Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumExtreme poverty: 2.8 million children in the U.S. live on $2 per day
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-extreme-poverty-million-children-day.htmlThis just sickens me.
The National Poverty Center has released a new report that examines poverty trends between 1996 and 2011. The number of households with children who are in extreme poverty in a given monthliving at $2 or less in income per person per dayin 2011 totaled roughly 1.46 million households, including 2.8 million kids. This number is up from 636,000 households in 1996, nearly a 130 percent increase.
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As a result of shrinking access to cash assistance and the increasingly poor economic climate, researchers expected the size of the population of households with children living in extreme poverty to increase between 1996 and 2011, both in terms of total households, and as a proportion of all poor households.
In 1996, households in extreme poverty represented about 10 percent of all poor households. Fifteen years later, it's about 19 percent. When SNAP benefits are counted as cash, the rise in extreme poverty is from about 7.6 percent to about 10 percent.
In addition, many of the households in extreme poverty are accessing public health insurance for at least one of their children, and about one in five have a housing subsidy. "These in-kind safety-net programs are playing a vital role, and are probably blunting some of the hardship that American children living in extreme poverty would otherwise face," said Kathryn Edin, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Still, she said, "it would be wrong to conclude that the U.S. safety net is strong, or even adequate, when one in five poor households with children are living without meaningful cash income."
dana_b
(11,546 posts)but I can't see it getting any better since there is such a drive to get rid of most social programs and to try and privatize everything else.
TBF
(32,156 posts)there is no way to put profit first and not have repercussions. Wealthy folks (1%'ers) I've spoken with focus on their careers and assert that "it's just better to have the churches do that - not government" (referring to social programs). That may be a more common view in the South but I seem to hear it a lot. There is just no financial incentive to do otherwise, and financial incentives are all anyone on that level is interested in.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Another DUer posted a story about how companies are raking in record profits, and yet wages are stagnant. Great wealth is only derived by draining the peons, and we are watching the money get hoovered up before our very eyes. I guess I just want someone to know that we are noticing.
The struggle to wrest jobs and social programs from the 1% is a struggle against the ownership class that weakens them and strengthens us. We just have to stay in the trenches. I post this story to remind myself that it isn't futile, we have to fight. The fuckers don't care if we die.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)and I guess the DOW being up is good for many but it doesn't mean shit to some of us because those raking in the $$ are not rewarding those who work for them (besides the executives) except with more hours for the same or less money.
It is good to be on a forum or group with like minded people though and I thank you for your articles.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I love our group.
midnight
(26,624 posts)dollars worth of wine at one meal for the day is so outrages....Yet Ryan will be the first one screaming about lack and want. Enough is never enough for these greedy ones...
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)at least not until this kind of shit is NO MORE! I don't care how many doo-dads you want to buy, I wouldn't make them until people's needs are taken care of.
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,035 posts)Think about $60 a month in any town in the country. $720 pitiful dollars a year in America is nothing and a national point of beyond shame.