A Guide to Understanding Poverty in America

1. A Guide to Understanding Poverty in America Andrew Sears Executive Director TechMission

2. Dominant Civil Rights Narrative: The Great White Savior 80% of benefits and effort 80% of need • Assumes that all injustice for these groups has already been addressed • Disproportionate effort focused on upper class issues rather than the poor

3. Change in Income Distribution (1947-1979)

4. Change in Income (1977-1994) 1977-1994 Source: Economic Policy Institute

5. Change in Income

6. Source: http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/

7. Tax Cuts for the Richest 400 Americans were $18 billion (or 26% of the budget of the US Department of Education) Source: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3090

8. Top 1% in the USA Receive 75% of Benefits of Economic Growth • The poorest 50% globally have 1% of wealth • Richest 2% own half the world’s wealth Sources: http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/ http://newsmine.org/

9. Decreasing Minimum Wage Source: http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/

10. Source: http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/

11. The USA spends more on its military than the next 15 countries combined Welfare accounts for only 1 percent of the US federal budget

12. Why Health Care and Social Security Are Issues of Justice Source: http://www.businesspundit.com/wealth-distribution-in-the-united-states/

13. Changing Trends in Imprisonment Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

14. Mass Incarceration in America • There are more African Americans under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850 • More African Americans cannot vote today (due to felony laws) than in 1870 • The imprisonment rate in the USA is the highest in the world at 4 times the world average • The Black imprisonment rate is 6.4 times that of Whites 14 times the global average Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

15. Injustice & Unwed Teen Births National Center for Health Statistics, 1999 http://www.beverlylahayeinstitute.org/articledisplay.asp?id=2573&department=BLI&categoryid=datadigest

16. High School Graduation Crisis • Only 50.2% of Black and 53.2% of Latino students graduate compared to 73.4% nationally • Graduation cuts chances of poverty in half and boosts income by 49% from $19,169 to $28,645 • Dropping out increases changes of imprisonment by 350% • Being held back a grade in school more than doubles chances of dropping out of high school • Black and Latino youth represent 58% of all students who drop out although they account for less than 32% of student population • Only 38% of moms under 18 receive a diploma by age 22, compared to 89% for those with no children • For Black men not graduating high school • 60% spend time in prison by their mid-30’s • 72% are unemployed Sources: Urban Institute’s Education Policy Center, http://www.childtrends.org/Files/Child_Trends-2010_01_22_FS_DiplomaAttainment.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/national/20blackmen.html

17. High School Graduation Rates Source: http://www.urban.org/publications/410934.html

18. Importance of College • Only 30% of low-income Black and Latino students go on to college compared to 78% of high-income White students. • A bachelor’s degree decreases chance of being in poverty from 12.3% to 2.5% and increase their income by 80% from $28,645 to $51,544. Source: Urban Institute’s Education Policy Center

19. Education and Income 1979-1993 Source: When Work Disappears

20. Education and Unemployment http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/minorities_less-educated_workers_see_staggering_rates_of_underemployment/

21. Wealth Inequalities by Race

22. The Problem: Social Leprosy “Eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” – MLK

23. What Does the “Tech” Mean in TechMission Corps • TechMission’s values are Jesus, then Justice, then Technology • Start with: What are the needs of the “poor”? Resources & people • TechMission uses “Tech” to connect resources & people to the poor • We are the nervous system in the Body of Christ

24. Church Giving & Missions $390 Billion Global Budgets of Christian Organizations Missions Ministry to the Poor Down from 21% in 1965 Sources: Empty Tomb International Bulletin of Missionary Research * US government’s non-military discretionary budget is $350 billion

25. Christian Volunteering: Serving Inside Church vs. Outside Community 22.1 million FBO volunteers in USA Value of FBO Volunteers= $58.2 billion 2.2 million volunteers serving outside Community = 10% Value = $5.2 Billion 20 million volunteers serving inside congregations = 90% Value = $52.3 Billion Source: Volunteering in America, 2009 A study by Lester Salamon of the Institute for Policy Studies of Johns Hopkins, only 7-15% of volunteering through churches helps the larger community Source: Corporation for National and Community Service

26. TechMission’s Focus & OtherLower Class Culture Nonprofits Leadership and clients

27. The Systemic Barrier: Funding Bias and Indigenous Organizations • Indigenous = race, class, gender & culture of community being served • Most effective organizations • Funding Dilemma for Indigenous Leaders • Secular funders often have a bias against lower-class culture and faith-based organizations • Christian resources are disproportionately distributed to White middle & upper class Christians

28. Funding Bias: Non-Whites Make Up 52.4% Of Poverty But Non-White Led Nonprofits Only Receive 3% of Funding http://www.slideshare.net/rosettathurman/race-matters-in-nonprofits-promoting-diversity-in-our-profession and http://www.aecf.org/upload/publicationfiles/executive_transition_survey_report2004.pdf

29. Why Does Only 3% of Foundation Funding Go to Nonprofits Led by People of Color? Statistics are explained in the attached spreadsheet at: www.urbanministry.org/fundingbias

30. Religious Restrictions = Racial Bias • Literacy test for voting in the 1950’s has been replaced with religious tests for funding today • How it works • About 2/3 of Black-led nonprofits are in churches or other faith-based organizations • About 2/3 of White-led nonprofits are secular • Not funding faith-based organizations makes White-led nonprofits twice as likely to get funded Statistics are explained in the attached spreadsheet at: www.urbanministry.org/fundingbias

31. How to Get Funding from Foundations • Be White • 97% of foundation funding goes toward White-led nonprofits • Be Culturally Middle Class • Estimated 95% of leadership of nonprofits is culturally middle class • Be Male • While 58% of nonprofit executives are women, the median nonprofit income led by a man has twice the income of a nonprofit led by a woman Sources: http://www.aecf.org/upload/publicationfiles/executive_transition_survey_report2004.pdf & http://greenlining.org/publications/pdf/339 The class statistic is explained on a previous slide

32. TechMission’s Vision:Connecting People to the Poor $18.17 trillion: Combined incomes of Christians globally $390 billion: Combined budgets of Christian orgs globally $58.2 billion: Value of Faith-Based Volunteers (USA) UrbanMinistry.org Tens of Millions Web Visitors ChristianVolunteering.org:Millions of Volunteers City Vision College:Tens of thousands of Students TechMission Corps: Thousands of Interns $100’s of Millions Sources: Listed above and International Bulletin of Missionary Research

33. Ezekiel 37:1-6 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?”   I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."  Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' “  

34. Ezekiel 37:7-14 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' “ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.‘ Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”