Reality seems a far cry from the sky-is-falling rhetoric offered up by Jesse Jackson and company.
by Joseph Kay, American Renaissance, October 7, 2011
Since the 1960s the federal government has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into alleviating black poverty. Yet, black politicians talk as if blacks are tottering on the economic edge and could easily slip into Third World levels of misery: starvation, deadly illness, families reduced to living in homeless shelters and relying on soup kitchens.
Are black leaders crying wolf? Statistics on poverty are notoriously tricky (especially when calculating government benefits and “off-the-books” income), but it is increasingly clear that this tale of woe lacks credibility. Judging by what I can see, the opposite may be true: many blacks are living conspicuously well and could easily survive on far less government generosity.
To start with statistics, Ken McIntyre at National Review Online recently noted that while one in seven Americans is officially certified as poor by the Census Bureau, most live in decent, often air-conditioned housing with modern appliances. Many have washing machines, cable TV (often with two color TVs and a DVD player), Internet access, up-to-date electronic gaming systems such as Xboxes and PlayStations, and can easily pay for food and ordinary medical care. A similar Census Bureau study reports that the poor often have a car (a third have two or more cars), and that half own a computer and enjoy more living space than the average non-poor European.