RM> DT> doors. One quarter of all children in the United States under the 
RM> DT> age of DT> six live in poverty and children comprise 40% of all 
RM> DT> people living in  poverty. Bracey points out that "The United 
RM> States 
RM> DT> has more than twice the proportion of children in poverty than 
RM> all 
RM> DT> other industrialized nations. In the United States, 53 percent of
RM> DT> black children and 42  percent of Hispanic children are in 
RM> poverty. 
RM> PK>Why don't we do something to change all this?
RM> 
RM> 1. It would cost too much.
RM> 2. Not enough people care enough.
RM> 3. It has proven to be very difficult to effect social change
RM>    through external means.
    Mainly number (3).
    Poverty in America is largely the result of self-inflicted behaviors, and 
no social program can "rehabilitate" the employability of the young man who 
made himself unemployable by choosing to drop out of school, get into crack, 
and be a convicted felon.  Nor can any social program keep a girl from 
choosing to be sexually active and simultaneously choosing to not use 
contraception.
RM> 5. When we became a technological people, the differences
RM>    between members of our society became more obvious, thus
RM>    causing more differentiation.
RM> 6. The demand for intellectual skills rose as the demand for
RM>    manual or unskilled labor decreased.   
    
    These very important factors in the causation of a permanent underclass 
are beyond any social program's abilities to remedy.  No social program will 
return the workforce to the days when it was dominated by high-paying jobs 
demanding few skills.
    My grandfather came here from Eastern Europe speaking no English and in a 
week was working in a factory putting nuts on bolts at a reasonable wage. No 
social program will return Pittsburgh's economy to that.
RM> 7. For everyone to earn a comfortable wage, or to live in
RM>    relative comfort, we must either educate everyone equally
RM>    (which I don't think can be done), or we must create the 
RM>    need for more manual or unskilled labor.  Something like 
RM>    another frontier, for example, would offer the opportunity
RM>    for those who work with their hands to live comfortably... 
RM>    Our best hope for this might be the colonization of the 
RM>    oceans or space...
    I notice NASA's astronaut program isn't taking dropouts!
--- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS])
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