich allow the middle class to exist. They subsidize our lifestyle, not the other way around. The rich who sit around and collect income reinvest that money and help the stock market or they spend it and help the economy. Alternatively, they could stick it in a mattress and cause deflation, which will lower the cost of goods and services for everyone else. Whatever they do with the money is good for the economy. I don't really have a problem with people who live off their invested income (the Capitalist Class).

And besides, wealth has to be created before it can be inherited. If someone is super wealthy, it means that somewhere along the lines someone in his family worked his butt off so that his children could live in affluence.

[Omnitir]

More then 3 billion people live in poverty today. As has been pointed out here already, they do not have what we would consider the bare essentials of life: enough food to eat, access to plentiful clean water, a clean comfortable home to live in, and access to necessary medical treatment.

Indeed if everyone lived the American way of life, danger bells would be ringing. But the point of that article is that it is impossible for 6 million people to obtain a high standard of living, and my point in posting it was to point out the necessary resources to attain that standard of living for all; we would need 4 to 6 times the resources we have available now.

As for the Native Americans, I believe by today’s standards (not the standards of the early settlers), they would be considered to be quite wealthy. They were highly mobile (they didn’t tend to stay in the one place, but migrated across the land with the seasons), they had plentiful access to both fresh water and ample food, they had clean and comfortable living conditions, and they had a medical system that worked well for them. And they had energy slaves in the form of animals. Of course that kind of life is no longer possible.

If there is anyone living in poverty (which there certainly are) then there are problems. The problem is there are too many people. If all of the world resources were spread equally to everyone, we here (in rich developed countries) would all be living a much lower standard of life. The ideal scenario would be for much fewer people all to be living a very high standard of life.

And for the record John Denver, I also believe that cars would not be required for people to be living a high standard of life. Just fewer people.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')ne could have a very tiny, simple but adequate house, with sanitation, and one could have adequate food, and do without all the "stuff" we enjoy, but not be "poor."

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('johnmarkos', 'T')he way poverty works in the U.S. is that low wage workers don't earn enough to rent a decent place to live, even though they can afford fast food and consumer crap.

In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, she describs how she worked at several low wage jobs in the U.S. and had to spend over 50% of her wages on (inadequate) housing.