Obama, Clinton or McCain face a great depression but who's talking about poverty?

The Independent newspaper (UK) headlined on Tuesday with “The great depression” in reference to what it claims is 28-million Americans’ reliance on food stamps to survive. This, it goes on to say, arises from the era of the credit crunch, which it suggests is “a sure sign the world’s richest country faces economic crisis”.

Ironically, this comes just prior to the large oil companies being required to face a US congressional committee to explain the need for federal subsidies running into billions of dollars while showing a profit of a hundred billion dollars in the past year.

Lest we forget, the US is also involved in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, costing trillions of dollars.

Of course this means that whoever assumes the presidency is going to inherit not only two wars, local and global recession, the re-emergence of Russia and China as well as climate change, but also a host of other pressing issues from terrorism to genocide.

One issue of which they will be acutely aware — but which will probably not feature near the top of their list of priorities — is poverty. While all presidential candidates commit themselves to uplifting the poor, there appears to be a lack of substance behind most of the rhetoric.

Indeed, Sasha Abramsky in his article for the Guardian‘s Comment Is Free titled “Who’s talking about poverty” says:

“John Edwards talked about structural poverty during the months he ran for the Democratic nomination. Since he disappeared from the public scene two months ago, however, the discourse around poverty has largely been denuded of specifics.

“Clinton and Obama, and for that matter McCain, are talking about people hurting and dreams being deferred, and I’m more than willing to believe they do care about the most impoverished Americans. But the Bobby Kennedy-circa-1968 emphasis on why people are too often condemned not just to poverty during recession but also to hard-scrabble lives even during the good times has largely disappeared from the discourse.”

The fact is that tangible structures or proposals for dealing with the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots have been thin on the ground. While speaking in terms of abstracts may afford hope to the oppressed masses and gain their support, it will not translate into substance nor assist in remedying their plight.

Where are the economic models and proposed measures that will translate rhetoric into substance?

This “great divide” between rich and poor may well become front and centre as the recession starts to bite, and the sooner politicians provide people with a clear idea of how they see the way forward, the better.

This applies to us in South Africa as well.

The ANC — in terms of a statement by the NEC to mark the party’s 96th anniversary on January 8 2008 — outlined the measures it believes are necessary to tackle poverty. It confirmed:

“However, serious challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality remain. Answering these challenges means that we must simultaneously accelerate economic growth and transform the quality of that growth.

“Our most effective weapon in the campaign against poverty is the creation of decent work. Moreover, the challenges of poverty and inequality require that accelerated growth takes place in the context of an effective strategy of redistribution …

“During the course of this year, we must make the creation of decent work opportunities the primary focus of our economic policies. We need to make maximum use of all the means at our disposal, as the leading party in government, to achieve this. This objective should be reflected in the orientation and programmes of development finance institutions and regulatory bodies; through government procurement policies; in the sequencing of industrial and trade policy reforms; and in our macroeconomic policy stance.

“While many families have access to social grants and other poverty-alleviation programmes, many households and communities remain trapped in poverty, are dependent on the state and are thus unable to access the opportunities created by an improving economic climate.

“Key development indicators published by government last year show that poverty has indeed been reduced since the ANC-led government was elected, especially after 2000. In real terms, the income of the poorest has improved. The percentage of the population living under R3 000 a year decreased from 52% to 43%. More than 12-million people now receive social grants, out of which 8,1-million are children. However the rate of income increase for the poor has not matched that of the better off, so income inequality has increased.

“Among the challenges that we therefore face is to respond effectively to the massive income inequality that continues to bedevil our society as we continue to make progress in pushing back the frontiers of poverty.

“Our responses to poverty must seek to empower people to access economic opportunities, while creating a comprehensive social safety net to protect the most vulnerable in our society. We will accelerate the process of introduction of a mandatory retirement scheme.

“Education and health must be prioritised as the core elements of social transformation.”

This extract from the statement, while highlighting certain areas, should not be quoted before reading the statement in its entirety — which gives context to these quotes.

As President Thabo Mbeki confirmed at Polokwane and as iterated above, the ANC has made progress in the fight against poverty, which needs to be recognised. Yet Polokwane was driven by the issue of poverty and the people’s desire to accelerate the process.

Vital to that is your understanding of what the ruling party is suggesting as the way forward. It affords you the opportunity of contributing, in whichever way, to the process, suggesting ways in which it may be improved and keeping the party to its promises.

This is vital for all South Africans.