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U.S. Poverty Climbed to 17-Year High in 2010

lpast

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Data released by the Census Bureau today showed the proportion of people living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent last year from 14.3 percent in 2009, and median household income declined 2.3 percent. The number of Americans living in poverty was the highest in the 52 years since the Census Bureau began gathering that statistic. Those figures may have worsened in recent months as the economy weakened.


We all know the rich have gotten far richer in the last decade....So come one Corporate cheerleaders tell us why the rich and the corporations need another big tax cut...we can see how much bush' tax cuts have benefitted everyone just by this article.


U.S. Poverty Climbed to 17-Year High in 2010 - Bloomberg
 
Or we could focus on the real issue here. All of the entitlements, stimulus programs, and attempts to "save or create" jobs, all the unemployment extensions, food stamps, and other assistance programs have not halted the increase in poverty one would expect from a recession/depression.

So why don't we take a look at new ideas, methods, and means of addressing poverty, which should and, quite frankly, must include some sort of self-accountability measures, COL variation considerations, adjustments on what "impoverished living" really is, and expectations on those in poverty to be active in their own ascent out of such a lifestyle? Why don't we address the fact that our grand solution to poverty has merely been subsistence, when we should have been focused on providing means for those in poverty to find pathways to prosperity?

Nah, you're right. Let's go on a class warfare rant about the rich and their taxes, which has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the fact that poverty is rising. Those in poverty share a lot of common traits. Chiefly among them? More children, less education, distinct lack of job skills, and a lower marriage rate than families above the poverty line.
 
The most recent bump in poverty is certainly a direct result of the recession, and it would certainly be far worse but for the stimulus and associated unemployment extensions.

The fact is that the wealthiest 400 people in America have a net worth that's equivalent to to the bottom 50% of ALL Americans, and that is a real problem. The wealthy have to pay more taxes because, for the past 30-40 years, the rich have been hoovering up all the country's wealth.
 
Or we could focus on the real issue here. All of the entitlements, stimulus programs, and attempts to "save or create" jobs, all the unemployment extensions, food stamps, and other assistance programs have not halted the increase in poverty one would expect from a recession/depression.

So why don't we take a look at new ideas, methods, and means of addressing poverty, which should and, quite frankly, must include some sort of self-accountability measures, COL variation considerations, adjustments on what "impoverished living" really is, and expectations on those in poverty to be active in their own ascent out of such a lifestyle? Why don't we address the fact that our grand solution to poverty has merely been subsistence, when we should have been focused on providing means for those in poverty to find pathways to prosperity?

Nah, you're right. Let's go on a class warfare rant about the rich and their taxes, which has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the fact that poverty is rising. Those in poverty share a lot of common traits. Chiefly among them? More children, less education, distinct lack of job skills, and a lower marriage rate than families above the poverty line.


Yeah your right tess all the entitlements caused the poverty level to go up and income to decline....food stamps and public assistance have nothing to do with the increase in poverty. Income declining is about people that are working and not on public assistance or food stamps who are making and less and less at the same jobs becuase its being taken from them...
Now explain to me how and why incomes for working americans are declining and the rich just keep getting fabulously richer at the same time....
 
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Yeah your right tess all the entitlements caused the poverty level to go up and income to decline

I didn't say that.

I said the increase in poverty is related to the recession/depression. I also said that the programs we utilized to prevent increases in poverty did not work.

Don't put words in my mouth simply because you don't like my argument. That's disingenuous and counter productive.
 
The most recent bump in poverty is certainly a direct result of the recession, and it would certainly be far worse but for the stimulus and associated unemployment extensions.

The fact is that the wealthiest 400 people in America have a net worth that's equivalent to to the bottom 50% of ALL Americans, and that is a real problem. The wealthy have to pay more taxes because, for the past 30-40 years, the rich have been hoovering up all the country's wealth.

Adam I dont care what the richest have...my concern is what is being stripped by them from the middleclass.....Im trying to understand what benefit the corporations are going to derive in the END...when they crush the buying power of america by sending jobs to china and have more and more americans impoverished out of work and making less....right in the article I posted it states that america doesnt have the BUYING POWER Now to help the country economically......I have to ask everyone...WHO CAUSED THAT.....


From the article:

Families are struggling to put food on the table, and they don’t have the purchasing power to help the economy recover,” said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Stagnating incomes and rising poverty will be at the heart of the 2012 presidential campaign that’s focusing on joblessness, and will give added urgency to debates in Washington and statehouses across the U.S. over budget cuts to programs designed to protect families from hardship.
 
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I didn't say that.

I said the increase in poverty is related to the recession/depression. I also said that the programs we utilized to prevent increases in poverty did not work.

The problem there is that, as a matter of historical fact, the programs did work. Those programs cut the poverty rate approximately in half, and poverty among the elderly is now about 1/3 what it was prior to SS and Medicare. OTOH, those results were achieved pretty quickly and poverty has not budged much since.
 
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Adam I dont care what the richest have...my concern is what is being stripped by them from the middleclass.....Im trying to understand what benefit the corporations are going to derive in the END...when they crush the buying power of america by sending jobs to china and have more and more americans impoverished out of work and making less....right in the article I posted it states that america doesnt have the BUYING POWER Now to help the country economically......I have to ask everyone...WHO CAUSED THAT.....


From the article:

Families are struggling to put food on the table, and they don’t have the purchasing power to help the economy recover,” said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Stagnating incomes and rising poverty will be at the heart of the 2012 presidential campaign that’s focusing on joblessness, and will give added urgency to debates in Washington and statehouses across the U.S. over budget cuts to programs designed to protect families from hardship.

I agree with you, and the article. Historically our economy has big problems when income disparity gets too far out of whack. It happened in 1928 and it happened again in 2007. I don't think it's a coincidence.
 
I didn't say that.

I said the increase in poverty is related to the recession/depression. I also said that the programs we utilized to prevent increases in poverty did not work.

Don't put words in my mouth simply because you don't like my argument. That's disingenuous and counter productive.

I understand what you're saying. And I think you're trying to make a reasonable argument. That said, I think things would have been much worse withou those programs you mention. I think it is a mistake to look at them as cures. Instead, they help buffer the pain. To really make a dent and prevent an increase would have taken a much larger investment than we had.
 
It goes way beyond just income disparity, AdamT. Whether there is a dramatic income disparity or not, when there are incentives for banks to extend bad loans all across the country and then package those debts into a myriad of other financial instruments, it is an act of financial warfare that resembles biological warfare. The deliberate spreading of contagions. When there are virtually no cost containment incentives in a health care industry, it's going to make more people poor. Free trade, globalization and trade deficits, half the country or more scared ****less of its government's outrageous spending levels and therefore nervous about investing money, we're all buying less from small businesses and more from giant corporations, and even population and immigration play a part in all this. ... It goes on and on.

Our underlying problem cannot be simplified to the rich being too rich. Repeating the same things about wealth or income gaps attempts to hint that it's a root cause. These things are dynamic and mutually reinforcing patterns. Showing them as causal and linear skews and oversimplifies the argument.
 
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As defined by the Office of Management and Budget and updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the weighted average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2010 was $22,314.

I am fortunate enough to say that I really cannot imagine how a family of four survives on less than $2,000 a month. It is unfathomable to me that over 15% of the nation - about 50 MILLION people - is in this terrible situation. Something has got to give- income disparity as it is in this nation is at or nearing unsustainable (read: revolution-inducing) levels, IMHO.
 
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It goes way beyond just income disparity, AdamT. Whether there is a dramatic income disparity or not, when there are incentives for banks to extend bad loans all across the country and then package those debts into a myriad of other financial instruments, it is an act of financial warfare that resembles biological warfare. The deliberate spreading of contagions. When there are virtually no cost containment incentives in a health care industry, it's going to make more people poor. Free trade, globalization and trade deficits, half the country or more scared ****less of its government's outrageous spending levels and therefore nervous about investing money, we're all buying less from small businesses and more from giant corporations, and even population and immigration play a part in all this. ... It goes on and on.

Our underlying problem cannot be simplified to the rich being too rich. Repeating the same things about wealth or income gaps attempts to hint that it's a root cause. These things are dynamic and mutually reinforcing patterns. Showing them as causal and linear skews and oversimplifies the argument.

I agree that income disparity is a symptom and not the cause of our problems. But at a certain point -- now, for example -- it becomes a cause in itself; a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The economy needs consumer spending to grow, but the rich have a huge percentage of the money and they're only going to spend so much of it. We need to raise revenue, so where does it come from? Well, the rich have a huge percentage of the money, so.... It's an economic rather than a moralistic argument. For capitalism to function properly, you need a reasonable distribution of wealth between the poor and the rich (i.e., a healthy middle class). But when left to itself, capitalism tends to distribute the wealth towards the wealthy. Therefore you need some kind of mechanism to counter that natural flow.
 
When poverty went up 2001-2002-2003, the liberals were quick to blame Bush.
Where is their criticism of The Obama?
 
I am fortunate enough to say that I really cannot imagine how a family of four survives on less than $2,000 a month. It is unfathomable to me that over 15% of the nation - about 50 MILLION people - is in this terrible situation. Something has got to give- income disparity as it is in this nation is at or nearing unsustainable (read: revolution-inducing) levels, IMHO.
Wait... because a number of people live in a manner -you- cannot imagine, a revolution brews?
That ivory tower must be nice.
 
When poverty went up 2001-2002-2003, the liberals were quick to blame Bush.
Where is their criticism of The Obama?

Not sure I blamed Bush. But I do blame policies that favor the wealthy over the working man. And i do blame an attitude that says working folks are bad and wealthy are good. We see that with teachers and taxes.
 
I understand what you're saying. And I think you're trying to make a reasonable argument. That said, I think things would have been much worse withou those programs you mention. I think it is a mistake to look at them as cures. Instead, they help buffer the pain. To really make a dent and prevent an increase would have taken a much larger investment than we had.

I would go a step further and add that the investment must include programs geared at solving the problems which lead to poverty, namely lack of education and job skills.
 
For capitalism to function properly, you need a reasonable distribution of wealth between the poor and the rich (i.e., a healthy middle class). But when left to itself, capitalism tends to distribute the wealth towards the wealthy. Therefore you need some kind of mechanism to counter that natural flow.

That mechanism would make it something very different than capitalism. Capitalism needs the people to be educated and informed and to purchase and vote with a careful consideration of the future they want to leave to their children. In short, if capitalism needs a regulator, it has to be the people. If it's government, it ceases to be capitalism.
 
That mechanism would make it something very different than capitalism. Capitalism needs the people to be educated and informed and to purchase and vote with a careful consideration of the future they want to leave to their children. In short, if capitalism needs a regulator, it has to be the people. If it's government, it ceases to be capitalism.

Government is how "the people" regulate capitalism. If government doesn't do it's job, capitalism crashes.
 
I would go a step further and add that the investment must include programs geared at solving the problems which lead to poverty, namely lack of education and job skills.

I would support such programs.
 
f8ab29d75f7f6114f80e6a7067006ec2.jpg


Looks like a photo op of dumb**** scooping slop for the poor.
 
Wait... because a number of people live in a manner -you- cannot imagine, a revolution brews?
That ivory tower must be nice.

I don't understand. Are you saying that high levels of income inequality and poverty are not associated with political instability? You could say that... you'd just be wrong.
 
When poverty went up 2001-2002-2003, the liberals were quick to blame Bush.
Where is their criticism of The Obama?

The same place as the Conservative criticism of Bush.
 
That mechanism would make it something very different than capitalism. Capitalism needs the people to be educated and informed and to purchase and vote with a careful consideration of the future they want to leave to their children. In short, if capitalism needs a regulator, it has to be the people. If it's government, it ceases to be capitalism.
:rofl
An educated, informed populace is the last thing capitalism wants. What capitalism needs to succeed are lots of obedient workers who don't demand much money. That's why China's economy is exploding. When your population gets educated, they start wanting a more rational system, like in Europe.
 
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