Our Inheritance: Social Injustice

If you have a family, you know that the needs of the most vulnerable member of your family come first. In our country, the opposite is true. You don’t have to be a Democrat or Liberal to notice that the poor, low-income, uneducated and minorities are most vulnerable. Interestingly, we are not outraged.

Indigenous Americans and poor communities are the primary target of predatory industries. Oil spills, water contamination, industrial waste, etc. NEVER contaminate prosperous suburbs or exclusive enclaves of the wealthy.

Hunger and disease are on the rise in poor communities. Why do we have poor communities in America? Because social injustice is beneficial to exploitative employers and sanctioned by the government.

What do you think of when someone says “America’s largest employer”? A person or company that provides jobs, income and opportunity to communities? The employees on their way up, improving their education, buying homes, putting their kids’ through college? Right? That’s what I think, too.

Perhaps that’s why I find it shocking that the company referred to as “America’s largest employer” pays their employees so poorly that many are forced to resort to welfare to survive.

According to WorldHunger.org

“Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups.”

According to Reuters

“Fifty-five percent of part-time employees also said they did not have enough food to meet their basic needs. Walmart employees are among the largest groups on food stamp subsidies, according to labor experts.”

Should an employer whose employees are underpaid be respectfully referred to as “America’s largest employer”?… Correct me if I’m wrong, but in this particular case it seems that the taxpayers are the Country’s largest employer because WE pay a nice portion of the employees’ wages.

Look at it from the underpaid employee’s perspective: the person works full-time which means she or he is unable to look for another job or go to school. The employee of “America’s largest employer” trades their time, labor and potential prospects for wages so low that the indignity of being a welfare recipient has to be a part of the bargain. And we were told that having a job is empowering; apparently, not any job.

It’s not that the disadvantaged aren’t trying to improve their lot. They are trapped. Our social injustice doesn’t add up for a number of reasons.

• The poor are deliberately kept poor, sickly and uneducated. (Were you asked whether you’d like to born into a poor or well-to-do family?)
• Increasingly more and more low-wage earners can’t afford to pay for their housing or food. (We are talking here about people who work full time!) Is this normal? Isn’t it called “working for a living”?
• More and more employed individuals and families are becoming homeless in spite of the allegedly “booming” economy. (Who is making a killing on this boom: the exploited workers or their deep-pockets’ employers?)

When the poor are deliberately kept poor, deprived of healthcare and poorly educated; when they have no opportunities and no way to advance either through education or employment what’s the long-term plan for our Country? To expand the wealth of the relatively few at the expense of the low-income segment of population? Eliminating the middle-class and the working class?

Time isn’t standing still. New industries need qualified employees. Those in need of these new jobs are not being prepared for them. The employment opportunities may be out there but not for those who need them most. What’s left? Outsourcing jobs badly needed at home?

What’s the plan here? To keep one and five American children hungry? To provide incentives for crime or social uprising? To inhibit economic growth of our Country? Or to simply steal as much as possible from the most vulnerable for as long as it is permissible under the law?

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” Oprah Winfrey

Clearly, our leadership lacks empathy AND morality. Believe it or not, but there was a time when exploitation wasn’t celebrated as a business achievement but prosecuted as the crime it is. If history repeats itself, let’s bring back the American Dream and provide everybody with an opportunity to succeed. #ChangeTheWorld