 Aloha, I'm Mary Ann Sasaki with this Think Tech commentary. You shall freely open your hand to your brother to your needy and poor in your land. So says Deuteronomy 1511. It's a little secret and American affair that we are the richest democracy in the world with the most poverty and neither candidate is talking about it. Donald Trump talks about the great silent majority. Hillary Clinton speaks of the woes of the middle class, but who speaks for the poor? We know one apparently. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson proposed a war on poverty. We actually had a mandate to eradicate poverty in that decade. Whether you think President Johnson's broad programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, increased social security benefits, Head Start and Vista worked as immaterial. The issue is the president in his first inaugural speech directly confronted poverty as a national problem abhorrent to all right-minded people. Whether you think President Johnson's broad programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, increased social security benefits, Head Start and Vista worked as immaterial. The issue is the president in his first inaugural speech directly confronted poverty as a national problem abhorrent to all right-minded people. But what we have now is radio silence on the issue. We have candidates that promise more and better jobs, but that is a sock to the plummeting middle class who can barely hang on month to month. There is a huge swath of America for whom mere jobs will not solve the problem. For example, there is not a single state where a full-time worker earning the minimum wage can rent a market rate in one bedroom apartment for less than 30% of their income. More than 11 million households spend more than half of their income on rent. But neither candidate speaks about the dearth of affordable housing. Scarce housing promotes instability and the repeated evictions that are a regular feature of life in lower-income neighborhoods. Spending a disproportionate amount for housing leaves less for other necessities like food and utilities and transportation. For some, there is no choosing. They remain homeless. We are far beyond talking about governmental programs. We need a radical change in thought. Americans need to demand compassion from ourselves and our leaders. Yes, it is difficult to give when you are yourself having a difficult financial time, but if not us, who and when? There has always been an underestimation and misunderstanding about the depth and breadth of poverty in our country. Michael Harrington's The Other America, published in 1962, caused national attention to be focused on the problem resulting in the war on poverty. Since the 60s, there has been little compassion for the economically least among us. Indeed, since the 1970s, people have been focused on depriving the poor of federal benefits and slowly federal and state welfare programs have been stripped bare. Now our solution to the problem is to ignore it, or when forced to confront it, blame it on the idle poor. But by now, I think even the most cynical among us can admit there aren't plenty of jobs for everyone. The blue-collar white Americans who have historically painted the poor as dependent and lazy too are finding that work is not so easy to come by. Indeed, the fury against illegal immigration is a manifestation of job insecurity among the lower middle class. Moreover, we cannot consider the class issue of poverty without considering the racial ramifications. African-American households are more than twice as likely to be food insecure as white, non-Hispanic households. For those who say racism is in our past, for those who say everyone has an equal opportunity, I say, how do you start from way behind and make up the difference in the race? If living a decent life in the United States is indeed a race. Poverty is historical, cultural, generational, and endemic in certain urban and rural areas. A few ticks off the unemployment rate will barely touch poverty. It needs a great deal more. That is why I advocate a new war on poverty. We should be downsizing the military and stop wasting billions, if not trillions, on futile political guerrilla warfare and dedicate such money to affordable housing and education. Bernie Sanders, a warhorse who remembers well the war on poverty, understood this. We cannot function as a society without the fundamentals of human dignity. Food, clothing, shelter, some security against economic peaks and valleys. What are the solutions? That is for sociologists, political scientists, faith leaders, and others more qualified than I to say. What I am saying is it is time to stop keeping this America's dirty little secret and bring it to the fore. There is no shame in poverty. It is not a matter of fault. There will always be poverty, but let us at least treat it as a pernicious problem it is not as a character flaw or simple twist of fate. Mahalo, I'm Marianne Sasaki and this has been a Think Tech Commentary.