We found that the best way to help people without money gain self-sufficiency was to give them money. We saw only one common denominator in the dozens of people who shared their life stories with us-they didn’t have any money. The two of us-a social worker and a journalist-spent the past three years immersed in such statistics while writing a book about poverty in the U.S. Low-wage employees are working more and making less. The Consumer Price Index rose by nearly one-quarter in this period. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. The number of non-elderly adults in poverty who work full-time (or more than full-time) has been climbing for decades. In surveys of Americans, respondents are split on the question- “Which is the bigger cause of poverty today: that people are not doing enough to help themselves out of poverty, or that circumstances beyond their control cause them to be poor?”-with affluent people coming down disproportionately on the side of “people are not doing enough.” Slanders against less prosperous Americans have persisted into the 21st century.
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