16 Million Americans In Severe Poverty

   Did you know that almost 16 million Americans now live in severe poverty?  Included in this category are individuals who earn less than $5,080 per year and a family of four who earns less than $9,903 per year the poverty  numbers have been going up since 2000. This data is based on 2005 statistics, the most recent year available.

    A  McClatchy Newspapers 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.

   For enquiring minds who want to know, there's more below.

                                    

McClatchy Newspaper

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 and 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 of 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.

About one in three severely poor people are under age 17, and nearly two out of three are female. Female-headed families with children account for a large share of the severely poor.

Nearly two out of three people (10.3 million) in severe poverty are white, but blacks (4.3 million) and Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) make up disproportionate shares. Blacks are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while Hispanics are roughly twice as likely.

Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, has a higher concentration of severely poor people - 10.8 percent in 2005 - than any of the 50 states, topping even hurricane-ravaged Mississippi and Louisiana, with 9.3 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. Nearly six of 10 poor District residents are in extreme poverty.

   Maybe instead of just the No Child Left Behind program, Bush should consider adding a new program called No Family's Left Behind. Wait, that'll never happen because he has no family members that can profit from such a program, yet.

   Those stats are disgusting for a nation of our wealth and resources.

 

Technorati tags: Americans, severe poverty, washington, dc, median household income

Iran Says the United States In No Position To Start A War

       Iran said  today that the United States isn't in any position to start a war against it and said that Washington and its friend's  should engage in more dialogue.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki  told  reporters that, "We do not see America in a position to impose another crisis on its tax payers inside America by starting another war in the region."

Bill Richardson ( D Governor NM ) and 2008 presidential candidate wrote in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post  that, "Saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate, But it is a good way to start a new war."   He also said that Iran, "will not end their nuclear program because we threaten them and call them names."

   You know what? Governor Richardson is right on this point as it would seem that Iran's leaders are not to worried about the United States. Though our allies would like to see this happen, especially Israel, I think that many other countries would very harshly condemn Bush on the act even though his head is to think to hear what anyone says unless it suits his purpose.

   The only way that the United States can attack Iran is by air as we certainly do not have enough troops on the ground to do to much of anything. I point to Iraq as an example.

   We do already have the carriers and missile ships and all of those other goodies out in the straits just waiting for a fly over and bombing run but the United States would be screwing itself if it did so. Israel would be stepping into a corner that they could never get out of if the U.S. attacks Iran.

    Talk is cheap from both the U.S. and Iran but until a better solution comes along, it is the only way at this point in time.

 

Technorati tags: Iran, United States, Bush, Military, Mottaki, Bill Richardson