The United States is often referred to as the “land of opportunity” but an increasing number of people are feeling the pinch, struggling to makes ends meet as inequality in the poorest rich country in the world. 1% of the highest earning US citizens managed 24% of the country’s wealth, figures that are exactly the same as those of 1928.
50 years ago President Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” US poverty levels, child poverty levels and income inequality are currently some of the worst in the developed world. According to official data from 2012 onward, poverty affected 15.1 percent of US citizens, or 46.5 million people, while, based on a second government methodology that counts alternative sources of household income, this figure rises to 16 percent, or 49.7 million people.
The most acute poverty is found in the black and “Hispanic” communities (27 and 25.6 percent, respectively), minors under 18 years of age (21.8 percent) and, above all, children under the age of six (24.4 percent) and children under six who lived in single-mother families (56 percent). Women are poorer than men (16.3 percent over 13.6 percent) and earn 70 cents to every dollar taken home by a man from the same job.
“The United States hasn’t lost the war on poverty, it’s left the battlefield,” said professor Gene Nichol of the Centre on Poverty, Work & Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, one of 10 states whose poverty rates are higher than the national average, with 17 percent. “Half way through the 1970s the country had reduced poverty within the elderly population by two-thirds and by 60 percent in children. We’re still okay in the area of people over 65 years of age, thanks to social security, Medicare, Medicaid. But we’ve lost the will to fight infant poverty, and it’s noticeable. Almost a fourth of our children live in poverty, which is a huge embarrassment for the richest nation on earth.”
For a four-person family living on US$23,492 a year, an average university education costs US$20,000. According to official data, groceries eat up around a third of that income, while on Craigslist, a one-bedroom apartment costs on average US$800 per month depending on the condition it is in. this winter — the coldest in 20 years — sent electricity bills soaring: US$66 per month in Florida, US$91 in North Carolina and US$130 in Illinois. This saw many people having to choose between spending the same amount on groceries or maintaining the house at 17-degrees Celsius. In a country without major public transport infrastructure, aside from in a few major cities, cars are nothing short of a necessity for people wanting to get to work. A cheap used car (for example, a Toyota Corolla 2009) ranges from US$9,000 to US$11,500 in price, with the insurance (which would vary based on a number of factors, including the condition of the vehicle and the owner’s driving record) costing between US$200 and US$300 a month. Fuel prices vary, but filling up a Corolla to drive its full 671 kilometres, costs on average US$35.
At this point the total annual costs for that family reach US$20,360, without including fuel or healthcare (the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or “Obamacare,” the mother of all battles for the current president, was founded on the problems facing 50 million people without health insurance in a country with no free medical services), as well as clothing, telecommunications, childcare and the transport of children, or taxes, and forgetting completely education, entertainment and holidays.
Feeding America — the largest national NGO dedicated to feeding the poor — last month said “the majority of people need help because they simply don’t make enough money to provide their families three meals a day.” Ross Fraser, its spokesperson explained that his organization gives food to 37 million people each year, and that the panorama has become bleaker in recent years: “Between 35 and 38 million Americans suffered food insecurity — the term used for those who have no certainty they’ll eat every day — between 2001 and 2006; that figure rose to 49 million in 2007, when the recession hit us. Since then it’s hovered between 49 and 50 million people.” He pointed out that today “one in every seven Americans lives on or below the poverty line, and one in every seven receives food coupons (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, which is US$133 per month or on average US$4.38 per day) and one in seven suffers food insecurity.” According to Fraser, “funding for federal nutrition programmes is needed; if unemployment and poverty are reduced, so too is hunger.”
There are 11 million people currently out of work in the US. Almost a third of them have not found a job in six months or more, while in some states like New Jersey or Florida, that portion rises to half. Many of the jobs that have been created in the private sector since the alleged end of the recession in 2009 lack regular hours or benefits like health insurance, sick leave or holidays, while one in four of them pay the minimum wage (between US$7.25 and US$10.10 per hour depending on the state), which in many households is not enough to live on, even with a standard 40-hour working week.
Erin Cumberworth, a researcher at the Stanford Centre on Poverty and Inequality holds the opinion that opinion, the biggest problem at the moment is the “inability of people — especially those with university degrees — to find sufficiently stable jobs that pay enough to allow them to support themselves and their families: a large number of people find a balance on the fringes of the labour market, improvising with short-term and/or badly paid work, with meager government benefits, work under the table and the help of friends and families.”
Life is a continual struggle for poor people who work, Cumberworth added. “A stable job or income could solve many problems in other areas like in healthcare, housing, children welfare,” he explained. “We should do as much as possible to help, from capacity-building programmes so people have the right knowledge for the jobs that currently exist to government stimulus focused on creating unskilled jobs, like roadworks and infrastructure; from better salaries using subsidies or tax-free credits, to more innovative strategies like facilitating access to information about labour conditions in other cities or states, and perhaps even offering subsidies for transfers for those choosing to move in order to find work.”
According to official data, the US middle class is defined as having a household income of US$51,017 per year. Successful professionals in areas like law and medicine are situated in the one percent of citizens earning the most, or US$380,000 a year. However, this one percent is in fact mostly comprised of successful business entrepreneurs, who earn US$1million to US$3 million a year. Its upper echelons are made up of CEOs of financial firms and Hollywood and sports stars who earn around US$10 million a year. So, one citizen earns US$10 million per year, while the other — limited by poverty — earns US$11,720. Social welfare programmes consume US$59 billion, while subsidies given to corporations (without taking into account the US$700-billion bailout package for the banking sector in 2008) total US$92 billion per year.
FROM HERE
50 years ago President Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” US poverty levels, child poverty levels and income inequality are currently some of the worst in the developed world. According to official data from 2012 onward, poverty affected 15.1 percent of US citizens, or 46.5 million people, while, based on a second government methodology that counts alternative sources of household income, this figure rises to 16 percent, or 49.7 million people.
The most acute poverty is found in the black and “Hispanic” communities (27 and 25.6 percent, respectively), minors under 18 years of age (21.8 percent) and, above all, children under the age of six (24.4 percent) and children under six who lived in single-mother families (56 percent). Women are poorer than men (16.3 percent over 13.6 percent) and earn 70 cents to every dollar taken home by a man from the same job.
“The United States hasn’t lost the war on poverty, it’s left the battlefield,” said professor Gene Nichol of the Centre on Poverty, Work & Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, one of 10 states whose poverty rates are higher than the national average, with 17 percent. “Half way through the 1970s the country had reduced poverty within the elderly population by two-thirds and by 60 percent in children. We’re still okay in the area of people over 65 years of age, thanks to social security, Medicare, Medicaid. But we’ve lost the will to fight infant poverty, and it’s noticeable. Almost a fourth of our children live in poverty, which is a huge embarrassment for the richest nation on earth.”
For a four-person family living on US$23,492 a year, an average university education costs US$20,000. According to official data, groceries eat up around a third of that income, while on Craigslist, a one-bedroom apartment costs on average US$800 per month depending on the condition it is in. this winter — the coldest in 20 years — sent electricity bills soaring: US$66 per month in Florida, US$91 in North Carolina and US$130 in Illinois. This saw many people having to choose between spending the same amount on groceries or maintaining the house at 17-degrees Celsius. In a country without major public transport infrastructure, aside from in a few major cities, cars are nothing short of a necessity for people wanting to get to work. A cheap used car (for example, a Toyota Corolla 2009) ranges from US$9,000 to US$11,500 in price, with the insurance (which would vary based on a number of factors, including the condition of the vehicle and the owner’s driving record) costing between US$200 and US$300 a month. Fuel prices vary, but filling up a Corolla to drive its full 671 kilometres, costs on average US$35.
At this point the total annual costs for that family reach US$20,360, without including fuel or healthcare (the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or “Obamacare,” the mother of all battles for the current president, was founded on the problems facing 50 million people without health insurance in a country with no free medical services), as well as clothing, telecommunications, childcare and the transport of children, or taxes, and forgetting completely education, entertainment and holidays.
Feeding America — the largest national NGO dedicated to feeding the poor — last month said “the majority of people need help because they simply don’t make enough money to provide their families three meals a day.” Ross Fraser, its spokesperson explained that his organization gives food to 37 million people each year, and that the panorama has become bleaker in recent years: “Between 35 and 38 million Americans suffered food insecurity — the term used for those who have no certainty they’ll eat every day — between 2001 and 2006; that figure rose to 49 million in 2007, when the recession hit us. Since then it’s hovered between 49 and 50 million people.” He pointed out that today “one in every seven Americans lives on or below the poverty line, and one in every seven receives food coupons (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme, which is US$133 per month or on average US$4.38 per day) and one in seven suffers food insecurity.” According to Fraser, “funding for federal nutrition programmes is needed; if unemployment and poverty are reduced, so too is hunger.”
There are 11 million people currently out of work in the US. Almost a third of them have not found a job in six months or more, while in some states like New Jersey or Florida, that portion rises to half. Many of the jobs that have been created in the private sector since the alleged end of the recession in 2009 lack regular hours or benefits like health insurance, sick leave or holidays, while one in four of them pay the minimum wage (between US$7.25 and US$10.10 per hour depending on the state), which in many households is not enough to live on, even with a standard 40-hour working week.
Erin Cumberworth, a researcher at the Stanford Centre on Poverty and Inequality holds the opinion that opinion, the biggest problem at the moment is the “inability of people — especially those with university degrees — to find sufficiently stable jobs that pay enough to allow them to support themselves and their families: a large number of people find a balance on the fringes of the labour market, improvising with short-term and/or badly paid work, with meager government benefits, work under the table and the help of friends and families.”
Life is a continual struggle for poor people who work, Cumberworth added. “A stable job or income could solve many problems in other areas like in healthcare, housing, children welfare,” he explained. “We should do as much as possible to help, from capacity-building programmes so people have the right knowledge for the jobs that currently exist to government stimulus focused on creating unskilled jobs, like roadworks and infrastructure; from better salaries using subsidies or tax-free credits, to more innovative strategies like facilitating access to information about labour conditions in other cities or states, and perhaps even offering subsidies for transfers for those choosing to move in order to find work.”
According to official data, the US middle class is defined as having a household income of US$51,017 per year. Successful professionals in areas like law and medicine are situated in the one percent of citizens earning the most, or US$380,000 a year. However, this one percent is in fact mostly comprised of successful business entrepreneurs, who earn US$1million to US$3 million a year. Its upper echelons are made up of CEOs of financial firms and Hollywood and sports stars who earn around US$10 million a year. So, one citizen earns US$10 million per year, while the other — limited by poverty — earns US$11,720. Social welfare programmes consume US$59 billion, while subsidies given to corporations (without taking into account the US$700-billion bailout package for the banking sector in 2008) total US$92 billion per year.
FROM HERE
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