Record Numbers Fall into "Deep Poverty"

GOI: Sadly this isn't a surprise. Trickle down economics is more like "throw some scraps to the little people" but not enough to empower them. The other image that comes to mind when I think "trickle down economics" is that of a bunch of caged rats fighting each other for tiny drops of water from "the source."

AFP
Published: Saturday February 24, 2007

The gulf between rich and poor in the United States is yawning wider than ever, and the number of extremely impoverished is at a three-decade high, a report out Saturday found.

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005," the US newspaper chain reported.

GOI: I don't think it's any coincidence that this happened during the Bush presidency and the Republican dominated Congress.

"That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

"That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty."

US social programs are minimal compared to those of western Europe and Canada. The United States has a population of 301 million, but more than 45 million US citizens have no health insurance.

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