Published by El Nuevo Herald on January 09, 2014
In today's world, where the mortality rate continues to decline, personal competition is increasingly fierce. Being higher the life expectancy, employee uptime has increased, limiting the opportunity for new graduates entering the labor market.
This fact, together with a decline in the birth rate, which makes them stand out in the U.S. and other developed nations, an aging population holds the reins.
The key question that follows is: if you do not continue creating employment at an acceptable pace, who will absorb the new workforce that regularly graduates of universities? Would this be an important factor in establishing a poverty index?
When a person is unable to meet their basic needs, is said to be in a situation of poverty. In 2010 15.1% of the U.S. population is considered poor and the proportion of Americans dependent on the government for their food was one in seven.
However, the measurement of poverty is very controversial because until 2011 was based on income and did not include most of the government programs, such as unemployment insurance and food stamp.
In practice it happens that the Social Security and Medicare have significantly reduced poverty in old age. For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010, the poorest people with 65 or older, would increase by 14 million individuals if they eliminate their income from Social Security, that is, the number of elderly living in poverty will be quintuple.
According to the prestigious Brookings Institute in Washington, it is not enough to devote more resources to fight poverty. According to them, you must create jobs because unemployment leads to poverty, like lack of education and a home with a single parent, where it is more likely that the child fails in his adult life.
It is said to combat poverty by creating wealth. And supposedly, reduce taxes on the upper class would encourage greater productivity, with consequent generation of capital and jobs. However, we saw in the reality that the tax cuts proposed by Bush and supported by Alan Greenspan in 2001 rather increased unemployment up to the 2008 recession.
There are mechanisms that can be treated in order to effectively combat poverty. The granting of credits to small businesses is one of them. The Small Business Administration (SBA) as a function would endorse such loans. However, the requirements of collateral assets virtually denied access to those without capital.
The creation of a "Land Bank" would be interesting. Lending on state land for cultivation and harvesting, and secured government oversight, would be a project to consider.
There are politicians like the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, who spent $ 76 million of its own capital for successful political campaign. You can try to pass a law providing 50% of these costs for the purchase of computers in schools, library books and medicines to hospitals. It is also a way to fight poverty.
Finally, we know that funds are free. But if a fortune made in the U.S. is not invested in U.S. is not creating jobs. As was the cofounder of Facebook Eduardo Saverin when he renounced U.S. citizenship and moved to Singapore, where there are no taxes. This behavior should be heavily penalized and allocate those funds to fight poverty.
Since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty on January 8, 1964, the U.S. poverty rate fell from 26% in 1964 to 16% today, thanks to a series of food aid programs as well as other types of assistance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
However, in 2012 poverty affected about 47 million Americans, that if they had not had some kind of social safeguards, the rate would have doubled, according to the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky.
Still, we must recognize that the standard of living in the U.S. is extremely high compared to other countries. The income of an office clerk here is equivalent to an executive officer in a third world country. No wonder many want to come.
BENJAMIN F. DeYURRE
Economist and Journalist
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