To celebrate the fact that millions of Americans are about to lose their unemployment benefits just in time for Christmas, Glenn Beck declared that we have been sold a lie that the poor in America are suffering. In fact, Beck, the master of me me me, labeled the poor “greedy” and said “What’s poverty in America today? Well, we just want our stuff.”
Beck also claims the poverty level for a family of four is $44,100. It is actually $22,050 — he was only off by 100%.
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A couple of weeks ago I took food and a turkey to my community’s local food bank. The parking lot was full and the line to get in long. The cars in that lot were, contrary to what tools like Beck and Limbaugh like to claim, far from nice and I didn’t see one stitch of expensive clothing on the food bank’s recipients. I saw a lot of tired, weary faces that looked like they’d rather be anywhere else than in line for charity. People who love to claim that the poor are greedy make me sick.
I know it’s probably not a Christian thought, but I truly wish personal financial tragedy upon those who spread this malicious garbage on their radio shows, or local taverns.
Especially when truly greedy people are the reason why many the poor are in the situation they are in.
Unfortunately, for someone like Beck, even personal tragedy would not change his behavior. I’ve met people who accept unemployment, food stamps, etc but still maintain that their need is legitimate and others’ generally are not; that their situation is simply the exception that proves the rule.
SL: The people you met who accepted that the need of others cannot be legitimate, while their need IS always legitimate have never had an original, fact-based opinion about anything. At some point, going along with the crowd became toxic for our nation’s continued independence. The monumental effort it would require to change this poisonous perspective may be beyond us at this time.
So Glenn Beck can’t tell the difference between the poverty level and the national median income. Those little differences are hard to distinguish from a distance of 30 million bucks.
Seriously, the median income is only twice the poverty level? Have we ever been this close to being a nation of poor people?
Yes, we have been this close before — just before the great depression.