WALL ST OWNED HISPANDERING PRESIDENT….
“While arrogantly dismissing the plight
of tens of millions of poverty-stricken Americans in a brief written statement,
Obama devoted most of his working day to meeting with two groups of corporate
CEOs: the President’s Export Council, which seeks to promote the
competitiveness of US industries by cutting their costs, including labor costs;
and leaders of 100 of the biggest corporations, who gathered to insure that the
administration’s education policy is aligned with the needs of corporate
America.”
*
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
“We could
cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal
workers,” said Representative Lamar
Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American
Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on
immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal
immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce
immigration laws.”
*
“The principal beneficiaries of our current
immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard
wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American
workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant
flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor
MOST OF THE FORTUNE 500 ARE GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEXICAN
FASCIST POLITICAL PARTY. THESE FIGURES ARE DATED. CNN CALCULATES THAT WAGES ARE
DEPRESSED $300 - $400 BILLION PER YEAR!
*
Wsws.org
– get on their free no ads e-news
*
The
failure of American capitalism
Forty-four
million living in poverty in the US
By
Patrick Martin
17 September 2010
17 September 2010
The number of people living in poverty
in America rose to 43.6 million in 2009, the US Census Bureau reported
Thursday. This is the largest number since the agency began making such
estimates 50 years ago and represents an increase of 3.8 million compared to
2008.
As of last year, one in every seven
Americans was poor, according to the government’s definition of poverty. The
official poverty rate of 14.3 percent is the highest since 1994.
The poverty rate jumped more than a
full percentage point, from 13.2 percent in 2008. There were 8.8 million
families living in poverty in 2009, including one child in every five. This is
the same rate of child poverty that existed nearly five decades ago, when
President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his “War on Poverty.”
The census report gives something of a
historical dimension to the fluctuations in the poverty rate in the United
States. The 2009 total of 43.6 million is the highest figure since the Census
Bureau first began estimating poverty in 1959, arriving at a total of 40 million.
The number living in poverty fell to 30 million by 1965, as economic conditions
improved during the postwar boom. The “War on Poverty” launched by Lyndon
Johnson in that year had some success, cutting the number of poor to a low of
23 million just before the 1974-75 recession. The number living in poverty rose
sharply in the 1980s, reaching 40 million 1993, then fell significantly to 31
million in 1999. It has increased steadily since then, a process that
accelerated dramatically with the onset of the slump.
Reflecting the impact of the economic
slump and mass layoffs and wage-cutting, the increase in poverty was
concentrated among working-age adults and their children, with the poverty rate
for those 65 and older actually falling from 9.7 percent to 8.9 percent. The
poverty rate for children rose from 19.4 percent to 20.7 percent, and the
poverty rate for working-age adults rose from 11.9 percent to 12.7 percent.
Poverty increased for all racial and
ethnic groups, but was far higher for blacks and Hispanics. The poverty rate
for blacks was 25.8 percent, and for Hispanics 25.3 percent. For whites the
poverty rate was 9.4 percent, up from 8.6 percent in 2008.
An entire section of the report was
devoted to health insurance coverage. The massive elimination of jobs over the
past two years has had a devastating effect on health care coverage, which in
the United States is largely employment-based.
The number of people without health
insurance topped the 50 million mark in 2009 for the first time since such statistics
began to be collected, in 1987. The figure rose from 46.3 million in 2008.
Some 16.7 percent of the population is
without health coverage, up from 15.4 percent in 2008. This figure is
understated, since an individual had to be without coverage for the entire year
to be counted as uninsured. A worker laid off in July 2009 and losing his or
her coverage three months later would be counted as insured for the year.
The number of people with
government-sponsored health coverage rose from 87.4 million to 93.2 million due
to increased enrolment in Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health
Insurance Program. But this was more than offset by a drop in the number of
people with private insurance coverage, which fell from 201 million to 194.5
million. Only 55.8 percent of the population has job-based health insurance.
Other figures reported in the Census
Bureau report document the deepening social crisis in the United States:
• Household income stagnated in 2009,
declining slightly to $49,777, from $50,112 in 2008.
• Women who worked full-time,
year-round earned only 77 percent of the income of men who worked similar
hours.
• Median income declined between 2008
and 2009 by 4.4 percent for black households and by 1.6 percent for
non-Hispanic white households.
• Regionally, median income dropped 2.1
percent last year in the Midwest, hardest hit by the collapse of industry, 1.9
percent in the West, the center of the housing collapse, and was unchanged in
the South and Northeast.
• Compared to the pre-recession peak in
1999, median household income was down 11.8 percent for blacks, 7.9 percent for
Hispanics, 5.7 percent for Asians and 4.2 percent for whites.
• Income inequality continues to
increase. In 2009, the top 20 percent received 50.3 percent of all income, and
the top 5 percent received 21.7 percent of all income.
• Even before the onset of the
recession, poverty was a familiar experience to one-third of all Americans.
From 2004 to 2007, some 31.6 percent of the population lived in poverty for at
least one period of two months or more.
The current slump has already driven up
the poverty rate by 1.9 percentage points and the total living in poverty by
6.3 million, including 2.1 million children. This is larger than during any
other recession since World War II, with the exception of the 1980-81 and
1981-82 recessions combined, when the number living in poverty rose by 10
million.
Equally significant is the large number
of Americans just barely above the official poverty line, subsisting on incomes
that are completely inadequate for a decent life. Extended unemployment
benefits, for example, kept 3 million families above the poverty line last
year. These benefits were allowed to expire three times this year already, and
are likely to end completely after the November election, plunging millions of
working people into destitution.
Commenting on the poverty figures,
Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank, noted, “This
adds 6.3 million new people to the ranks of the poor since 2007, before the
recession began. The problem will get much worse long before it gets better.”
Sawhill added that her research
suggested the recession would add 10 million people to the poverty rolls,
including 6 million children, by the middle of this decade.
There is ample reason to believe that
the actual poverty level is far higher than that reported by the Census Bureau.
The official poverty threshold is set ridiculously low, at an annual income of
$22,050 for a family of four or $10,830 for a single adult. It is not adjusted
for geographical location, and accordingly greatly understates the poverty
level in high-cost areas like New York City, Boston, Washington DC and
California.
The census survey excludes significant
sections of the population: more than 2 million prisoners, elderly people
living in nursing homes and long-term-care hospitals, and students living in
college dormitories. Many if not most of these would be classified as poor if
they were not living in institutional settings.
The poverty line is also grossly out of
date, since it is based on a 50-year-old formula derived from a period when
food was the single largest expense in family budgets, most women did not work
outside the home, most young people did not attend college, and the typical
family had only one car. It therefore understates the impact of rising costs
for health care, education, child care, transportation and other necessities.
In addition, as the census report
noted, there has been a large increase in the number of individuals and
families doubling up, mainly for economic reasons. Combining several families
or unrelated individuals into a single household has the effect of reducing the
official poverty rate, which is calculated on a household basis.
“If the poverty status of related
subfamilies were determined by only their own income, their poverty rate would
be 44.2 percent,” David Johnson, chief of the Housing and Household Economic
Statistics Division at the US Census Bureau, told the Wall Street Journal.
“When their poverty status is determined based on the resources of all related
household members, it is about 17 percent.”
The number of multifamily households
increased by 11.6 percent from 2008 to 2010, and the proportion of adults 25-34
living with their parents rose from 12.7 percent in 2008 to 13.4 percent in
2010. The poverty rate for these young adults was 8.5 percent when they were
considered part of their parents’ household, but would have been 43 percent if
they had been living on their own.
The poverty figures demonstrate both
the bankruptcy of American capitalism and the failure of the Obama
administration. The White House greeted them with a perfunctory nod.
Obama issued a five-paragraph statement
conceding that the census data “illustrates just how tough 2009 was,” while
boasting that the stimulus bill adopted early last year had prevented an even
worse situation from developing.
“A historic recession does not have to
translate into historic increases in family economic insecurity,” he argued.
“Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and
income support to a majority of working families—and especially those most in
need—millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year.”
“It could have been worse” is the only
argument the Obama administration can make heading into the fall election
campaign, but it is doubtful that the millions of workers who have lost their
jobs, health insurance and homes over the past two years draw any comfort from
it.
Obama’s statement combined this
minimizing of the crisis with a concluding declaration that: “For all of our
challenges, I continue to be inspired by the dedication and optimism of
America’s workers, and I am confident that we will emerge from this storm with
a stronger economy.”
This rhetorical flourish might be
translated as follows: As the chief political representative of American
capitalism, I am amazed that there has not yet been a mass upheaval among
American workers against both my government and the financial aristocracy it
serves. I hope to be able to delude working people with rhetoric about “hope”
and “change” for at least a few more years.
While arrogantly dismissing the plight of tens of millions
of poverty-stricken Americans in a brief written statement, Obama devoted most
of his working day to meeting with two groups of corporate CEOs: the
President’s Export Council, which seeks to promote the competitiveness of US
industries by cutting their costs, including labor costs; and leaders of 100 of
the biggest corporations, who gathered to insure that the administration’s
education policy is aligned with the needs of corporate America.
*
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
EXPORTING POVERTY... we take MEXICO'S 38 million
poor, illiterate, criminal and frequently pregnant
........ where can we send AMERICA'S poor?
The Mexican
Invasion................................................
Mexico prefers to export its poor,
not uplift them
March 30, 2006 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0330/p09s02-coop.html
Mexico prefers to export its poor,
not uplift them
At this week's summit, failed
reforms under Fox should be the issue, not US actions.
By George W. Grayson WILLIAMSBURG, VA.
At the parleys this week with his
US and Canadian counterparts in Cancún, Mexican President Vicente Fox will
press for more opportunities for his countrymen north of the Rio Grande.
Specifically, he will argue for additional visas for Mexicans to enter the
United States and Canada, the expansion of guest-worker schemes, and the
"regularization" of illegal immigrants who reside throughout the
continent. In a recent interview with CNN, the Mexican chief executive
excoriated as "undemocratic" the extension of a wall on the US-Mexico
border and called for the "orderly, safe, and legal" northbound flow
of Mexicans, many of whom come from his home state of Guanajuato. Mexican
legislators share Mr. Fox's goals. Silvia Hernández Enriquez, head of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for North America, recently emphasized
that the solution to the "structural phenomenon" of unlawful
migration lies not with "walls or militarization" but with
"understanding, cooperation, and joint responsibility." Such rhetoric
would be more convincing if Mexican officials were making a good faith effort
to uplift the 50 percent of their 106 million people who live in poverty. To
his credit, Fox's "Opportunities" initiative has improved slightly
the plight of the poorest of the poor. Still, neither he nor Mexico's lawmakers
have advanced measures that would spur sustained growth, improve the quality of
the workforce, curb unemployment, and obviate the flight of Mexicans abroad.
Indeed, Mexico's leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact
science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying
efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal
immigration at the border and the workplace. What are some examples of this
failure of responsibility? · When oil revenues are excluded, Mexico raises the
equivalent of only 9 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes - a figure
roughly equivalent to that of Haiti and far below the level of major Latin
American nations. Not only is Mexico's collection rate ridiculously low, its
fiscal regime is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to
widespread evasion. Congress has rebuffed efforts to reform the system.
Insufficient revenues mean that Mexico spends relatively little on two key
elements of social mobility: Education commands just 5.3 percent of its GDP and
healthcare only 6.10 percent, according to the World Bank's last comparative
study. · A venal, "come-back-tomorrow" bureaucracy explains the 58
days it takes to open a business in Mexico compared with three days in Canada,
five days in the US, nine days in Jamaica, and 27 days in Chile. Mexico's
private sector estimates that 34 percent of the firms in the country made
"extra official" payments to functionaries and legislators in 2004.
These bribes totaled $11.2 billion and equaled 12 percent of GDP. ·
Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, placed Mexico in a
tie with Ghana, Panama, Peru, and Turkey for 65th among 158 countries surveyed
for corruption. · Economic competition is constrained by the presence of
inefficient, overstaffed state oil and electricity monopolies, as well as a
small number of private corporations - closely linked to government big shots -
that control telecommunications, television, food processing, transportation,
construction, and cement. Politicians who talk about, much less propose,
trust-busting measures are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran Desert.
Geography, self-interests, and humanitarian concerns require North America's
neighbors to cooperate on myriad issues, not the least of which is immigration.
However, Mexico's power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions
necessary to use their nation's bountiful wealth to benefit the masses.
Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico's pampered elite
act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder
burdens Mexico should assume.
DOES ANYONE THINK THAT AMERICA IS
LESS POOR SINCE 2006 AS THE MEX OCCUPATION & WELFARE STATE HAS EXPANDED
MONTHLY?
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