Put Poverty On The Agenda : NPR
source: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/133015866/the-nation-put-poverty-on-the-agenda
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- toyotabedzrock
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"There is definitely a story going untold," says Melissa Boteach, manager of Half in Ten, a national campaign to reduce poverty by 50 percent over the next 10 years. "When you have 1 in 7 Americans living in poverty. 1 in 5 children living in poverty — including 1 in 3 African-American children and Latino children — and it's not on America's radar, something's very wrong."
Indeed it is the shame of our nation that a record 47 million people now live below the poverty line — $22,400 for a family of four — and a stunning 1 in 3 Americans are living at less than twice that threshold. And yet we hear so little about this crisis in the mainstream media and Congress, where it seems off the radar not only for the GOP, but even for some of our progressive allies.
But the grim truth is that many of the same structural problems that are making life a struggle for the middle-class — and resulted in the first "economic recovery" in 2003-2007 where productivity rose, but median income declined and poverty worsened — are also leading to record numbers of poor people. From 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent. Our economy is super-sizing the wealthy, while producing large quantities of low-wage jobs, unemployment and underemployment, and services are eroding. So the work of those who are waging today's war on poverty comes with a very different frame.
Indeed it is the shame of our nation that a record 47 million people now live below the poverty line — $22,400 for a family of four — and a stunning 1 in 3 Americans are living at less than twice that threshold. And yet we hear so little about this crisis in the mainstream media and Congress, where it seems off the radar not only for the GOP, but even for some of our progressive allies.
But the grim truth is that many of the same structural problems that are making life a struggle for the middle-class — and resulted in the first "economic recovery" in 2003-2007 where productivity rose, but median income declined and poverty worsened — are also leading to record numbers of poor people. From 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent. Our economy is super-sizing the wealthy, while producing large quantities of low-wage jobs, unemployment and underemployment, and services are eroding. So the work of those who are waging today's war on poverty comes with a very different frame.
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toyotabedzrock
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We need to encourage reporters to go out there and find and interview the homeless and the poor.
- 1 year ago
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toyotabedzrock
