John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Census Says U.S. Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018
(Bloomberg) -- Income inequality in America widened
“significantly” last year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report published
Thursday.
A measure of inequality known as the Gini index rose to 0.485
from 0.482 in 2017, according to the bureau’s survey of household finances. The
measure compares incomes at the top and bottom of the distribution, and a score
of 0 is perfect equality.
The 2018 reading is the first to incorporate the impact of
President Donald Trump’s end-2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many
economists to be skewed in favor of the wealthy.
But the distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. has been
worsening for decades, making America the most unequal country in the developed
world. The trend, which has persisted through recessions and recoveries, and
under administrations of both parties, has put inequality at the center of U.S.
politics.
Leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential
nomination, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are
promising to rectify the tilt toward the rich with measures such as taxes on
wealth or financial transactions.
Just five states -- California, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana
and New York, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico -- had Gini indexes
higher than the national level, while the reading was lower in 36 states.
The
Democrats’ opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity
measures, or his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a
serious challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths
of school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3
trillion tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to
earlier this year.
Trump
proposal denies free school meals to half a million children
The Trump
administration has provided a new analysis of how proposed changes to
eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly
known as food stamps, will impact children who participate in the National
School Lunch and School Breakfast programs. By the White House’s own admission,
these changes mean that about a half-million children would become ineligible
for free school meals.
Secretary of
Agriculture Sonny Perdue has described the changes as a tightening up of
“loopholes” in the SNAP system. But those affected by the changes are not corporate
crooks or billionaires, but hundreds of thousands of children who stand to lose
access to free meals. For many American children, free school breakfasts and
lunches make up the bulk of their nutritional intake, and they stand to suffer
permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of the cuts.
Children
receive a free lunch at the Phoenix Day Central Park Youth Program in downtown
Phoenix. (AP Photo Matt York)
The sheer
vindictiveness of the proposed rule change is shown by the minimal savings that
would result—about $90 million a year beginning in fiscal year 2021, or a mere
0.012 percent of the estimated $74 billion annual SNAP budget. Put another way,
the savings would amount to two-thousandths of a percent of the $4.4 trillion
federal budget. But while this $90 million might appear as small change to the
oligarchs running and supporting the government, it will be directly felt as
hunger in the bellies of America’s poorest children.
SNAP provided benefits
to roughly 40 million Americans in 2018 and is the largest nutrition program of
the 15 administered by the federal Food and Nutrition Service. Along with
programs such as the Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and
school breakfast and lunch programs, SNAP has been a major factor in making a
dent in the hunger of working-class families. But despite these programs’
successes, the Trump administration is seeking to claw them back, with the
ultimate aim of doing away with them altogether.
The US Department of
Agriculture (USDA), which administers the food stamp and school meal programs,
says that the new analysis presented last week is a more precise estimate of
the impact of rule changes in SNAP the USDA first announced in July. The main
component of the rule change is an end to “broad-based categorical eligibility”
for the food stamp program. Food stamps are cut off for households whose
incomes exceed 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or $33,475 per year for
a family of four, calculated after exemptions for certain expenses.
Under “broad-based
categorical eligibility,” which is currently used by over 40 states, households
can be eligible for food stamps based on their receiving assistance from other
anti-poverty programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Under
this rule, which has been in effect for about 20 years, states are allowed to
raise income eligibility and asset limits to promote SNAP eligibility. This
prevents many households from falling over the “benefit cliff,” which happens
when a small increase in income results in a complete cutoff of benefits,
leaving a family worse off than before the rise in income.
According to the USDA,
the rule change on broad-based eligibility would throw more than 680,000
households with children off SNAP. About 80 percent of these households have
school-age children, amounting to about 982,000 children. Of those, 55 percent,
or about 540,000, would no longer be eligible for free school meals, although
most would be eligible for reduced-price meals. About 40,000 would be required
to pay the full meal rate.
However, this does not
paint the full picture. Households thrown off SNAP would be required to apply
separately for access to free or reduced-price school meals. The USDA admits
that its cost estimates “do not account for potential state and local
administrative costs incurred due to collecting and processing household
applications … and also do not account for any increased responsibility placed
on the households to complete and submit a school meals application.”
While the Trump
administration claims that the proposed changes to SNAP eligibility are aimed
at closing up “loopholes” and stopping people from claiming benefits they’re
not entitled to, the reality is that there is no evidence that broad-based
eligibility has allowed significant numbers of people to supposedly “game the
system.” A 2012 Government Accountability Office investigation found that only
473,000 recipients, or just 2.6 percent of beneficiaries, received benefits
they would not have received without the broad-based eligibility offered by
many states.
There is consistent
evidence that SNAP contributes to a decrease in food insecurity, a condition
defined by the USDA as limited or uncertain access to adequate food. By one
estimate, SNAP benefits reduce the likelihood of food insecurity by about 30
percent and the likelihood of being very food insecure by 20 percent. Census
data has shown that SNAP also plays a critical role in reducing poverty, with
about 3.6 million Americans, including 1.5 million children, being lifted out
of poverty in 2016 as a result of the program.
The EconoFact Network
reports that SNAP has improved birth outcomes and infant health. When an
expectant mother has access to SNAP during pregnancy, particularly in the third
trimester, it decreases the likelihood that her baby will be born with low
birth weight. There is also evidence that the benefits of nutrition support can
persist well into adulthood when access to SNAP is provided before birth and
during early childhood. This can have a long-term impact on an individual’s
earnings, health and life expectancy. Conversely, food insecurity in childhood
correlates with greater risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes,
obesity and cardiovascular disease later in life.
The proposed threat to
school lunches for half a million children has elicited little response from
Democrats in Congress, who are obsessively focused on the Trump impeachment
inquiry. Critical issues such as the health and nutrition of school children
are of little consequence to the Democratic Party, which instead gives voice to
those sections of the military intelligence apparatus that sees Trump’s
actions, particularly his sudden pullout from Syria, as endangering the global
interests of American imperialism.
The Democrats’
opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity measures, or
his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a serious
challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths of
school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3 trillion
tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to earlier
this year. At $94.6 million, the cost of one of the US Air Force’s newest
and most technologically advanced fighter jets, the F-35A, would cover the $90
annual savings from depriving half a million US schoolchildren of free meals.
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