Severe Poverty deepens
For those who think that corporate profits and $100 million CEO salaries indicate that the economy is going just great, take a minute to read an article in The Charlotte Observer on the soaring growth of people in the U.S. living in 'severe poverty'. "A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 -- half the federal poverty line -- was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year."
The number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent between 2000 and 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to urban counties.The plight of the severely poor is distressing amid an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.
These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975.
Millennium Twain has been writing about the theft of billions of dollars as a result of 9/11, but the theft of money from the middle and lower classes is systemic. While the GOP cuts government services and says people can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", millions of Americans continue to fall into severe poverty, where shelter and food are not a given, let alone clothing and education. We as a nation are paying for this direlection, and will continue to do so for generations.
...in 17 years of working with the poor, Deronda Metz has seen the face of the extreme poverty change from adults seeking help to entire families needing emergency shelter.As director of social services for the Salvation Army of Greater Charlotte, she has also seen how poverty takes root in a family and holds on.
When she first started work, most clients she saw were adult women. Now they are entire families with children in tow. She has even seen some children come back through the doors as adults, seeking help from the shelter where they stayed as kids.
"How do we break that cycle?" she asked.
Metz was among about 400 community leaders who gathered Thursday at the Charlotte Convention Center to discuss affordable housing. But she said the fix needs to go beyond housing.
She advocates for more vocational education to help train the poorest in specific jobs so that they can pay for that affordable housing, plus food and day care. It's going to cost money, she said. But she added, "We pay now or we pay later."
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Comments (1)
I wonder if the stats take into account population growth from families of impovrished nations
Comment #1 Posted by: Tim | April 11, 2007 11:54 AM