Is poverty the failure of society? Monday News Round Up

Photo by James Fischer

New figures show the U.S. poverty rate is on the rise with 2.6 million more Americans in 2008. That’s 13.2 percent, an 11-year high.

And if we started changing how we measured poverty, that number would only go up.

Lots of articles analyzing what this means. But one caught my eye. It begins:

Poverty is a measure of the inefficiency of an economy. It’s an irrefutable degree of proof of failure in a society.

Huh. That sort of stumped me. Is poverty caused by an inefficient economy? The failure of our economy to distribute wealth more evenly?

Or is it caused by something else? Laziness? Greed?

It seems like people believe there will always be poor people. And there always have been poor people. But that statement makes it seem like if we just put oil on the right cog in our capitalist machine, we’d stop cranking them out.

I don’t know… What do you think?

Anyway, here’s some more news:

Orlando public housing at Carver Park is for renters only so far – Orlando’s having the same problems that Chicago is with stalled plans for market rate housing due to a poor economy.

Poverty and premature death still firmly linked – Studies show that poverty and early death are just as correlated as they were 100 years ago.

U.S. files suit against Long Island housing complex for Fair Housing Act - housing complex has allegedly been discriminating against disabled people by not allowing service dogs in the development. 

And if you haven’t gotten the chance to hear WBEZ’s wonderful “Facing the Mortgage Crisis,” you should seriously take a look.

Been lousy about bringing you the news lately. Sorry about that. Putting myself back on a schedule. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. There – I said it. Now I can’t wimp out.