Poverty, Unemployment, Unions, the ‘Beast’ … and You
This graphic, based upon Department of Labor statistics, shows that overall middle class income has decreased with union membership.
According to Michael Moore, the beginning of the end was 30 years ago yesterday. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers who had defied his back-to-work order. They had been on strike only two days. From Michael Moore’s The Day the Middle Class Died.
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.
Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”
Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.
And they’ve succeeded.
Thirty years of trickle down economics later…
Productivity is up, wages are in decline, union membership continues to decline, corporate profits are breaking records, unemployment and housing forclosures are ravishing the middle class, Americans are going bankrupt due to sky-rocketing medical costs, and income disparities between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us are ever-widening.
Meanwhile, Congress– owned by big business and paralyzed by ideology– fiddles while Rome burns.
Americans are weary from grinding recession and disenchanted [putting it mildly] with our out-of-touch government. After the recent debt ceiling fiasco and the shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to an ideological, anti-union battle, a full 14 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent CNN poll. (A commentator on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show quipped that the 14 percent who said they approved of Congress’ performance must not have understood the question.)
And why shouldn’t we feel disenfranchised by this corporate-controlled government? In poll after poll taken during the protracted debt/deficit battle, Americans said they favored a balanced approach to deficit reduction– one that decreased spending + increased revenues– but that’s not what we got in the end. What we got was a Tea Party dream, a deficit reduction deal based solely on cuts which will likely cost the US 1.8 million jobs. Congressional Teapublicans– including five from Arizona (Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Phil Gossar– even scared Wall Street and financial markets worldwide with their intransigence and extremism.
From Noam Chomsky’s America in Decline…
For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending – though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.
For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.
The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed how the public would eliminate the deficit. PIPA director Steven Kull writes, “Clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House (of Representatives) are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget.”
The survey illustrates the deep divide: “The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. The public also favored more spending on job training, education and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”
The final “compromise” – more accurately, capitulation to the far right – is the opposite throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and the corporations, which are enjoying record profits.
Is Tucson the new ‘Hooverville’?
Homeless shanty towns– Hoovervilles– sprang up during the Great Depression. (Photo Credit: Dorthea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.)
What has all of this got to do with life here in Tucson? Plenty. Two recent studies show that: 1) Tucson has the highest rate of poverty of any major city in the sunbelt and 2) Tucson has the “sickest” housing market in the US.
These statistics– coupled with Arizona’s Starve-the-Beast-Feed-the-Capitalists state government and Teapublican Congressional representatives–Gosar (CD1), Franks (CD2), Quayle (CD3, Schweikert (CD5), and Flake (CD6)– paint a pretty bleak future for the Old Pueblo.
What can we do about it? A few weeks ago at a City Council meeting, political activist Jim Hannley suggested that the Tucson Mayor and Council set up a citizens’ commission to study local poverty (Check out the video at about 3:16 minutes in part 2.) In 2007, then Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal’s office compiled a “Poverty and Urban Stress” report. With dozens of statistical graphics, the 90+ page document details poverty, educational attainment, crime, and other urban stress indicators citywide and by Council ward. At the time, the Arizona Daily Star lauded the report and the City Council agreed to revisit the report annually… but didn’t. That was 2007– before the market crash of 2008 and the ensuing recession. Obviously Tucson’s economy– as well as the state’s and the nation’s– has slid since the report was created.
Repeatedly, the Tucson City Council has bowed to local business interests, at the expense of citizens and workers. The City’s budget– like the state’s and the nation’s– has been cut by cutting jobs, thus worsening our economy by increasing unemployment.
It’s time for Tucson’s Mayor and Council to take the long view on our economy. Leal’s report should be updated and expanded to include multi-year trend data. After the update, a citizens’ commission focusing on poverty, the local economy, and jobs should be created to study the data and make recommendations based upon economic research and best practices from other cities.
As Tucson celebrates its 236th birthday this month, it’s time for Tucsonans to stop grumbling, to start fighting for economic and social justice, and to take a lesson from The Little Engine that Could: I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.
60 comments on “Poverty, Unemployment, Unions, the ‘Beast’ … and You”
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This is a very nice piece of work, Pam: well-written, to-the-point, easy to follow; you make a good argument. Evidently we agree on the nature of the problem, if not the solution.
I always get a kick out of it when I hear on the radio how “American productivity has reached new highs”. The announcer almost always presents it like this is supposed to be good news.
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I agree, good job.
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What this article failed to show was the increase in Government spending compared to personal income. It all started in the Sixties, as Government spending increased, personal wealth declined, obviously as the Government has NO money,it needed to take more of ours. Government Spending can never fix the Recession, only private sector jobs can.
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“Government Spending can never fix the Recession, only private sector jobs can.”
Most economists, outside of the Chicago Gang that got us into this mess in the first place, would disagree.
This reminds me, I saw an interview with Friedman in a documentary recently. It was interesting to me to realize as the interview went on that Mr. Friedman was no different than anyone else on the right. It was clear from his comments that he started out life with a reactionary mindset which led to his reactionary philosophy of economics; not the other way around. You’d like to think that he started his studies with an open mind and the results of his scholarship led him in the direction he took. Not so, I’m afraid. He was clearly just another angry old white guy, albeit one with a higher degree of education and a bigger audience.
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It is completely delusional regurgitation of Teabag tripe of this sort that causes me to lose all hope.
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cfeco, government spending and deficits were under control– even with the launch of the War on Poverty and its related “socialist” programs (ie, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start, etc.)– until Mr. Trickle-Down Economics took office. When Reagan started cutting taxes for the rich AND pursued union busting, the federal government started running huge deficits, the demise of the middle class began, and income inequality began its steady increase, which c0ntinues today.
BTW, government spending is at its lowest point since Eisenhower. The corporatists won’t be satisfied until we return to the reckless Hoover era.
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“BTW, government spending is at its lowest point since Eisenhower. ”
put down the bong and go to bed.
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What the article failed to mention was that in the 60’s the tax rate for the upper one percent went from 91% to 70%, Down to 50% under Reagan to 28% under Bush Sr., to 40% under Clinton, to 35% under Bush Jr. Actually top 1% pays average of 19% most get income from capital gains which is taxed at 15%. It is a REVENUE problem. Or did you mean the $pending for VietNam war? or the Environment Protections, put in place when rivers burned and poop, mercury, and industrial chemicals were dumped into drinking water?
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He was clearly just another angry old white guy
Hey, that description sounds familiar.
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When did ‘revenues’ replace the word TAXES. A rose by any other name…
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Pam you are most certainly one of those dried up liberals who know how to type but do not know how to think. Want the answer. FDR LBJ and the CORRUPT union booses are the problem. Unions at one time served a purpose no longer. When a union job at GM in Detroit pays 32.00 per hour and full benefits and is responsible for doing nothing all day except checking the water fountains in the plant and reporting them to maintenance we are in trouble. Guess what when that plant closed to get relief from this kind of nonesense many worthwhile jobs also went away. Congradulations liberals you have done this to yourselves, now stop whining about it.
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“When a union job at GM in Detroit pays 32.00 per hour…”
Does it bother you less when someone moves some credit default swaps around on a computer and makes, say, 4o million a year? At least the mythical guy in Detroit can’t wreck the economy and throw millions of people out of work by over-leveraging his water coolers.
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Misdirection. Nice try.
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Hey, if someone can make $32/hour opening water bottles for golfers on the 15th tee, why get mad at them? It’s those who buy their power by handing out such unsustainable favors with other people’s resources that people upset at, especially when they bitch and moan about how the golf course was charging sixty bucks to play nine holes and then went out of business.
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The folks on the golf course is not having their golf course propped up with tax payer money. They are producing a product/service that people are willing to pay for. GM was/is not, hence the bailout they got.
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Yeah Pam way to go set up another corrupt liberal demonratic commission with high pay full benefits and expense account. We are broke dummy, stop writing this tripe and get a paying job you might learn something about how the world operates.
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Read the left sidebar: she is the Managing Editor for an international medical research journal. It looks like a paying job to me.
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Pam,
“government spending” has NEVER been under control!
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You know, if you folks in the “smaller government” group get your way, it’s a given that the power vacuum will be filled by somebodies and/or something. Who do you expect will set the rules in your libertarian utopia? I think I know who, and that’s why we can’t allow this to happen.
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Work of this quality deserves to be read.
Nicely done, thanks Pamela,
I offer you a free lunch.
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Nice Pamela, I especially like the term Teapublican, I have been looking for some way to describe these people and that is perfect. Thank you.
Ed Schultzalso talked about the phenomenon of the shrinking middle class and the widening of the gap between the rich and poor but not as thoroughly as this.
Leftfield, I disagree with you — slightly. Government should be much smaller — and more efficient — and actually do its job! Right now none of the people who are doing all the talking are doing anything more than looking out for Number One, and Number One’s benefactors.
Government exists for one reason, to assist the smooth operation of a republican government. Note that is republican with a small ‘r’ as in ‘representing’ the people who voted for them, a concept that is unknown in modern political philosophy.
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I often speak with two different voices at different times, Marc. When I wear my Marxist hat, then to me government in a bourgeois democracy exists to provide for the ruling class those things that they cannot provide for themselves – e.g., an army, transportation infrastructure, etc. It also functions as an interface between the ruling class and the working class; a buffer to assure smooth operations for business interests. Government as it currently exists is simply “the shadow that business casts over society”.
Wearing my capitalist democracy hat, the smaller (i.e. weaker) the government is, the fewer protections it can provide against the depredations of business interests. Two words: Massey Energy.
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This all begins at the polls! If our fellow citizens are not compelled to vote and know who they are voting for, this type of destructive politics will continue to feed off our society. PLEASE HAVE EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO Is QUALiFED TO VOTE! TY
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Thanks, Pamela, for breaking it down, for telling it like “it t-i-s is” as my homies and I used to say.
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Educate yourselves on Poverty in America:
For you liberals, since you are all obsessed with race, Thomas Sowell is black. Since he does not embrase victimhood, in your mind he must be an incompetent Uncle Tom. You should read him anyway since he has some good things to say.
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/200445/latest
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219604/poor-thinking/thomas-sowell
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272081/modern-poverty-includes-ac-and-xbox-ken-mcintyre
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/08/how-poor-are-americas-poor-examining-the-plague-of-poverty-in-america
“the total poverty population shrank by 3.8 million between 1983 and 1989, and the poverty rate (the fraction of people living in poverty) fell from 15.2 per cent to 12.8 per cent. Poverty rates had risen throughout the Carter years and continued rising until Ronald Reagan’s economic policies took hold.” http://old.nationalreview.com/reagan/rubensteinc200406101426.asp
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/carter-reagan-and-the-poor/
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… since you are all obsessed with race, Thomas Sowell is black. Since he does not embrase victimhood, in your mind he must be an incompetent Uncle Tom.
I smell fear on you.
Sowell is a thug.
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One demerit for each of you; gigi for only providing links from conservative partisans, and Jim for using the lazy cliche “thug” as if it were a thoughtful, substantive criticism. Now I’m far less likely to believe that either of you should be taken seriously.
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What do you know about Sowell? I wont discuss him as if he held credible positions.
He is a thug.
I honestly dont care what you believe.
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Two demerits.
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Evidence that he is a “Thug”? Please keep posting. You are very entertaining.
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“providing links from conservative partisans” A demerit for you for using an ad hominem. Address the facts in the links or go back to your coloring books.
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It’s not an ad hominem. “Conservative partisans” is an accurate description of those parties that I’m sure they would agree with. I wasn’t belittiling them as such, or dismissing the facts in the links, I was questioning the wisdom and usefulness of using such biased sources of information in a debate with someone on the other side. Right or wrong, you’ve got to know that it isn’t going to fly with them. If you think it should, I have reason to doubt your judgement.
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Oh, and “coloring books”? In my best Seth Myers: “Really?!?”
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Honestly, Gigi; do you think that anyone who doesn’t already think like you is going to be impressed by links to National Review, The Heritage Foundation and The Cato Institute? If you are trying to preach to the choir, then these links will be well-received. Outside of that, nobody is going to believe the information presented. These organizations exist to promote an ideology and only to promote an ideology.
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Address the facts presented in the article not who wrote them (ad hominem). You see an adult would point out the substance of your comments comments are wrong regardless of how nice of a Marxist you are.
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So, you will “address the facts” when I provide a link from Monthly Review (an independent socialist monthly)? Of course you would. You would go to great lengths to point out how the analysis does not jive with what you have learned reading National Review. Can you see the futility? I believe you and I do not share the same reality.
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“This graphic, based upon Department of Labor statistics, shows that overall middle class income has decreased with union membership.”
I will assume that you are not being dishonest but this is misleading. If the income of the wealthiest increased a whole lot and the income of the middle class’s income also increased you would still see the decline show in the graph; the graph shows the SHARE of the national income of the middle class. You also mention that the size of the middle class is decreasing. That would also produce the trend shown in the graph. You should probably research;
1) what was the absolute income of the middle class (i.e number of $’s) ? Did it increase?
2) If the size of the middle class decrease where did they go? Did they become poor? Did they transition into a wealthier class; I know that is not conceivable in a Marxist paradigm but think on it for a while.
2)Does correlation mean causation?
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Income levels corrected for inflation show that wage-earners now take home less in purchasing power than they did in the 70’s. Of course the bulk of the people who previously were considered middle class became poorer. I know this is not conceivable in a capitalist “paradigm”, but think on it for a while.
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Really? How can the poor afford xbox’s and cars today? Links backing up your claims?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272081/modern-poverty-includes-ac-and-xbox-ken-mcintyre
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/08/how-poor-are-americas-poor-examining-the-plague-of-poverty-in-america
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national review and heritage foundation.
I get it.
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“How can the poor afford xbox’s and cars today?”
Better question: How can they afford food? Apparently, many can’t, as approximately 30% of Americans live in “food-insecure households”; a nice, sterile and clinical phrase.
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Sounds like they are making some choices enabled by government handouts.
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“Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.””
It probably ended when the US finally had competition from other countries after decades of mfg supremacy after the world was devastated by WWII and communism. The fact is that there are folks who are willing and able to make things for less (and still earn a good living in their country). If you would like to see the result of fixing prices and wages go check out the food shelves in Venezuela. Marxism and central planning of economies does not work and usually results in the starving/murdering of millions of people.
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Germany– which has had strong unions since the 1800s– has one of the strongest economies in the world. Even the Walmarts in Germany are unionized.
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What evidence is there that Germany’s strong economy is because of Unions rather than in spite of them? As I recall National SOCIALISM did not work out good for them.
Correlation does not equal causation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkebmhTQN-4
“The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/08/how-poor-are-americas-poor-examining-the-plague-of-poverty-in-america
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Maybe corporations in Germany don’t pay their CEOs an average of $9 million per year. A company can employ well-paid union workers and still be competitive if they’re not shelling out obscene amounts of money to the head honcho.
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You should talk with the Shareholders of those companies (people who own the company and its capital) to change their policies. Otherwise it is their business what they do with THEIR money. If the workers want to make more money they should acquire more skills that makes them more valuable to the employer or start a business of their own. Despite what you have learned from Marx, people are perfectable, can improved themselves and can cease to be poor and become rich as long as they are free to do so and gov regulation does not prevent them from doing so.
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The only thing that is standing in the way of every one of us being another Bill Gates is ourselves? Who will mow Bill’s lawn then?
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Robots.
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“Repeatedly, the Tucson City Council has bowed to local business interests”
What are you smoking?
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Search for “business friendly” on this blog and you will be enlightened.
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Did you know that Arizona is second only to Texas in job creation in the US? Those jobs are being created in Phoenix and other business friendly communities in Arizona, not Tucson.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/268063/texass-job-growth-perspective-kevin-d-williamson
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Did you know that Arizona is second only to Texas in job creation in the US?
That’s a hoot.
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Unemployment numbers are comprised of those that are in the job market for the past 30 days. It does not include those that have not been in the job market in the last 30 days: people who have given up looking; those that have gone off unemployment because it has run out. One solution to unemployment is “High Speed University” check it out
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Please gigi, stop with the hate talk -it makes you sound like a drunk or a meth head. Obviously the country is polarized with is not helpful to the people themselves, but is to those who are trying to manipulate and censor info for their agenda. Our only hope is to check the facts, try to see the other’s perspective, follow the money -who profits?, and insist on REAL debates. I get that you are angry. So am I.
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Hate Talk = Pointing out the insanity others are spouting.
Right!
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gigi is a schill (sp) for national review and the heritage foundation. No source references.
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Here are the source reference for the Heritage report? Ready to address the facts presented? btw ad hominem
“No source references.”
[1] John Edwards, Letter to President George W. Bush, July 19, 2007, athttp://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/7/19/13140/5388 (August 21, 2007).[2] John Edwards, “Conclusion: Ending Poverty in America,” in John Edwards, Marion Crain, and Arne L. Kalleberg, eds., Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream (New York: The New Press, 2007), pp. 256, 257.[3] Ibid., p. 256.[4] U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005, Current Population Report, P60-231, August 2006, p. 13. [5] Ibid., p. 46. [6] Comparison of the average expenditure per person of the lowest quintile in 2001 with the middle quintile in 1973. Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Integrated Diary and Interview Survey Data, 1972-73, Bulletin No. 1992, released in 1979, and U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures in 2001, Report No. 966, April 2003. Figures adjusted for inflation by the personal consumption expenditure index. [7] See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Poverty Pulse Low Income Survey Wave IV, January 2005, at http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/povpulse.htm. Interestingly, only about 1 percent of those surveyed regarded poverty in the terms the government does: as having an income below a specified level. [8] The Census Bureau defines an individual as poor if his or her family income falls below certain specified income thresholds. These thresholds vary by family size. In 2006, a family of four was deemed poor if its annual income fell below $20,615; a family of three was deemed poor if annual income was below $16,079. There are a number of problems with the Census Bureau’s poverty figures: Census undercounts income, ignores assets accumulated in prior years, and disregards non-cash welfare such as food stamps and public housing in its official count of income. However, the most important problem with Census figures is that, even if a family’s income falls below the official poverty thresholds, the family’s actual living conditions are likely to be far higher than the image most Americans have in mind when they hear the word “poverty.” [9] U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States, 2005 Data Charts, athttp://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/nationaldata.html#jump2 (August 23, 2007); U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003; and U.S Department of Energy, Housing Characteristics, 2001, Appliances Tables, athttp://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumption (August 21, 2007). [10] U.S. Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States, 2005 Data Charts. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid. [13] Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Dover Press, 1971), pp. 6, 41, 59. [14] U.S. Department of Energy, Housing Characteristics 1993, 1995, pp. 46, 47. The figures in the text refer to total living space, including both heated and non-heated living space. [15] U.N. Center for Human Settlements and World Bank, Preliminary Findings, Vol. II of The Housing Indicators Program (New York: United Nations, 1993), Table 5. [16] See Katha Pollitt, “Poverty: Fudging the Numbers,” The Nation, November 2, 1998. Pollitt argues that it is misleading to compare the living space of poor Americans nationwide to that of average citizens in major cities in other nations, since European cities, in particular, have small housing units that are not representative of their entire nations. However, the author of the United Nations Housing Indicators report asserts that, in most cases, the average housing size in major cities can be taken as roughly representative of the nation as a whole. A comparison of the data in Table 3 and the appendix table would appear to confirm this. [17] C. T. Windham et al., “Nutrient Density of Diets in the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 1977-1978: Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Dietary Density,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, January 1983. [18] Interagency Board for Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research, Third Report on Nutrition Monitoring in the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), p. VA 167. [19] K. S. Tippett, S. J. Mickle, J. D. Goldman, K. E. Sykes, D. A. Cook, R. S. Sebastian, J. W. Wilson, and J. Smith, Food and Nutrient Intakes by Individuals in the United States, 1 Day, 1989-91, PB95-272746, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, September 1995. [20] Ibid., Tables 10-1, 10-4. Table 4 in the present paper also provides the “mean adequacy ratio” for various groups. The mean adequacy ratio represents average intake of all the nutriments listed as a percent of RDA. However, in computing mean adequacy, intake values exceeding 100 percent of RDA are counted at 100, since the body cannot use an excess consumption of one nutriment to fill a shortfall of another nutriment. [21] The World Health Organization uses standard height-for-age tables developed by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department and Health and Human Services. [22] M. de Onis and J. P. Habicht, “Anthropometric Reference Data for International Use: Recommendations from a World Health Organization Expert Committee,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1996, pp. 650-658. [23] Heritage Foundation calculation using National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey III data and WHO standard tables for shortness for age. Shortness for age is the result of genetic variation as well as nutritional factors. The World Health Organization standards assume that even in a very well-nourished population, 2.3 percent of children will have heights below the “stunted” cut-off levels due to normal genetic factors. Problems are apparent if the number of short children in a population rises appreciably above that 2.3 percent. [24] Bernard D. Karpinos, “Current Height and Weight of Youths of Military Age,” Human Biology, 1961, pp. 336-364. Recent data on young males in poverty provided by the National Center for Health Statistics of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, based on the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. [25] Interagency Board for Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research, Third Report on Nutrition Monitoring, p. VA 219. [26] Food Research Action Council, “Hunger in America, and Its Solutions: Basic Facts,” July 2004, athttp://www.frac.org/pdf/HungerFacts.pdf (August 21, 2007). [27] Calculated from U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003. [28] Ibid. [29] Ibid. [30] Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, Steven Carlson, Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, Economic Research Report, Number 26, United States Department of Agriculture, November 2006, p. 47. [31] Calculated from U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2001 Panel, Wave 8 Topical Module, 2003. [32] Ibid. [33] Ibid. The Wave 8 Topical Module also contains a question about whether members of the household needed to see a dentist but did not go. Because the question does not specify whether or not the failure to visit the dentist was due to an inability to pay, it was not included in this report. [34] Robert E. Rector and Rea S. Hederman, Jr., “The Role of Parental Work in Child Poverty,” Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA03-01, January 27, 2003, athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/cda-03-01.cfm. [35] Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Patrick F. Fagan, and Lauren R. Noyes, “Increasing Marriage Would Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty,” Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA03-06 May 20, 2003, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/cda0306.cfm. [36] Robert Rector and Patrick F. Fagan, “The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform,”Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1620, February 6, 2003, athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1620.cfm. [37] Robert Rector, “Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 9, October 25, 2006, p. 6, athttp://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR9.cfm. [38] See Jeffrey S. Passel, Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington, D.C.,June 14, 2005, at /static/reportimages/43362227DF9D7616EEE7F777397AFCDC.pdf(August 21, 2007). Most experts believe that some 90 percent of illegal immigrants are represented in the Census’s annual Current Population survey. [39] Rector, “Importing Poverty,” p. 18. [40] Estimate based on Passel, Unauthorized Migrants, pp. 18 and 34. [41] Rector, “Importing Poverty. [42] Ibid., p. 19. Among native born Hispanic women the out-of-wedlock childbearing rate is even higher, 49.6 percent.
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I get it. All of our problems have resulted from unholy alliances between corporations and government, and the best way to fix that is to increase the size of government.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I just love sending $10.00 to decrease poverty, and have at least 50 cents actually get to somebody that really needs it.
Let’s have another study — that will definitely fix it.
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You are just filled with hate. All you need is civility and align your visioning with others and will be poor and malcontent like everyone else.
I for one welcome the neo-feudalism that obamaism will bring. Hope and Change!
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