After showing steady gains during the economic boom years of the late s, the share of single mothers in the workforce started to decline again to 54 percent, for a net gain of just five percent between and The rise in deep poverty, especially among children, to Cassandra says the combination of welfare cuts, insufficient jobs, and a lack of other in-kind supports for single parents to find and keep what low-wage jobs there are has left a lot of people, like herself, in the lurch.
At the beginning of welfare reform, she says, advocates in Cincinnati tried to convey to state officials what it would take to move people off the rolls and into gainful employment for the long-term. Citing the latest round of budget cuts in Washington, she worries that even food stamps will decline. When I ask Cassandra why she sees problems like these persisting over time, she turns immediately to politics and the democratic process.
Money and social status is how you make yourself heard, she says, but people below or near the poverty line have neither. Unlike the legal disenfranchisement of immigrants and former felons and residents of Washington, D. Most of the impoverished people she knows possess the right to vote.
Instead, when Cassandra talks of "unequal citizenship" for people like her, she is referring to the inability of low-income people generally to put the rights they have to good effect. If nothing else, she says, her years of community organizing at the Contact Center have opened her eyes to the many practical hurdles that keep poor people from having their voices heard in politics.
For starters, low-income citizens are far less likely to vote. According to the U. Similar disparities are seen in voter registration. When non-citizens and incarcerated persons are included in the count, the gap in voting and registration across income groups is wider still. A close examination of the reasons non-voters give for staying home—especially those lower down the socioeconomic ladder—suggests that a slew of practical barriers continue to stand in the way of full and equal exercise of the franchise.
While income and education levels were not recorded in the survey, race and age were major factors influencing who made it to the polls on Election Day and what kind of barriers they faced.
Black and Hispanic citizens, for whom the poverty rate is close to three times that of whites, were three times as likely as whites to not have the requisite I. They were more than three times as likely as whites to not receive a requested absentee ballots, and roughly twice as likely to be out of town on Election Day or to have to wait in long lines. They were also substantially more likely than whites to report transportation problems and bad time and location as reasons for not getting to the polls, while white voters were the most likely to cite disapproval of candidate choices.
Taken together, the surveys suggest that white citizens who abstain from voting do so primarily by choice, while the majority of minority non-voters face problems along the way. How do these data translate into actual votes? Another 1. What's more, an estimated 1. African-American and Hispanic voters were considerably more likely than white voters to be asked to show photo identification at the polls, at rates of 70 percent, 65 percent, and 51 percent, respectively. Then there are the lines.
Nearly 40 percent of voters reported waiting in line on Election Day and 17 percent reported waits of 30 minutes or more—primarily people of color in urban areas and the state of Florida.
Black and Hispanic voters waited an average of more than 20 minutes to vote, almost twice as long as whites. In larger, urban counties with populations exceeding , voters, the average wait was almost 20 minutes , more than double the time in counties with 50, voters or less.
Young voters also experienced significantly longer wait times, and other Election Day hurdles, than their older counterparts. Finally, in Florida, voters waited an average of 45 minutes.
An estimated , Florida voters "gave up in frustration" before they could cast a ballot in Overall, nearly one in 10 Americans reported that they or someone they knew tried to vote but was not able to in , and close to half of eligible Americans who did not cast a ballot cited external administrative barriers as the major cause. Election hurdles aside, Cassandra is quick to point out that voting is not the only form of participation practiced in American politics, and it is arguably not the most impactful either.
Volunteering for political causes and campaigns, contributing money to candidates, and lobbying the government all have an effect. And here, a mounting body of social science research examined for this study supports Cassandra's hypothesis that "low-income people lack funding to effectively advocate" for their needs and are under-represented as a result.
For example, just two percent of Americans at the bottom of the income and education ladder attend campaign meetings and rallies or conduct campaign work, compared to 14 percent of people at the top—a factor of seven to one. When it comes to selecting candidates and funding their campaigns, two percent of all Americans give money in presidential elections and less than half of one percent provide the lion's share.
In fact, the largest single donor in personally accounted for more money than the bottom 98 percent of citizens combined. As Cassandra puts it, "Whoever can buy the most TV time, whoever talks at them the right way" usually gets the votes—and the money to fund campaigns isn't coming from people like her. Finally, of the more than 12, interests groups actively lobbying Washington, only a few dozen—less than 1 percent—advocate directly on behalf of low-income people.
As the authors of a recent page study conclude, "Year after year, decade after decade, and from one generation to the next, the affluent and well educated have participatory megaphones that amplify their voices in American politics Cassandra has no intention of going unheard. Spending an afternoon with her, it's hard to imagine anything getting between her and the ballot box. In fact, she even brings a group of low-income citizens to the state capitol in Columbus once or twice a year so legislators can "hear what people have to say.
For one thing, many of the people whom she is trying to empower "feel intimidated by the way the legislators talk to them [or] get scared off. Ultimately, Cassandra says, "Our communities and families are losing because of [what's happening] in Washington, D.
This it the conclusion of a week-long series exploring the intersection of poverty and democracy in America. Read the rest of the series:. Poverty vs. Democracy in America : 50 years after Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty, tens of millions of second-class Americans are still legally or effectively disenfranchised. Should Felons Lose the Right to Vote? The poor and minorities are disproportionately locked up—and as a result, disproportionately banned from the polls.
A far higher percentage and number of whites voted for Obama than voted for Kerry. On some level explaining why poorer whites would vote for the Republicans demands a resource sorely lacking in American political culture at present — particularly during election time: empathy.
There are more to "interests" than just the economic. If someone's core conviction is that abortion is murder or gay marriage is wrong then their decision to vote for a candidate who is against abortion or gay marriage is not an act of delusion but conviction. In any case working class white voters who are against abortion are significantly more likely to vote Democrat than their more affluent counterparts.
So the economy still matters. But it is not the only consideration. Given his plans to tax high earners more heavily many of them were voting against their economic interests as do Warren Buffett, George Soros and all of Obama's wealthy funders. If poor states voting Republican is a paradox then the fact that 9 out of 10 states with the highest median income vote Democrat is no less so. Moreover some people, despite being poor, legitimately believe in free market and small government, even if it doesn't benefit them in precisely the same way that wealthy people may favour greater government intervention even if it doesn't benefit them.
Weaver had been the chairman of Loveland chamber of commerce and effectively lobbied for the business community of northern Colorado. He changed his registration to independent on polling day. His political views are eclectic. He is for gun control and a more humane immigration policy and thinks unions are dinosaurs and is against abortion — thinks its preferable to get rid of it by changing peoples' hearts than the law.
He's arrogant, and it's hard for me to get past that. It didn't change my mind about him because I always thought that about him. One could argue about whether his assessment of Romney's deficit-cutting plans are plausible. But one can't reasonably insist it wasn't a considered viewpoint.
Finally, as Weaver's circumstances illustrate, poverty is not necessarily a permanent state. People fall in and climb out of it. Americans are particularly reluctant to describe themselves as even working class let alone poor. Relatively few claim to be working class or upper class, intimating more of a cultural aspiration than an economic relationship.
Amy Pezzani, the executive director of the Larimer county food bank in Colorado , explained that politicians are reluctant to refer to "the poor" and "poverty" because it turns low-income voters off. They're more likely to refer to themselves as the 'struggling middle class'. In a report from Minnesota earlier this year the New York Times examined the growing number of people who were simultaneously dependent on government aid and against more government spending.
They are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it. They say they want less help for themselves; less help in caring for relatives; less assistance when they reach old age.
In a country where social mobility is assumed — even if it has in fact stalled — and class consciousness is week the poor may vote in the interests of an imagined, but not necessarily imaginary future, rather than solidarity based on shared economic hardships. No doubt that figure will have dropped since the crisis but it doubtless remains high. Indeed, so polarised is the nation's politics that a recent poll from the Pew research centre revealed that people's views on their financial situation are shaped by their partisan affiliation rather than the other way around.
In fact, the truly shocking thing about income and voting patterns in the US isn't the number of poor people who vote Republican but the number who don't vote at all. Inequality in income is intimately related to inequality in turnout. One can only assume that many poor people do not feel they have anyone to vote for.
Shortly before the election I met Cynthia Huntington in Maine. She was 60 then and had a hernia, no health insurance and was in extreme discomfort. She was in two minds as to whether to vote Democrat Maine could have been a swing state at the time or for third party candidate Ralph Nader. They don't care about the fact that I need surgery and can't pay for it. When liberals depict the existence of poor white Republicans as an expression of mass idiocy and false consciousness they not only disparage poor white people, they provide conservatives with one of their key talking points which is that liberals are elitists who look down on poorer whites.
We both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Of course, my exile is voluntary. However, it is apparent that many of the Negroes wish to become active members of the American middle class.
I cannot imagine why. I must admit that this desire on their part leads me to question their value judgements. However if they wish to join the bourgeoisie, it is really none of my business. They may seal their own doom. All that said, there are still some basic facts to contend with that do suggest many Republican voters believe things that are either misinformed or absurd or both.
Since the last election the number of Republicans who believe Obama is a Muslim has doubled; in a poll showed that about two-thirds of Republicans either believe or are not sure that Obama is "a racist who hates white people", and more than half believe or are not sure that he was not born in the US and that he wants the terrorists to win. There was precious little chance of that, because Acorn no longer existed at that stage. It was defunded and disbanded after a successful sting operation by conservatives a few years earlier.
Where breakdowns of these falsehoods exist those with less education are more likely to believe them. But even assuming they are evenly spread among poor and rich alike it would be fair to say that a significant number of Americans are working off faulty facts that would affect their vote.
After all, if Obama really did want terrorists to win, hated white people and stole the election then it would be logical not to vote for him regardless of your race and income. Furthermore, most of these explanations regarding deeply held religious beliefs, class aspiration and political philosophy are no less of non whites than whites.
Blacks and Latinos are both poorer and more religious than the nation at large and vote overwhelmingly Democrat. While racism may not be the primary motivating force behind poorer whites tendency to vote Republican it is certainly a factor.
At least he's American. In Las Vegas shortly before the mid-terms I met a woman protesting illegal immigration outside an Obama event who was voting for the tea party candidate Sharon Angle. When it turned out she didn't have health care I asked her if that wouldn't be a reason for her to support Obama.
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