Avalon Post

• Published:May 10th, 2009
• Comments:No Comments
• Section:Politics, United States

The headline of CNN.com’s international page as I write this currently reads:  ”Recession pushing families on to streets.”  It chronicles the story of, you guessed it, a woman struggling to make ends meet, who got evicted, and now lives in her car.  There are no shortage of stories like this in the media, nor from the lips of politicians eager to tell heartbreaking stories from their electorate in order to gain an image of having sympathy and an understanding of the common man’s struggles.  Indeed, the media, politicians, and others have latched onto the stories of people who are now out of work, who are now struggling to find a job, a house, or support their kids.  Or the stories of those that lost their retirement fund, lost their house, lost their insurance, lost their car.   There’s been a lot of focus on the “new poor” in this recession.

Truth be told, I find that there’s nothing arguable reporting on the situation of those who have had hardship as a result of this economy.  It highlights how truly broken the system is, and how a great deal of lives are being ruined, or lived on the extreme edge.  The problem is that it’s taken the creation of a new poor class in America for people to start actually caring; to start actually noticing.  A lot of the reporting and coverage in this country is acting as if the problems people are facing now are somehow unique or somehow only a recent phenomenon.  This attitude continues the longstanding tradition of ignoring America’s most ignored class, the poor.  The way the media is talking about struggling people now, it seems as if it would shock some people if you told them that poverty existed in this country before the economy began its decline last year.  Some of the discussion that is now making the rounds is downright insulting to these people who were poor before, as well.For instance, take this article that was on the front page of the New York Times’ website today: “The Safety Net - For Victims of Recession, Patchwork State Aid.”  The article itself details just how confusing and ultimately ineffective many state social welfare programs are.  Covering this is a good thing, and the article does a good job of explaining why much work is needed to improve the systems in place.  Unemployment benefits, food stamps, welfare, and housing assistance are among the areas of government assistance that the article delves into.  There is a great deal of good information in there, and I am not trying to somehow minimize this point of the article.  I fully agree that social welfare systems need to be improved–many of them need a complete overhaul–and Jason DeParle brought up some great statistics along with some terribly illustrative  stories that serve as examples of how these problems are affecting real people.

The problem with this article, and others like it, is the focus and the driving force behind it.  Just look at the title: “For Victims of Recession.”  What about the victims of, oh, I don’t know, the pre-recession good times, where people somehow still managed to end up in poverty.  Surely it must be their fault, I mean, who’s poor when the economy is doing good, right?  The article acts like this is really only a problem now.  In truth, I am sure that a lot of problems in the social welfare programs are being exacerbated by the sudden influx of people now seeking aid.  But to act like these problems are somehow only new or newsworthy now is downright insulting to the “old poor.”

At least there is now a national spotlight on problems like these.  It was certainly more difficult when just any old Regular Joe down on his luck had problems getting assistance, now that there’s double-digit unemployment rates in some states, there are more advocacy and support groups being set up to help people going through these hard times.  And, again, articles like this surely help as well; they bring attention to the problem, and that’s a good thing.  It is just a sad reflection of our priorities as a nation that we only care now, when a lot more of us are suddenly faced with having to face our broken social safety nets, then it is time to start worrying.  These problems have existed for a long time, yet it is only a front page article now.

Of course, the ultimate reality is that it is only people like me, people who are not  struggling to make ends meet,  who will have the time to care about things like this.  The poor, old or new, have a lot more to worry about than whether or not the media’s concern for their plight is taking place now or when it should have: a long time ago.