TIRED OF MEXICO'S BILLION DOLLAR PER YEAR LOOTING?
"Eliminate the current provision that disregards the wages of illegal aliens in the household in order to determine eligibility for food stamps, leading to families that include illegal aliens often getting more in food stamps than comparable citizen or Legal-resident families."
A Pen and a Phone
79 immigration actions the next president can take
WASHINGTON, DC (April 11, 2016) — A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies provides 79 specific immigration actions the next president can take on his own to return credibility to the nation's immigration system. The goal would be to undo many of President Obama's own unilateral actions (both the legal ones and the illegal ones), but also to make other improvements pending more basic changes requiring legislation from Congress.Mark Krikorian, the Center's executive director, said, "Civil rights pioneer Barbara Jordan noted that credibility in immigration policy is simple: 'Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.' These 79 recommendations would be a huge step toward that goal."
View the entire report at: http://cis.org/A-Pen-and-a-Phone-79-immigration-actions-the-next-president-can-take
The Center's report recommends policy changes, both big and small, impacting lawful permanent residents, nonimmigrant entrants, and illegal aliens. The list of 79 actions relate to asylum and refugee claims, worksite enforcement, benefit fraud, national security, crime, and other areas.
The recommendations include:
- Rescind all outstanding "prosecutorial discretion" policies that result in systematic non-enforcement of the law;
- Eliminate the "Priority Enforcement Program" and reinstitute Secure Communities;
- Restore regular assessments for fraud in USCIS benefits programs (green cards, etc.);
- Deny asylum to any alien who could have sought asylum in countries through which he has traveled en route to the United States;
- Reduce the standard period short-term visitors are permitted to stay to 30 days (down from 180 days) unless the traveler provides documentation or other justification for a longer stay;
- Require at least 20 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent hours dedicated to locating and arresting visa overstays;
- Direct executive branch agencies to deny allocation of H (work) visas to employers that lay off citizens or resident aliens in order to replace them with foreign workers. Direct additionally that the visas be revoked should layoffs of pre-existing workers occur within six months after arrival of H visa workers;
- Direct that no unaccompanied minors be turned over to relatives who are illegally in the United States unless the relatives surrender themselves for processing and initiation of immigration court proceedings;
- Selectively prosecute relatives who pay to smuggle unaccompanied minors into the United States;
- Require that a condition of all federal grant monies given to state or local governments is that they, and the contracting employers or sub-recipients of that grant money, whether as a pass-through or for any other purpose, must use E-Verify for all their employees;
- Require DHS and its subordinate agencies to not issue "certifications" of criminal aliens in state or local jails of sanctuary jurisdictions for purposes of the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), thus removing the underpinning by which the Department of Justice provides millions of dollars in federal SCAAP funding to these non-cooperating jurisdictions;
- Cease issuing "exemptions" (waivers) to known terrorists and supporters of terrorism, individually or by group, that permit them to enter the United States as immigrants, asylees, or refugees;
- Eliminate the current provision that disregards the wages of illegal aliens in the household in order to determine eligibility for food stamps, leading to families that include illegal aliens often getting more in food stamps than comparable citizen or legal-resident families.
UNDER BARACK OBAMA (OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS) TWO-THIRDS OF ALL JOBS WENT TO FOREIGN BORN, BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGALS.
"Under the Obama administration, the Democrats have spearheaded the attack on wages and benefits for higher paid workers as part of an overall transfer of wealth to the financial elite."
HOW MANY ILLEGALS IN YOUR STATE?
State Map: Number of Immigrants and Their Minor Children
By Steven Camarota and Bryan Griffith, CIS Map, March 28, 2016
http://cis.org/Camarota/Map-Number-Immigrants-Minor-Children
Details: The Center recently released an analysis of December 2015 government data indicating that more than 61 million immigrants and their American-born children under age 18 now live in the United States. The numbers represent a complete break with the recent history of the United States. As recently as 1970, there were only 13.5 million immigrants and their young children in the country, accounting for one in 15 U.S. residents.
CIS has produced two interactive maps from the report, creating a state level graphic of the number of immigrants by share in the years 1970, 2000, and 2010 as well as a state level growth of immigrants and their minor children.
ON THE STATE LEVEL ALONE, CA HANDS ILLEGALS $30 BILLION IN SOCIAL SERVICES. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH LA RAZA-OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES TOPPING THE LIST AT ONE BILLION FOR MEXICO'S ANCHOR BABY BREEDING FOR 18 YEARS OF WELFARE PROGRAM!
BLOG: LA RAZA GOV JERRY BROWN HAS SIGNED EACH AND EVERY BILL THE LA RAZA CONTROLLED STATE LEGISLATURE HAS PUT BEFORE HIM THAT BENEFITED THE MEXICAN OCCUPIERS!
"The Brown administration has also implemented cuts to food stamps and affordable housing programs. All of these measures doubtless contributed to rising poverty rates among California seniors."
Poverty among California seniors rising despite economic “recovery”
Poverty among California seniors rising despite economic “recovery”
By Adam Mclean
According to a recent Sacramento Bee review of US census data for the year 2014, the number of California seniors living in poverty has nearly doubled between 1999 and 2014, to a total of 520,000 in poverty today.
As of 2014, about 16 percent of Californians live under the federal poverty line ($11,880 in 2016). For a retired individual, the poverty line is as low as $11,400, qualifying some 520,000 seniors as living in poverty. However a newer measure, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, first used by the US census for the year 2010, tracks additional factors such as prices and taxes and is generally considered to give a more realistic picture of the degree of economic hardship. The 2014 census found that the California poverty rate using this measure was 23.4 percent– around 1 in 4, the highest rate in the nation.
According to this measure, of California’s 39 million people, nearly 10 million are in poverty.
Most of the seniors in question live primarily off of social security income, sometimes with a small pension, and many are even homeless. But with a high cost of living in many areas, an income of less than several thousand dollars per month is often not enough to cover even basic necessities such as rent, food, and medication.
When she was growing up, Faye Duncan (80) told the Bee, “There never was a question whether you’re going to have a place to live.” Emphasizing the poor state of housing for the elderly, she reported having to wait “a year and a half to get in here,” referring to an affordable housing complex. Describing her quality of life, she said tearfully, “I’m in pain 90 percent of the time. And I mean pain.”
Shannon Stevens, an intake specialist at the Maryhouse women’s shelter in Sacramento, stressed, “There’s no housing available for them because of the lack of affordable housing.” Speaking of the vulnerable conditions for the elderly, she noted: “And then there’s also the issue of physical health issues that come with a great expense for prescription medications.”
Especially in the larger cities, rent in California is notoriously high. A full third of the seniors who live in rental units find themselves spending over half of their income on rent. It is no accident that poverty rates are greater in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where rents are higher.
Add to this the increasing price of food, plus, according to the AARP, an increase in real terms of common prescription drugs used by seniors by more than 100 percent since 2005, and it becomes nearly impossible to get by on many incomes. Given that increasing prices are among the more immediate sources of impoverishment, the figure of 520,000 seniors in poverty in California is likely a conservative estimate.
Gary Passmore, the director of the Congress of California Seniors, said, “People who are turning 65 over the next two decades are generally going to be worse off than people who are retired today. … The average 70-year-old today has fewer assets because of the recession and typically is less likely to have retirement income than their counterparts 15 years ago.”
Rather than implement measures to reverse these disastrous trends, Democrats and Republicans in California are pursuing policies aimed at codifying these conditions as the new normal.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the state pension fund CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, registered losses. Unlike the major banks, which were promptly bailed out, CalPERS’ losses were used as a lever to further attack pensions. The administration of governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to the crisis by implementing a two-tier pension structure in which newer pensioners contribute more and receive less. His administration also cut employer and state contributions, putting more of the burden on workers.
A few years later, under the administration of Democrat Jerry Brown, new attacks on pensions came in the form of increasing the retirement age from 55 to 67 for the majority of new public employees. The Brown administration has also implemented cuts to food stamps and affordable housing programs. All of these measures doubtless contributed to rising poverty rates among California seniors.
Today, CalPERS does not have the funds needed to meet its pension obligations, and has unfunded liabilities of over $70 billion.
More recently, the Obama administration moved to slash defined benefit plans for the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, a move that marks a dramatic escalation in the drive to dismantle pension benefits.
At local and municipal levels, the Democratic Party has been no less severe than the Republicans in the drive to dismantle pension and social programs. Chuck Reed, the ex-mayor of San Jose, and a Democrat, has twice proposed pension reform bills that would eliminate constitutional protections for pensioners in the state.
The cities of Stockton and San Bernardino have both been taken into Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy proceedings, and the San Bernardino proceedings are still ongoing. As in the case of Detroit, municipal bankruptcies have been used to undermine obligations to pay retiree benefits such as pensions and health care.
The doubling of the poverty rate for California seniors exposes the claims by the Obama administration that the United States is in the midst of an “economic recovery.” Instead, the economic crisis is reflected in deteriorating conditions for the most vulnerable sections of society.
Copyright © 1
AMNESTY: IT'S ONLY ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED, LEGALIZING MEXICO'S LOOTING OF AMERICA, BUILDING THE DEM PARTY BASE OF ILLEGALS and DESTROYING THE GOP
Democrats silent as one million lose food stamp benefits in the US
By Patrick Martin
Some 22 states began terminating benefits for “Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents,” or ABAWDs, in the jargon of the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the federally funded food stamp program, or Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as it is formally known.
BLOG: IN AMERICA, NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED APPLY!!!!
These adults, aged 18 to 49 years and without children, are generally the poorest section of the working class, earning only 17 percent of the official poverty rate, an average of barely $150-170 per month in income. But they are eligible for only 90 days of food stamp benefits unless they have paid employment or job training for at least 80 hours in a month. The 90-day clock began running January 1, so adults who no longer qualify under this rule began being terminated in state after state April 1.
The 22 states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.
Another 22 states (see map) had already enforced work requirements to cut food stamp benefits for ABAWDs in 2015 or earlier. Those states account for 30 percent of the US population, while the states that are imposing work requirements this year account for another 35 percent.
\
The numbers in some of the larger states are staggering. Florida alone will cut off benefits to an estimated 300,000 childless adults; Tennessee 150,000 and North Carolina 110,000. New York state will cut off more than 50,000, including 3,000 people in Manhattan, home to the world’s biggest concentration of billionaires. Missouri cuts off 60,000; Alabama 40,000 and Massachusetts 23,000.
The work requirements for food stamp recipients were waived for most states during the deep recession that followed the 2008 financial crash. States had to have an official unemployment rate above 10 percent, or at least 20 percent above the national average, or demonstrate a weak labor market under other criteria set down by the Department of Labor.
The number of childless adults eligible for food stamps jumped from 1.7 million in 2007 to 4.9 million in 2013, then began to decline to 4.7 million in 2014, largely because states like Kansas and Ohio began to impose work requirements.
The harsh “work for food” requirements were first introduced for food stamps under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. This is the notorious “welfare reform” bill sponsored by then-US Rep. John Kasich, who is now Ohio’s governor and a Republican candidate for president, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, husband of the current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It is particularly noticeable that none of the presidential candidates of either capitalist party, including the self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, has made an issue of the food stamp cutoff that is plunging hundreds of thousands overnight into hunger and destitution.
Senator Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in the midst of a campaign in the April 19 New York primary, but neither has said a word on behalf of the more than 50,000 New Yorkers who began losing their food stamp benefits Friday.
On Tuesday, Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in Erie County, which includes the city of Buffalo, devastated by the collapse of the steel industry. Some 2,800 Erie County residents were cut off food stamps April 1, but it is unlikely that the former president, who has raked in more than $100 million in income since he left the White House, will have anything to say about it.
Hillary Clinton gloried in the “welfare reform” legislation in her 2003 memoir Living History (for which she was paid $8 million). She wrote that Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the program the bill abolished, “had helped to create generations of welfare-dependent Americans … I strongly argued that we had to change the system, although my endorsement of welfare reform came at some personal cost.” The “cost,” of course, was to her political credibility as a supposed advocate of the poor.
Clinton claimed that the legislation her husband signed “was a critical first step to reforming our nation’s welfare system. I agreed that he should sign it and worked hard to round up votes for its passage—though he and the legislation were roundly criticized by some liberals, advocacy groups for immigrants and most people who worked with the welfare system.”
Sanders has criticized Hillary Clinton repeatedly for giving speeches to Wall Street audiences in return for six-figure fees, as well as raking in campaign contributions from the financial and fossil fuel industries. But he has not sought to make a connection between Clinton’s close ties to the super-rich and the record of the first Clinton administration, particularly its attack on the poorest sections of the working class.
Nor has Sanders, in general, made an issue of the cuts in vital social programs, particularly those implemented with the collaboration of the Obama administration, like the $8.7 billion cut in food stamp benefits pushed through in 2014 as part of a bipartisan deal with congressional Republicans, or this year’s drastic cutback in food stamp eligibility for childless adults.
Food stamp recipients, and particularly childless adults on food stamps, have become targets of abuse for big business politicians of both parties. Several of the states now implementing work requirements have gone well beyond the regulations set down by the federal Department of Agriculture or the provisions of the welfare reform law.
State governments are permitted to seek exemptions from benefit cutoffs for regions of the state with particularly high concentrations of unemployment, even if the state as a whole no longer qualifies. In New York state, for example, the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have such exemptions, although Manhattan does not.
But many states, like Florida, have refused to seek such exemptions. The Missouri legislature even passed a bill last year prohibiting the state government from seeking a waiver, with legislators claiming it was easy for the unemployed to find at least 20 hours work per week.
In Mississippi, with one of the highest unemployment rates and highest poverty rates in the country, Republican Governor Phil Bryant chose not to extend the waiver of the work requirement. “We want people to go to work in Mississippi,” he said in a statement. “We want these individuals to get a good job and live the American dream, not just be dependent on the federal government.”
PEW: MEXICO BREEDS AN ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE OCCUPATION OF AMERICA
more here:
In late 2015, the Pew Research Center came out with a population projection that "non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the US population by 2055." Similarly, during 2014, researchers working with U.S. Census Bure...
"More evidence that illegal immigrants are both taking jobs away from legal Americans and undercutting their wage bargaining power."
March 26, 2016
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/study_employment_rate_of_illegal_immigrant_men_far_higher_than_for_legal_immigrants_and_natives.html#ixzz442MOR82B
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US employment report: Payrolls rise, wages fall
By Barry Grey
President Barack Obama seized on the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000 jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama told reporters at a White House appearance.
“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”
He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.
One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.
These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.
Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!
These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.
The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.
While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.
The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly claims that she is the champion of the little guy. It has always been a risible claim, but if any of her supporters (including at the Post) are actually paying attention to the scoundrel, this latest gambit ought to disabuse them of the notion.
In late 2015, the Pew Research Center came out with a population projection that "non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the US population by 2055." Similarly, during 2014, researchers working with U.S. Census Bure...
........................... Will Mexico elect America's next President? Didn't LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY, which is funded by Barack Obama and operates out of the Obama white house under Cecilia Munoz, reelect Obama???
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES! IT'S ALL LA RAZA PROPAGANDA TO EXPAND MEXICO'S OCCUPATION!
MILLIONS OF MEXICANS HAVE MILLIONS OF AMERICAN JOBS WITH STOLEN IDENTITIES. THEY ALSO DRIVE ILLEGALLY, CONTRACT ILLEGALLY AND SEND BACK TENS OF BILLIONS IN DRUG PROFITS TO NARCOMEX.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS LONG BEEN SABOTAGING STATES' ATTEMPT TO CURB LA RAZA FASCIST FROM VOTING.
MEXICO KNOWS THAT THE 40 MILLION LOOTING MEXICANS DON'T HAVE TO BE "PERMANENT RESIDENTS" TO GO VOTE FOR MORE!
HILLARY CLINTON HAS ALREADY PROMISED THE MEX OCCUPIERS 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS!
March 21, 2016
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/mexican_government_urging_us_immigrants_to_become_citizens_and_vote.html#ixzz43YgSdKgy
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"Under the Obama administration, the Democrats have spearheaded the attack on wages and benefits for higher paid workers as part of an overall transfer of wealth to the financial elite."
Whiteout Press
Independent news at its best. If it's blacked-out, covered-up or censored, you can find it here!
March 23, 2016
Statistic of the Week: The amount of assets/wealth the average adult has in each country:
Independent news at its best. If it's blacked-out, covered-up or censored, you can find it here!
March 23, 2016
Statistic of the Week: The amount of assets/wealth the average adult has in each country:
Belgium - $150,348
UK - $126,472
Norway - $119,634
Japan - $96,071
France - $86,156
Canada - $74,750
Netherlands - $74,659
USA - $49,787
-from Credit Suisse via Institute for Policy StudiesHOW MANY ILLEGALS IN YOUR STATE?
State Map: Number of Immigrants and Their Minor Children
By Steven Camarota and Bryan Griffith, CIS Map, March 28, 2016
http://cis.org/Camarota/Map-Number-Immigrants-Minor-Children
Details: The Center recently released an analysis of December 2015 government data indicating that more than 61 million immigrants and their American-born children under age 18 now live in the United States. The numbers represent a complete break with the recent history of the United States. As recently as 1970, there were only 13.5 million immigrants and their young children in the country, accounting for one in 15 U.S. residents.
CIS has produced two interactive maps from the report, creating a state level graphic of the number of immigrants by share in the years 1970, 2000, and 2010 as well as a state level growth of immigrants and their minor children.
ON THE STATE LEVEL ALONE, CA HANDS ILLEGALS $30 BILLION IN SOCIAL SERVICES. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH LA RAZA-OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES TOPPING THE LIST AT ONE BILLION FOR MEXICO'S ANCHOR BABY BREEDING FOR 18 YEARS OF WELFARE PROGRAM!
BLOG: LA RAZA GOV JERRY BROWN HAS SIGNED EACH AND EVERY BILL THE LA RAZA CONTROLLED STATE LEGISLATURE HAS PUT BEFORE HIM THAT BENEFITED THE MEXICAN OCCUPIERS!
"The Brown administration has also implemented cuts to food stamps and affordable housing programs. All of these measures doubtless contributed to rising poverty rates among California seniors."
Poverty among California seniors rising despite economic “recovery”
Poverty among California seniors rising despite economic “recovery”
By Adam Mclean
4 April 2016
According to a recent Sacramento Bee review of US census data for the year 2014, the number of California seniors living in poverty has nearly doubled between 1999 and 2014, to a total of 520,000 in poverty today.As of 2014, about 16 percent of Californians live under the federal poverty line ($11,880 in 2016). For a retired individual, the poverty line is as low as $11,400, qualifying some 520,000 seniors as living in poverty. However a newer measure, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, first used by the US census for the year 2010, tracks additional factors such as prices and taxes and is generally considered to give a more realistic picture of the degree of economic hardship. The 2014 census found that the California poverty rate using this measure was 23.4 percent– around 1 in 4, the highest rate in the nation.
According to this measure, of California’s 39 million people, nearly 10 million are in poverty.
Most of the seniors in question live primarily off of social security income, sometimes with a small pension, and many are even homeless. But with a high cost of living in many areas, an income of less than several thousand dollars per month is often not enough to cover even basic necessities such as rent, food, and medication.
When she was growing up, Faye Duncan (80) told the Bee, “There never was a question whether you’re going to have a place to live.” Emphasizing the poor state of housing for the elderly, she reported having to wait “a year and a half to get in here,” referring to an affordable housing complex. Describing her quality of life, she said tearfully, “I’m in pain 90 percent of the time. And I mean pain.”
Shannon Stevens, an intake specialist at the Maryhouse women’s shelter in Sacramento, stressed, “There’s no housing available for them because of the lack of affordable housing.” Speaking of the vulnerable conditions for the elderly, she noted: “And then there’s also the issue of physical health issues that come with a great expense for prescription medications.”
Especially in the larger cities, rent in California is notoriously high. A full third of the seniors who live in rental units find themselves spending over half of their income on rent. It is no accident that poverty rates are greater in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where rents are higher.
Add to this the increasing price of food, plus, according to the AARP, an increase in real terms of common prescription drugs used by seniors by more than 100 percent since 2005, and it becomes nearly impossible to get by on many incomes. Given that increasing prices are among the more immediate sources of impoverishment, the figure of 520,000 seniors in poverty in California is likely a conservative estimate.
Gary Passmore, the director of the Congress of California Seniors, said, “People who are turning 65 over the next two decades are generally going to be worse off than people who are retired today. … The average 70-year-old today has fewer assets because of the recession and typically is less likely to have retirement income than their counterparts 15 years ago.”
Rather than implement measures to reverse these disastrous trends, Democrats and Republicans in California are pursuing policies aimed at codifying these conditions as the new normal.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the state pension fund CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, registered losses. Unlike the major banks, which were promptly bailed out, CalPERS’ losses were used as a lever to further attack pensions. The administration of governor Arnold Schwarzenegger responded to the crisis by implementing a two-tier pension structure in which newer pensioners contribute more and receive less. His administration also cut employer and state contributions, putting more of the burden on workers.
A few years later, under the administration of Democrat Jerry Brown, new attacks on pensions came in the form of increasing the retirement age from 55 to 67 for the majority of new public employees. The Brown administration has also implemented cuts to food stamps and affordable housing programs. All of these measures doubtless contributed to rising poverty rates among California seniors.
Today, CalPERS does not have the funds needed to meet its pension obligations, and has unfunded liabilities of over $70 billion.
More recently, the Obama administration moved to slash defined benefit plans for the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, a move that marks a dramatic escalation in the drive to dismantle pension benefits.
At local and municipal levels, the Democratic Party has been no less severe than the Republicans in the drive to dismantle pension and social programs. Chuck Reed, the ex-mayor of San Jose, and a Democrat, has twice proposed pension reform bills that would eliminate constitutional protections for pensioners in the state.
The cities of Stockton and San Bernardino have both been taken into Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy proceedings, and the San Bernardino proceedings are still ongoing. As in the case of Detroit, municipal bankruptcies have been used to undermine obligations to pay retiree benefits such as pensions and health care.
The doubling of the poverty rate for California seniors exposes the claims by the Obama administration that the United States is in the midst of an “economic recovery.” Instead, the economic crisis is reflected in deteriorating conditions for the most vulnerable sections of society.
AMNESTY: IT'S ONLY ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED, LEGALIZING MEXICO'S LOOTING OF AMERICA, BUILDING THE DEM PARTY BASE OF ILLEGALS and DESTROYING THE GOP
Democrats silent as one million lose food stamp benefits in the US
Democrats silent as one million lose food stamp benefits in the US
By Patrick Martin
4 April 2016
BLOG: IN AMERICA, NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED APPLY!!!!
These adults, aged 18 to 49 years and without children, are generally the poorest section of the working class, earning only 17 percent of the official poverty rate, an average of barely $150-170 per month in income. But they are eligible for only 90 days of food stamp benefits unless they have paid employment or job training for at least 80 hours in a month. The 90-day clock began running January 1, so adults who no longer qualify under this rule began being terminated in state after state April 1.
The 22 states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.
Another 22 states (see map) had already enforced work requirements to cut food stamp benefits for ABAWDs in 2015 or earlier. Those states account for 30 percent of the US population, while the states that are imposing work requirements this year account for another 35 percent.
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The numbers in some of the larger states are staggering. Florida alone will cut off benefits to an estimated 300,000 childless adults; Tennessee 150,000 and North Carolina 110,000. New York state will cut off more than 50,000, including 3,000 people in Manhattan, home to the world’s biggest concentration of billionaires. Missouri cuts off 60,000; Alabama 40,000 and Massachusetts 23,000.
The work requirements for food stamp recipients were waived for most states during the deep recession that followed the 2008 financial crash. States had to have an official unemployment rate above 10 percent, or at least 20 percent above the national average, or demonstrate a weak labor market under other criteria set down by the Department of Labor.
The number of childless adults eligible for food stamps jumped from 1.7 million in 2007 to 4.9 million in 2013, then began to decline to 4.7 million in 2014, largely because states like Kansas and Ohio began to impose work requirements.
The harsh “work for food” requirements were first introduced for food stamps under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. This is the notorious “welfare reform” bill sponsored by then-US Rep. John Kasich, who is now Ohio’s governor and a Republican candidate for president, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, husband of the current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It is particularly noticeable that none of the presidential candidates of either capitalist party, including the self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, has made an issue of the food stamp cutoff that is plunging hundreds of thousands overnight into hunger and destitution.
Senator Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in the midst of a campaign in the April 19 New York primary, but neither has said a word on behalf of the more than 50,000 New Yorkers who began losing their food stamp benefits Friday.
On Tuesday, Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in Erie County, which includes the city of Buffalo, devastated by the collapse of the steel industry. Some 2,800 Erie County residents were cut off food stamps April 1, but it is unlikely that the former president, who has raked in more than $100 million in income since he left the White House, will have anything to say about it.
Hillary Clinton gloried in the “welfare reform” legislation in her 2003 memoir Living History (for which she was paid $8 million). She wrote that Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the program the bill abolished, “had helped to create generations of welfare-dependent Americans … I strongly argued that we had to change the system, although my endorsement of welfare reform came at some personal cost.” The “cost,” of course, was to her political credibility as a supposed advocate of the poor.
Clinton claimed that the legislation her husband signed “was a critical first step to reforming our nation’s welfare system. I agreed that he should sign it and worked hard to round up votes for its passage—though he and the legislation were roundly criticized by some liberals, advocacy groups for immigrants and most people who worked with the welfare system.”
Sanders has criticized Hillary Clinton repeatedly for giving speeches to Wall Street audiences in return for six-figure fees, as well as raking in campaign contributions from the financial and fossil fuel industries. But he has not sought to make a connection between Clinton’s close ties to the super-rich and the record of the first Clinton administration, particularly its attack on the poorest sections of the working class.
Nor has Sanders, in general, made an issue of the cuts in vital social programs, particularly those implemented with the collaboration of the Obama administration, like the $8.7 billion cut in food stamp benefits pushed through in 2014 as part of a bipartisan deal with congressional Republicans, or this year’s drastic cutback in food stamp eligibility for childless adults.
Food stamp recipients, and particularly childless adults on food stamps, have become targets of abuse for big business politicians of both parties. Several of the states now implementing work requirements have gone well beyond the regulations set down by the federal Department of Agriculture or the provisions of the welfare reform law.
State governments are permitted to seek exemptions from benefit cutoffs for regions of the state with particularly high concentrations of unemployment, even if the state as a whole no longer qualifies. In New York state, for example, the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have such exemptions, although Manhattan does not.
But many states, like Florida, have refused to seek such exemptions. The Missouri legislature even passed a bill last year prohibiting the state government from seeking a waiver, with legislators claiming it was easy for the unemployed to find at least 20 hours work per week.
In Mississippi, with one of the highest unemployment rates and highest poverty rates in the country, Republican Governor Phil Bryant chose not to extend the waiver of the work requirement. “We want people to go to work in Mississippi,” he said in a statement. “We want these individuals to get a good job and live the American dream, not just be dependent on the federal government.”
PEW: MEXICO BREEDS AN ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE OCCUPATION OF AMERICA
more here:
In late 2015, the Pew Research Center came out with a population projection that "non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the US population by 2055." Similarly, during 2014, researchers working with U.S. Census Bure...
"More evidence that illegal immigrants are both taking jobs away from legal Americans and undercutting their wage bargaining power."
March 26, 2016
Study: Employment rate of illegal immigrant men far higher than for legal immigrants and natives
A new study by George Borjas from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University reveals what many have long been concerned about when it comes to illegal immigration into the United States.
According to Borjas' paper, the "employment rate of undocumented men is 86.6%, as compared to 73.9% for natives and 77.8% for legal immigrants," and this gap has been widening since the mid-1990s.
The study shows that about 10% of all persons in their early 30s are undocumented. In addition, 23% of illegal immigrants live in California, 7% reside in New York, and 15% live in Texas.
Borjas reached the following conclusions:
According to Borjas' paper, the "employment rate of undocumented men is 86.6%, as compared to 73.9% for natives and 77.8% for legal immigrants," and this gap has been widening since the mid-1990s.
The study shows that about 10% of all persons in their early 30s are undocumented. In addition, 23% of illegal immigrants live in California, 7% reside in New York, and 15% live in Texas.
Borjas reached the following conclusions:
Even after the regression exhaustively controls for... skill differences -- and adjusts for the possibility that economic conditions varied dramatically over time for each of the narrowly defined skill groups, as well as for the possibility that economic conditions varied dramatically among the different geographic regions where the three groups tend to settle -- it is still the case that the employment rate of immigrants, and particularly that of undocumented immigrant men, increased dramatically relative to that of native-born persons.More evidence that illegal immigrants are both taking jobs away from legal Americans and undercutting their wage bargaining power.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/study_employment_rate_of_illegal_immigrant_men_far_higher_than_for_legal_immigrants_and_natives.html#ixzz442MOR82B
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US employment report: Payrolls rise, wages fall
By Barry Grey
5 March 2016
President Barack Obama seized on the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000 jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama told reporters at a White House appearance.“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”
He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.
One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.
These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.
Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!
These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.
The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.
While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.
The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly claims that she is the champion of the little guy. It has always been a risible claim, but if any of her supporters (including at the Post) are actually paying attention to the scoundrel, this latest gambit ought to disabuse them of the notion.
In late 2015, the Pew Research Center came out with a population projection that "non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the US population by 2055." Similarly, during 2014, researchers working with U.S. Census Bure...
........................... Will Mexico elect America's next President? Didn't LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY, which is funded by Barack Obama and operates out of the Obama white house under Cecilia Munoz, reelect Obama???
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES! IT'S ALL LA RAZA PROPAGANDA TO EXPAND MEXICO'S OCCUPATION!
MILLIONS OF MEXICANS HAVE MILLIONS OF AMERICAN JOBS WITH STOLEN IDENTITIES. THEY ALSO DRIVE ILLEGALLY, CONTRACT ILLEGALLY AND SEND BACK TENS OF BILLIONS IN DRUG PROFITS TO NARCOMEX.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS LONG BEEN SABOTAGING STATES' ATTEMPT TO CURB LA RAZA FASCIST FROM VOTING.
MEXICO KNOWS THAT THE 40 MILLION LOOTING MEXICANS DON'T HAVE TO BE "PERMANENT RESIDENTS" TO GO VOTE FOR MORE!
HILLARY CLINTON HAS ALREADY PROMISED THE MEX OCCUPIERS 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS!
March 21, 2016
Mexican government urging US immigrants to become citizens and vote
Mexican consulates in the U.S. are hosting citizenship clinics across the country, hoping to convince permanent residents from Mexico to become U.S. citizens so they can vote against Donald Trump.
The pious declaration from the Mexican government that they are not "interfering" in the U.S. election fails the smell test.
Bloomberg:
The public-relations offensive now under way includes using news outlets and social media to highlight the strides Mexicans have made in business, the arts and academia in the U.S., said Paulo Carreno, the former spokesman of Citigroup Inc.’s Mexico unit who oversees the country’s international branding strategy.
Not even trying to persuade Hispanics that the GOP's agenda would be better for them than the Democrats will continue to make any national election and uphill climb for the Republican candidate.
The pious declaration from the Mexican government that they are not "interfering" in the U.S. election fails the smell test.
Bloomberg:
Joel Diaz doesn’t want to wait to see how it all turns out. The Mexican-American, who has been a permanent resident of the U.S. for six years, arrived at the Mexican consulate in Chicago on Saturday with his wife and four adult sons to register all of them as U.S. citizens in order to vote against Trump.
"We’re very worried," Diaz, 47, an evangelical pastor, said. "If he wins there will be a lot of damage against a lot of people here, and to us as Hispanics, as Mexicans."
Laura Espinosa, deputy consul in Mexico’s consulate in Las Vegas, said the main goal of the program is citizenship, and while that includes the right to vote, the government doesn’t press people to do so. "Those who use this to vote, that’s up to each individual," said Espinosa, who confirmed that most consulates have begun citizenship campaigns. "We don’t have any opinion on that, because that would be totally interfering in internal affairs of the country."The government in Mexico City is holding off on engaging the Trump campaign directly until he becomes the nominee, said Francisco Guzman, chief of staff to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Speaking with reporters on March 1, Guzman said the government plans to communicate with the campaigns of the nominees once they’re chosen and try to dispel what it considers misinformation about Mexico and Mexicans.
The public-relations offensive now under way includes using news outlets and social media to highlight the strides Mexicans have made in business, the arts and academia in the U.S., said Paulo Carreno, the former spokesman of Citigroup Inc.’s Mexico unit who oversees the country’s international branding strategy.
Promoting Mexico in the U.S., from its scholars to artists, is meant "not to influence an election, but a whole generation and those that follow," Carreno said in an e-mailed response to questions. "The strategy will be an important anchor in our consular network in the country."It should be noted that the chances of the Mexican government succeeding in getting enough of their people to become U.S. citizens so that they can make a difference in the 2016 election are low. But over a period of years, that could change – especially if the Republicans continue to refuse to compete for the Hispanic vote. Immigration issues are not the end-all and be-all for Hispanics in the U.S. They have the same concerns as any American about the economy and the culture.
Not even trying to persuade Hispanics that the GOP's agenda would be better for them than the Democrats will continue to make any national election and uphill climb for the Republican candidate.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/mexican_government_urging_us_immigrants_to_become_citizens_and_vote.html#ixzz43YgSdKgy
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