Calling out all the researchers

Working Poor Families Project - sponsored by the AECF or the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a great organization whose primary focus when founded in 1948 were orphans, today they focus on the children of American Working Families. However, the Working Poor Families Project is a an organization that provides assesment reports, research and policy advice to non-profit organizations, state agencies and federal agencies. They publish "Family Econmic Success Quarterly Newsletter". They get paid to do that, I could not find their fiscal statements online, I could not find a list of subscribers (so who knows who really reads this garbage).

I have an idea, stop with the focus on publications, start passing that grant money out to the people that need it, learn to live in a comfortable pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Try shopping at your local discount store or better yet, purchase your household items, furniture, dishes, pots, clothes like the rest of us do - les chic yard sale.

"To understand poverty in America, it is important to look behind these ..." what else? Facts, statistics, data. LIP SERVICE...published in "Understanding Poverty In America" Robert E. Rector and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D.

The authors Robert E. Rector and Kirk A. Johnson "Ph.D." have determined from thier comfortable and lofty desks that poverty in America basically does not exist and where it does exist, is solely the fault of those impoverished. He says poverty in America is not as bad as we are made to believe, because people "own things" like cell phones and television sets. In fact he says it's an "easy" fix because the real problems are: "Their parents don't work much, and fathers are absent from the home." Then he goes on to say (your gonna love this): "If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three-quarters would immediately be lifted out of poverty."

I have idea, I double dog dare you, live life as a Blue Collar Worker. Spend a day at a local women's shelter lecturing them about their problems and tell them if they would have just married the jerk that gave them the black eye everything would have been OK. Pick up the classifieds and go compete for an un-skilled labor job. Work it for 6 months. I know what will happen next, you'll being calling F.H.C. Ministries inside 6 months cause you can't pay your rent, cause your car needs to be fixed first so you can go to work. It does not have anything to do with a better standard of living today than yesterday. The problem is the little things that happen on a day to day basis that you cannot be financially prepared for when you are living paycheck to paycheck!

This is today's list. Come back tomorrow for a new list.

Charity is not reform and solving the problem is complicated. The solution is a mix of complicated and controversial steps we must take. However Step one remember as a Christian you have some rules and you don't get to pick and choose which ones you like. Step Two - stop talking and get busy. I hope to see you on the road.