The Plight of the Poor is Becoming the Fate of the Middle Class

Yesterday a friend of mine was talking about a situation where some people she was with kept listening to right wing talk radio. On that program they were talking about how no one is really poor in America. Everyone is wealthy and even the "poor" have Jewelry and I phones and so on.These talk radio guys were getting anecdotes form angry conservative Texans who hate the poor, they would call in and say "I saw one with an expensive watch the other day." How divisive and silly can you get? We used to talk about that when I was a kid, shacks with big fancy cars in front of them. When I was bout 13 I realized that these guy are just emulating the value system they see the major part of the culture emulating.

As a sociology major in college I learned about the theory of Thorstein Veblen, conspicuous consumption. They are literally aping the leisure classes who engage in conspicuous leisure as trophy symbols. How can we expect them to do otherwise?


We have always had this kind of delusion that the poor should suffer in silence, accept their lot and refuse to own anything nice as a punishment for being poor. It stems form jealousy that causes well off Americans to even begrudge the poor anything at all. This hatred of proof--what else could it be--is growing more vicious as the ranks of the poor swell. These people who imagine themselves to be solidly within the middle class decry the attempts to help anyone to blind to see the country crumbling around them.

The "America" that so many of us have taken for granted for so many decades is literally disintegrating right in front of our eyes. Most Americans are still operating under the delusion that the United States will always be "the wealthiest nation" in the world and that our economy will always produce large numbers of high paying jobs and that the U.S. will always have a very large middle class.

Michael Synder "15 Shocking facts
About Poverty in America"
Business Insider

But that is not what is happening. The very foundations of the U.S. economy have rotted away and we now find ourselves on the verge of an economic collapse. Already, millions upon millions of Americans are slipping out of the middle class and into the devastating grip of poverty. Statistic after statistic proves that the middle class in the United States is shrinking month after month after month.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are starting to wake up and are beginning to realize that we have very serious problems on our hands, but they have no idea what is causing our economic distress and they are unaware that most of our politicians have absolutely no idea how to fix the economic disaster that we have created.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/15-shocking-facts-about-poverty-in-america-2010-9?op=1#ixzz20sENOmQE

Let's check out some basic facts about poverty and education:

Do Something.org

1. What is the Poverty Line, anyway? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, it's a family of four (two adults, two children) that earns less than $21,834.
2. Still, $35,000 is basic-needs budget for a U.S. family of four (two adults, two children), as calculated in An Atlas of Poverty in America.
3. In 2008, nearly 43.6 million people Americans lived in poverty (about 13.2% of the population); 12.9 million were under the age of 18.
4. In the US, poverty is still tied to race: 24.7% of the African American population live below the poverty line while 8.6% of Caucasians do.
5. School budgets are tied to property taxes. This is why schools in poor neighborhoods get about half as much money per student than schools in affluent neighborhoods.
6. Three-quarters of the nation's schools (almost 60,000) report needing repairs, renovations or modernization in order to reach good condition.
7. Not surprisingly, most schools in bad condition are in cities where at least 70% of students are below the poverty line.
8. Urban students are less likely to graduate than their suburban counterparts. High school graduation rates are 15% lower in the nation’s urban schools when compared with those located in the suburbs.
9. Graduation rates are also lower among certain groups, particularly ethnic minorities and males. In 2008, the graduation rate among African-Americans was 61.5% compared to 81% for whites.
10. In 2008, 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50%, with the lowest rates reported in Detroit (24.9%), Indianapolis (30.5%) and Cleveland (34.1%).
11. Children of poor families are up to six times more likely to drop out than wealthy children.

US census bureau has a page on the result of several household surveys.

The Census Bureau reports poverty data from several major household surveys and programs. The Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) is the source of official national poverty estimates. The American Community Survey (ACS) provides single and multi-year estimates for smaller areas. The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) provides longitudinal estimates. The Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program provides model-based poverty estimates for counties and school districts. See Description of Income and Poverty Data Sources to determine which survey or program meets your specific needs.

Latest Releases

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 (P60-239)

Sharing a Household: Household Composition and Economic Well-Being: 2007-2010 (P60-242)

Areas With Concentrated Poverty: 2006-2010 (ACSBR/10-17) [PDF - 764k]

Child Poverty Brief 2009 and 2010: Rates by Race & Hispanic Origin by State (ACSBR/10-05) [PDF - 1.3M]
20102
••
More than one in five children in the United States (15.75 million) lived in poverty in 2010.
••
More than 1.1 million children
were added to the poverty population between the


Poverty: 2009 and 2010 American Community Survey (ACSBR/10-01) [PDF - 737k]

Nationally, the poverty rate increased from 14.3 percent in the 2009 ACS to 15.3 percent in the 2010 ACS. The number of people in poverty increased from 42.9 million to 46.2 million during the same time period.

• Thirty-two states experienced an increase in the number and percentage of people in poverty between 2009 and 2010. For 20 states, this was the second consecutive annual increase.1

• No state had a statistically significant decline in either the number of people in poverty or the poverty rate between 2009 and 2010.

• The percent of people with income below 125 percent of their poverty threshold increased from 18.9 percent in 2009 to 20.1 percent in 2010. During the same time period, the percentage of people with income

Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Poverty 2004-2006

Latest Research - Supplemental Poverty Measure

Tables of NAS-based Experimental Poverty Estimates: 2009

Effect of Benefits and Taxes on Income and Poverty: 2009 (R&D)

Which party is doing the most to alleviate poverty and restore the economy? The republicans want to keep tax breaks for the rich while placing the tax burden on the disappearing middle class. They cater to the kind of "hate the poor" mentality that blames poor people as lazy (even though most of them work two or more jobs) and they want to eliminate coverage of medical care for the poor by repealing Obama's helth care program and not replacing it with anything, even though Romney's Massachusetts wasn't much different.

Obama's tax structure would increase the burden on the 1% who own 90% of the wealth and pay almost no taxes. His health care program would have expanded medicaid to cover those who can't afford health insurance, that was negated by the supreme court who left it up the states; some state like backward Texas are willing to allow the poor to die rather than give them medicaid the feds would have paid for. It's clear the Dems are the only part that sees the issues and understands what's happening to America's Middle class.

September 21, 2011|
By Roland S. Martin, CNN Contrib
CNN opinion Piece

When the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that a record number of people were living in poverty, Republicans were quick to attach the figures to President Barack Obama, desperately trying to lay them at his feet.

But anyone with common sense knows that someone doesn't just fall into poverty overnight. The deplorable economic conditions that led to today's poverty numbers began in 2007. Republicans often ignore such facts.

Yet when you start digging deeper into the Census Bureau report, what stands out is that of the 10 poorest states in the country, most are the reddest in the nation -- solidly GOP states.

America: Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Americans are all dispossessed millionaires. Even if we are unemployed and have no money we are not working class, we are really rich we are just waiting for the money to come. We see ourselves as middle or above we always identify with the interest of the rich. Rather than place the blame for your current depression on those who caused it, the rich, the capitalist, the bankers, we place it on those who tried to stop it, the regulators. We all millionaires just being persecuted and held back by evil liberals who resist wealth by government regulation. We totally forget we just fought two wars and long and costly as Vietnam (tw0 at once) and went thorugh a housng crisis what saw the devastation and theft of most middle class neighborhoods, brought on by unrestrained greed which uses houses as poker chips rather than places families can live, and a bail out of the banks to cover their own greedy mistakes, paid for by tax payers; the then turned around and dictated to us government policy at the cost of down grading our national credit. We have totally forgotten that the republicans refused comprise and almost allowed the government to go under, are trying to destroy social security, while lying about the nature of health care reform. We replace these memories with pretense that all we need is more capitalism, more pandering to greed, get the evil liberals out of the way and let the rich have more profits form our labor and purify the nature of our worship of money and they we will all be millionaires.

Thomas Frank's book Pity the Billionaire is a good reminder of reality, and Bill Moyer's Interview with him is eye opening.


This interview with Moyers was broadcasted last night, June 16, 2012. deals with the supreme court decision on Citizen's united and Thomas Frank's book Pity the Billionaire.

The Frank interview deals with the overall system of "free market" and the grass roots right-wing populism that has sprang up to promote it. Franks argues that in the near economic collapse at the end of the Bush administration and the we saw the failure of the entire system. All the problems can be traced to deregulation. All the things we had been doing for short term profits, blinding ourselves to ethics, opening the field to money, power and influence all goes back to de-regulating. Yet Ameircans have never before been more enamored of the idea that regualition is villian and less government is the answer. The whole problem we face today is the result of not regulating the market, allowing big money to get bigger. The populace has never been fleeced before like they are now. Like goo obedient lemmings they they march off the cliff reciting the mantras of big money and capitalism. Never before have Americans been more willing to believe that if we just take the restraints off free market everything will even out in a God ordained natural economic democracy.

David Bromwich
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 January 2012 17.55 EST

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Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank - review

Pity the Billionaire tells of the rebirth of right-wing populism after its submergence in 1996. The Tea Party movement in America today is driven by a vision of utopian capitalism, Frank observes, "at the precise moment when free-market theory has proven itself to be a philosophy of ruination and fraud". The bailouts that Bush began, Obama continued as if no change of plan were necessary with a change of administration and mandate; but "the bailouts were one of those moments that crushes the faith of a nation". The new populism that Frank describes is a feverish reassertion of faith.

There were available remedies for the collapse besides charging the losses to taxpayers. One solution would have been to put the zombie banks into receivership. Another was to bring the financial industry under regulation again (as suggested by Paul Volcker, Obama's leading economic adviser until he became president). The explanation for such steps could have been simple; but instead, Obama in 2009 spoke vaguely of "fundamental change" even as he became the guardian of the financial status quo. Either of those moves alone would have been risky. Their combination was toxic. By using big government to protect the firms that were deemed too big to fail, Obama supplied new grounds for every suspicion that government could not be relied on to help ordinary people.

In addition tot he Frank interview Moyers talked about Money buying elections and the supreme court decision. He also interviewed Mother Jone's editors Carla Jeffery and Monika Bauerkein, who talked about their book Dark Money, "the conspiracy of cash that allows the rich to influence our most fundamental political freedoms. On the show, Bill calls out some of the biggest super PAC donors, revealing how easy it is for the wealthy one percent to sway an election.."

The re-call election of Walker (Wisconsin) saw 14 billionaires outspending the unions by eight times. To ensure that America doesn't become a socialist state ran by unions Texas Oligarch Tom Perry and Billionaire Diane Hendrix gave huge amounts of money. The Court deicsion sets this up, it sets up the possibility of "dark money" campaign expenses that can't be traced. We don't know who is buying influence.

I did a piece on the re-call when the campaign began (March 2011) on my blog Need More Shovels.



Capitalism without failure
(websites)

“Let’s face it,” the founder of a super PAC recently told Mother Jones magazine. “Politics in this country is coin-operated.” True enough, as evidenced by the billions projected to be spent in this year’s elections — untold amounts of it unleashed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. Even with all that money being cashed in, the busy check-writers and the influence they purchase remain largely hidden, including those who helped Republican Governor Scott Walker dramatically out-fundraise his Democratic challenger to win last week’s recall election.

Don't miss this amazing episode of Moyer's show. This interview is devastating and alarming but it has to be seen by every voter in America. Email it to your friends.

Watch Interview (Pitty The
Billionaire).

Frank did a impervious interview with Moyers about how Ameicans had forgotten (by as early as 2010) what things were like before Obama.

Watch The previous Frank Interview

Why Good people Despize each other over politics

Jonathan Haidt

Yesterday I watched Bill Moyer's Interview with Jonathan Haidt, Author of the Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.


bio on Amazon:

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia, and is currently the Henry Kaufman Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at the NYU-Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India.

His research focuses on morality - its emotional foundations, cultural variations, and developmental course. He began his career studying the negative moral emotions, such as disgust, shame, and vengeance, but then moved on to the understudied positive moral emotions, such as admiration, awe, and moral elevation. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He uses his research to help people understand and respect the moral motives of their enemies (see CivilPolitics.org, and see his 2008 TED talk).

From the interview with Moyers:

Our country is more politically polarized than ever. Is it possible to agree to disagree and still move on to solve our massive problems? Or are the blind leading the blind — over the cliff?

Bill and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt talk about the psychological underpinnings of our contentious culture, why we can’t trust our own opinions, and the demonizing of our adversaries.

“When it gets so that your opponents are not just people you disagree with, but… the mental state in which I am fighting for good, and you are fighting for evil, it’s very difficult to compromise,” Haidt tells Moyers. “Compromise becomes a dirty word.”

On one level what Haidt is telling us is pretty obvious. He presents a study where data was gathered on attitudes about politics and religion. It demonstrates that liberals care most about a public ground of caring and compassion and that's the most important thing. They don't like or trust nation states, they are not concenred with the sacralizing of America. Ceonservatives are concerneed with America as a sacred emblem of God and goodness. Thus liberals don't emphasize concepts such as loyalty and reverense and conservatives do. Haidt finds that the real change in American society has come through the demonizing of the other. Grounds use to sport a healthy competition, but they didn't see each other as evil. They would come together in football games to compete then it's just a game they celebrate together and become one again. Now that doesn't happen. We have purified he two parties to the extent that each sees itself as the righteous standing up against the evil other. When we come to see our opponents as evil we are willing to kill them.

Haidt locates the historical dividing line in the passage of the civil rights act. He's clearly a liberal he's not arguing that we should not have passed the civil rights act, but he is saying that is the think end of the wedge that drove the two sides apart. Moyers tossed in that Johnson told him at the time "we just delivered the south over to the Republicans for the rest of my lie and probably yours too." Moyers was an aid to Johnson during his entire administration. The Republican party worked on purification of its ranks for many decades. The liberal and moderate Republicans (Lowell P. Weicker) were basically kicked out by Nixon in the 72 coronation. The Reagan years brought a conservative purge by ideology. The Democrats purged their party in 72 through the McGovern rules committee and the rules change for delegates and affirmative action. Each party moved further toward it's end of the spectrum, Dems left and Republicans right.

Now we have a situation where one side (Obama) feels it is morally incumbent to compromise and the other side (Republicans) feel it is morally incumbent not to compromise. the really devastating twist is the way each side demonizes the other. All of this is pretty obvious to anyone who knows the history of politics in America and pays attendance to the perennial crisis that is American politics, but what he says that is most worth hearing is that we have to realize both sides are in the same black hole. Both sides think the other is in "La la land" and both sides think the other are crazy. since that is the problem the only solution is to realize that both sides are nuts. Stop thinking of ourselves as "the sane side" that's standing up to evil and start realizing when American politics is a black hole, such as the cold war, all light is absorbed into that black hole. Until and unless we are willing to do that it's going to keep moving toward the prepuces.


I predict it's too late. The recent supreme court decision on Campaign finance will allow for a flood of negative adds and they will get worse than ever and there's no turning back from the edge. The court rejected limit of corporate spending for political money.


NY times

By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: January 21, 201

"WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections."

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.

The decision will be felt most immediately in the coming midterm elections, given that it comes just two days after Democrats lost a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and as popular discontent over government bailouts and corporate bonuses continues to boil.

President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

This is a primary proving ground for the Gospel. If this Christian stuff really means anything this is the time when we have to start using it. If there is wisdom in Jesus' utterances about love, forgiveness, and doing unto other as we would have them do unto us, then this is the time to start doing that.


Moyer's actual interview with Haidt is available on this link..

The Genius of Campain Trail Rick Perry Does it Again: Texas Refuses Aid for Medicaid

Rick Perry

My home state,Texas, the land of the intelligence challenged has done it again. Perry turns down matching funds form medicaid that would have been 90%-10% ratio the lion's share paid for by the Feds.

Christian Science Monitor

July 9, 2012

Gov. Rick Perry’s declaration Monday that Texas should decline to expand Medicaid and leave creation of a health insurance exchange to the federal government could create burdens for the uninsured, local taxpayers and federal officials seeking to implement the federal health law.

But it’s far from the last word on Medicaid, a continually vexing program for lawmakers.

Soon after Perry fired off a no-thanks-ma’am letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and a statement denouncing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law as a “power grab,” health providers said they’d like to see the governor’s plan for whittling into the state’s towering uninsured problem.

The major issue is politics. Perry (this morning on local tv news channel 8 in Dallas (WFAA) called it "socialized medicine." yesterday he said that things that lead us to believe that it's medicaid failed. The reason it failed is becasue Texas never made adequate provisions to make a delivery system that works. It's a direct sabotage and this has always been the state strategy. Make the program fail in Texas then blame the feds. We see in Perry's comments the only reason when you take it all back to the root is that he wants the Dems to fail because they are his ideolgoical enemies.

Now those who can't afford health insurance will have to be forced to guy it, and they don't qualify for medicaid. now the program becomes a burden to them but if Texas had cooporated with the plan those people who have been paid for by the Federal government. Perry's rational is "we are stopping the federal government form wasting tax money and being too big." All he's really accomplishing is making the poor worse off and suffer more.

Texas ranks no 50 in the U.S. for medicaid and medical aid to poor and low and income.

National Pubic Radio July 10, 2012

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Texas is saying no to key parts of the federal health care law. Today, Governor Rick Perry said Texas will not create a state exchange for people to buy health insurance and will not expand Medicaid. In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Governor Perry called both provisions a power grab, brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state.

Here's Governor Perry today on Fox News.

GOVERNOR RICK PERRY: Every Texan has health care in this state. From the standpoint of being able to have access to health care, every Texan has that. How we pay for it and how we deliver it should be our decision.

BLOCK: And to talk about what this means for Texas and its uninsured population, I'm joined now by Emily Ramshaw. She's been covering this story for the Texas Tribune. Emily, welcome.

EMILY RAMSHAW: Thanks, Melissa.

BLOCK: When Governor Perry says every Texan has health care in this state, what does he mean?

RAMSHAW: That word access is a tricky word. When Perry talks about Texas, he loves to talk about MD Anderson Cancer Center and UT Southwestern in Dallas, these world class health care institutions. But that doesn't mean that all average Texans have access to that kind of care. You know, we're in a state where 25 percent of the population is uninsured. They get hardly any preventive care. And when they get very sick, they end up in the emergency room, which costs the state a ton of money.

BLOCK: Twenty-five percent, that's the highest rate of uninsured people in the country, I believe. Under the Medicaid expansion, if Texas had gone along with it, how many people would have been covered?

RAMSHAW: Under this expansion, 1.8 million more Texans would be eligible for Medicaid. But there are also many other people in Texas who are currently eligible for Medicaid who simply aren't on the rolls; either it's expired and they've forgotten to re-apply or they simply didn't realize they were eligible.

I think, you know, what some state leaders are afraid might happen is that all these people who are currently eligible but aren't enrolled, might be spurred into action by federal health reform. And so, Texas would face not just this additional 1.8 million people but, you know, up to a million other people who simply aren't enrolled yet.

BLOCK: Governor Perry says that Medicaid expansion would threaten Texas with financial ruin. How do those numbers line up, because But federal government would pay 100 percent of the Medicaid expansion cost at the outset; that then tapers down to 90 percent by 2020?

RAMSHAW: Right, between 2014 and 2019, the federal government would provide about $100 billion for Texas, at a cost to Texas of about $6 billion. So, obviously that's not pocket change. But Texas, of all the states, was going to seem to get sort of the biggest bang for its buck.

I think the bigger question here is whether in the long-term Texas is not going to take this money. I think it's sort of more likely that the federal government says, OK, Texas, what do you need to play ball here? I think you can see, down the road, a conversation happening where Texas may accept this money under a certain set of restricted rules.

BLOCK: So sort of a waiver. You're talking about Texas having leverage really to bargain with Health and Human Services?

RAMSHAW: Exactly. You know, in the last year, Texas has worked pretty closely with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to design a Medicaid waiver for Texas. So the lines of communication have been built. I think it's very likely that down road, Texas would try to find a way to accept some of these funding, but under the auspices of a Texas-designed program.

I think today what you heard was a lot of political bluster. I think what you're going to see in the next several months is really, you know, extensive conversation about the ins and outs of this money, and how to design Medicaid, how to find a way to make this work in some way for Texas.

BLOCK: We've been talking about the Medicaid expansion. But the other part of this is the health insurance exchange, for people to buy insurance. Texas says it's not going to set one up. But that means that the federal government will set one up for Texas, right?

RAMSHAW: Right, and this is very controversial for conservatives because basically what Perry is saying is we are not going to take control of this in Texas, so we are going to allow the federal government to design this program for us. I think there was one thing that wasn't mentioned today. And that is there appears to be some provisions in the law that would allow the federal government to establish exchange from the get-go, but allows Texas to petition to take control over it a little more down the line.

Texas didn't mobilize to get health insurance exchange in place. There are a lot of theories that even if Texas decided it wanted to run its own insurance exchange now, Texas doesn't have the time to get one in place before the deadline.

BLOCK: Emily Ramshaw is editor of the Texas Tribune. Emily, thanks so much.

RAMSHAW: Thanks for having me, Melissa.

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Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret

State rushes closure of its only TB hospital in Lantana

The CDC officer had a serious warning for Florida health officials in April: A tuberculosis outbreak in Jacksonville was one of the worst his group had investigated in 20 years. Linked to 13 deaths and 99 illnesses, including six children, it would require concerted action to stop. 

That report had been penned on April 5, exactly nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill that shrank the Department of Health and required the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital in Lantana, where tough tuberculosis cases have been treated for more than 60 years.

Goodness knows we can't be concerned with nuisances like public health and welfare when there are suffering rich people in desperate need of further tax cuts.

Let It Bleed: Libertarianism and the Workplace

Crooked Timber addresses the issue of libertarianism, private power in the workplace and workers' rights.

Libertarianism is a philosophy of individual freedom. Or so its adherents claim. But with their single-minded defense of the rights of property and contract, libertarians cannot come to grips with the systemic denial of freedom in private regimes of power, particularly the workplace. When they do try to address that unfreedom, as a group of academic libertarians calling themselves “Bleeding Heart Libertarians” have done in recent months, they wind up traveling down one of two paths: Either they give up their exclusive focus on the state and become something like garden-variety liberals or they reveal that they are not the defenders of freedom they claim to be.

read more

Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed

Read the annotated version here.