There has always been the poor and there will always be the poor.

"For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.' (Deuteronomy 15:11, Bible)

That being said, the question, even these many years after President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" in 1964, is how best to "open our hands" to our brothers and sisters in need.

According to the National Center for Law and Economic Justice Poverty in the United States, census data shows in 2012, some 46.5 million people, 15 percent of all Americans, were living in poverty in the United States.

This, says the Center, is the highest number in the 54 years the U.S. Census Bureau has been measuring poverty.

In 1964, the Johnson administration defined the "absolute poverty line" as the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be "lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health."

The poverty threshold for a household of four in 2014 was $23,850.

In 2012, some 18.9 million non-Hispanic whites, 13.6 million Hispanics and 10.9 million blacks were living in poverty.

In addition, almost 31 percent of households headed by a single woman were living below the poverty line.

This, according to the census data, is nearly five times the 6.3 percent poverty rate for families headed by a married couple.

Dr. Arthur Garrison, in his Guest View this week, speaks of the upcoming forum at Kutztown University, which will be discussing Assistant Secretary of Labor Patrick Moynihan's leaked internal report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action."

Garrison states: "The report made two conclusions regarding the state of the black family. First, was its dysfunctionality and it was getting worse as far as its stability."

What Moynihan wrote was: "The fundamental problem, in which this is most clearly the case, is that of family structure. The evidence – not final, but powerfully persuasive – is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.

"A middle-class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled, poorly educated city working class the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated..."

Moynihan's phrase: "A middle-class group has managed to save itself..." caught my attention.

This is what we need today. Survivors, not victims. People who save themselves by pulling themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps to succeed in American society.

Victims fail; survivors succeed.

Two centuries ago, Italians and other immigrant groups arriving in this country got off the boat at Ellis Island, moved to the slums of Brooklyn and then worked their way out of the ghettos to become contributing members of society. They were survivors.

The use of food stamps, now called by the cutesy acronym, SNAP, is on the rise. Poverty is also on the rise in this country.

Handing out free telephones, free food and free housing does nothing to help anyone.

People have become victims of society's hardships instead of facing them head on and surviving.

Moynihan also wrote of the "unskilled, poorly educated city working class" who were left behind.

Someone please tell me why some, the "middle-class group" of which Moynihan writes, can save themselves but the others cannot?

I say the difference is the attitude of the person heading the family, whether it be a single mother, a single father or a married couple.

If a child is taught education and hard work are the road out of poverty, that child will succeed and survive whatever hardships life throws in his or her path.

I encourage everyone to attend the forum at Kutztown University on March 18.

The free exchange of ideas may open the door to having less victims and more survivors in today's society.

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press