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Reverend William J. Barber II

Why do we have 140 million Americans living in poverty?
An archeologist has figured out that people have been on earth 0.007% of the time the planet has existed. 

Our planet has been circling in the universe 50 million times older than I will ever be. Homo sapiens have been recognized for 300,000 years. 

Dr. Michail Moatsos, a Research Fellow in the Organization of International Development, has worked for years studying poverty and its effects on humanity. He has estimated that at least 75% of humanity was extremely poor 200 years ago. 

He states: “Most people could not afford a tiny space to live, food that would not induce malnutrition and some heating capacity. Hunger was widespread, and around the world, for much of human history, about half of all children died before reaching adulthood. 

Today that picture has changed dramatically. Entire nations have largely left the deep poverty of the past behind. But poverty is not history. People around the world are still struggling to afford housing, heating, transport and healthy food for themselves and their families.”

So, Mr. (or Mrs.) President and Congress, why does the Divided States of America, the richest country in the world, have 12% or 41 million adults and children living in our definition of poverty, which still may represent a very low number in what we have been calling a democracy? 

The United Nations uses an extremely low measurement of less than $2.15 per person a day to estimate global poverty. In the DSA we use the figure of $29,679 for a family of four to determine the 41 million Americans living in poverty. But a Gallup Poll of thousands of families in 2023 estimated that the average family needed at least $85,000 “just to get by.” 

In this country with an estimated 336 million people, we presently have 760 billionaires and 30 million millionaires. I am just guessing that in some poor DSA counties, a family of four may “get by” with $30,000 while in those rich ZIP Codes scattered on both coasts like the Hamptons and Malibu it may take $300,000 “just to get by.” 

Have we ever tried to find out why the happiest people in the world living in the Scandinavian countries have virtually no families living in poverty? Could it be they have a better “democracy” than we do? Their system is often called Democratic Socialism. There’s that word again that makes the skin crawl on Trumplicans.

Could the largest companies in the world “grow” more poverty?
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), an international organization of unions that fights for union rights and human rights, has charged that the largest companies in the world are spending billions lobbying against union and human rights at the United Nations Summit of the Future now meeting in New York City. 

Here are just a few large American companies on their anti-democracy list:

1. Amazon, the fifth largest employer in the world “has become notorious for its union busting, low wages, tax evasion, high injury rates, its efforts to overturn labor law in Canada and other countries and its challenge of the constitutionality of the U.S. National labor Relations Board (NLRB).”

2. Tesla, owned by the sometimes-richest man in the world Elon Musk-with-the-big-mouth, has always been against unions wherever he has plants (U.S., Germany, Sweden). Musk constantly challenges the NLRB in the U.S. and supports extreme right-wing politicians around the world.

3.  Meta, the largest social media company (Facebook) in the world, peddles far-right propaganda and spends millions lobbying against laws to regulate data. The company spends $23 million annually just to protect CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his family from death threats.

4.  Glencore, the largest mining company in the world by revenue, spends millions campaigning against indigenous communities and activists that protest how they are treated by the company.

5.  Blackstone, a private equity firm led by Donald Trump’s biggest backer, billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, funds far-right political movements around the world, invests billions in fossil fuel projects, and is responsible for much of the deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil. It supports “conservative” politicians that vote against government regulations that would inhibit the firm’s activities.

6.  The Vanguard Group is another investment firm that finances some of the world’s most anti-democratic corporations.

7.  ExxonMobil is one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies and it was cited in the report for funding anti-climate research and aggressive lobbying against environmental regulations. California is currently suing it for deceiving the people about the recycling of plastics.
 

Todd Brogan, director of campaigns and organizing at the ITUC summarizes what happens if the people don’t have final power: “This is about power, who has it, and who sets the agenda. We know as trade unionists that unless we are organized, the boss sets the agenda in the workplace, and we know as citizens in our countries that unless we’re organized and demanding responsive governments that actually meet the needs of people, it’s going to be corporate power that’s going to set the agenda The are playing the long game, and it’s a game about shifting power away from democracy at every level.”

Meet a Black religious leader who knows more about poverty than Jesus
The Reverend William J. Barber II, the grandson of a Black miner who survived the bombing by airplanes conducted by a sheriff in the bloody West Virginia coal wars in the 1910s and 1920s, no doubt knows more about poverty in the Divided States of America than any other human being in the world. 

Whenever he is on TV or radio, I listen carefully to what he is saying because he deals only with the truth and speaks it to power constantly. He has a hulking figure because of a diseased spine when he was 20. He has a voice like gravel – and speaks like a god. 

He has been arrested several times at poverty protests he was leading. He is president of Repairers of the Breach, cochair of the Poor People’s Campaign and director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University. 

He recently wrote his latest book titled White Poverty: How Exposing Myths about Race and Class Can Reconstruct Democracy to get everybody’s attention. He wrote it because, as he says: “I’ve written this book to ask America to look it’s poor – all its poor – in the face.”

Barber does not agree with the latest government statistics about poverty in the DSA that estimates we had between 11.5 and 12.4% of Americans living in poverty in 2022, which means bodies totaling between 37.9 and 40.9 million people. And he is right. The government statistics do not include or count any body in jails, prisons, homeless shelters, homeless under bridges and overpasses, sleeping in parks or cars or along thousands of rivers in the 50 states and various territories. He thinks we ignore millions of Americans who are poor in many ways – except officially. 

He thinks of those who aren’t poor enough to qualify for public housing but will never be able to afford a mortgage. 

He thinks of those who aren’t poor enough to receive Medicaid but can’t afford private insurance either. 

He thinks that a family of four that can’t come up with $400 to cover basic monthly necessities is in poverty. 

Using these metrics, he comes up with more than 140 million American who live in poverty. Want to bet he is wrong? 

Barber has written in other books: “I am bothered by people who say so much about what God says so little about, and so little about what God says so much about – especially the plight of the poor and rejected in society.” 

Read that slowly again. Students of the Bible say there are 2,000 references about the poor in the Bible. There’s only a couple about making lots of money – and keeping it.

 There probably is no single person who knows more about people in poverty than a serious religious man who presents sermons in his church on Sunday and spends the rest of the week viewing and talking about poverty. He has interviewed poor people in several states in cars and under bridges – and noticed the open cans of dog food on tables while catching poor people at dinnertime in their homes – where there is no dog.

What Vice President candidate Vance says about Dems is vice
Back in 2021, JD Vance, the hillbilly liar from Ohio, said this about liberal Democrats: “The rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and most evil thing that the left has done in this country.” 

When challenged about this statement in September 2024, he defined what he said with statement: “Democrats have become anti-family and anti-kid.” 

The word “vice” associated with anything he does fits him to a big T: “An evil, degrading, or immoral practice or habit; a serious moral failing; wicked and immoral behavior.” 

Like lying all the time to match your buddy “The Lyin’ King Donald.” This is the political record achieved by Republicans since they have decided to torpedo every bill designed to produce the “common good” for all,” as written by Nicholas Kristof in his New York Times article “Republicans Are Right: One Party Is ‘Anti-Family and Anti-Kid’.” 

Here are just a few of his reasons for naming the Republican Party the political party fitting the description:

1. Children born in red states are more likely to be poor, die young and drop out of high school than children in blue states.

2. States with the highest divorce rates are mostly Republican.

3.More babies are born to unmarried mothers in red states because of the lack of access to ob-gyn doctors and reliable contraception in those states.

4. After Democrats had cut child poverty rates almost in half with child tax credits, the Republicans killed the child tax credit law and the higher rate of poverty was restored!

5. Since the gun culture of the National Rifle Association and the Republican Party has profited from a total of 435 million firearms in personal arsenals, including AR-15 assault rifles mostly used in mass shootings, the leading cause of death of DSA children is by bullets because of the failure to pass meaningful gun control and safety laws.

6. Trumplicans have refused to support guaranteed parental and maternity leave, universal health care, Medicaid increases, child care support centers,and pre-kindergarten programs. 

A child born in the Divided States of America is three times as likely to die by the age of five as a child in Slovenia or Estonia. If we had the same child mortality level as Norway and Finland, we would save the life of an American child between I and 5 every three hours. 

If Trumplicans gain power in 2024, their 900-paged Project 25 calls for the elimination of Head Start and the Department of Education.

The Reverend Barber, a religious man, says emphatically: “The official poverty numbers constitute a DAMN lie!” 

His solution? Get the 60% of the nonvoters making less than $50,000 who did not vote in 2020 to the ballot box in 2024.