Lower education, color, sex, and class seem to divide our privileged from the poor. The result is a definite underclass of humans oppressed into anonymity and severe poverty, due to the way the economy functions. Without the poor the capitalist system cannot function. Democracy and equality are two words that cannot fit together. The very nature of who is right and who is wrong being decided by votes, leaves nearly half the people unhappy. But hey, this is the best unfair system we could think of that allows this salient view of untold wealth exist right next to extreme poverty and societal unrest. The ways of life are predetermined and all they need is the filler components, that happen naturally, to take their positions.
Posted on Thu, Feb. 22,
U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16760690.htm
Quote:
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.................. The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. .............The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries.
What appears to be taking place is that, over the long term, you have a significant permanent underclass that is not being impacted by anti-poverty policies," said Michael Tanner, the director of Health and Welfare Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, disagreed. "It doesn't look like a growing permanent underclass," said Sherman, whose organization has chronicled the growth of deep poverty. "What you see in the data are more and more single moms with children who lose their jobs and who aren't being caught by a safety net anymore."
About 1.1 million such families account for roughly 2.1 million deeply poor children, Sherman said. .........<SNIP>..............
After fleeing an abusive marriage in 2002, 42-year-old Marjorie Sant moved with her three children from Arkansas to a seedy boarding house in Raleigh, N.C., where the four shared one bedroom. For most of 2005, they lived off food stamps and the $300 a month in Social Security Disability Income for her son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Teachers offered clothes to Sant's children. Saturdays meant lunch at the Salvation Army.
"To depend on other people to feed and clothe your kids is horrible," Sant said. "I found myself in a hole and didn't know how to get out."
No help, no hope, no future! Fairly long article packed with stories and facts. Good read on the consequences of adherance to another problem with our capitalist "bottom line" economics and the people who are at that bottom.
On Democracy Now today they mentioned that 60% of homeless are coloured.
Quote:
Census: 750,000 Homeless in US
A new census has estimated the nation’s homeless population at three-quarters of a million people. The Department of Housing and Urban Development says that’s about 300,000 more than the number of available beds in shelters and temporary housing. Around sixty-percent of the homeless population are people of color.
Read all about it. It's America's hidden secret about the consequences of foreign incursions. There goes the social safety net off to another war!
Instead of wars on drugs, poverty etc.- how about a war on the rich, because the war on drugs or poverty sure isn't working- unless it's intent is to create more poor and underclass! Hey come to think of it war creates more than just bodies- it creates a whole segment of damaged poor to try and pick up their pieces, or as one American put it- "I found myself in a hole and didn't know how to get out". Doesn't she know that the only way out of the hole is to stop digging it. Tell that to a soldier digging his foxhole! Perhaps if we combined our abilities and knowhow we could all pitch in and help fill in these holes everywhere! It's the only solution.
How about starting with a minimum living wage for everyone, especially single moms and coloured people to start, so they can at least have a glimmer of hope to getting out of their hole!
It may be a small percentage of people but it is a giant eyesore to America. And it's getting bigger!
