Welstand/armoede USA

Recession Raises Poverty Rate to a 15-Year High
By ERIK ECKHOLM ..... Published: September 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17poverty.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=al
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With the country in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, four million additional Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, with the total reaching 44 million, or one in seven residents. Millions more were surviving only because of expanded unemployment insurance and other assistance.
And the numbers could have climbed higher: One way embattled Americans have gotten by is sharing homes with siblings, parents or even nonrelatives, sometimes resulting in overused couches and frayed nerves but holding down the rise in the national poverty rate, according to the report.
The share of residents in poverty climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level recorded since 1994. The rise was steepest for children, with one in five affected, the bureau said.
The report provides the most detailed picture yet of the impact of the recession and unemployment on incomes, especially at the bottom of the scale. It also indicated that the temporary increases in aid provided in last year’s stimulus bill eased the burdens on millions of families.
For a single adult in 2009, the poverty line was $10,830 in pretax cash income; for a family of four, $22,050.
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The Census report showed increases in poverty for whites, blacks and Hispanic Americans, with historic disparities continuing. The poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was 9.4 percent, for blacks 25.8 percent and for Hispanics 25.3 percent. The rate for Asians was unchanged at 12.5 percent.
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USDA ... United States Department of Agriculture
Food and Nutrition Service

Nutrition Assistance Programs
No one should go hungry in America. FNS provides children and low-income people access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education. We help nearly one in four people. Check out our programs to see if we can help you or your family. (More >)

http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/services.htm

http://www.alternet.org/story/148217/poverty_is_through_the_roof%2C_and_billionaires_are_getting_pissy_about_not_enough_profits?page=entire

AlterNet / By Les Leopold ...... 18-9-2010

Poverty Is Through the Roof, and Billionaires Are Getting Pissy About Not Enough Profits
Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth, the super-rich want us to pity them?

While 43.6 million Americans live in poverty, the richest men of finance sure are getting pissy. First Steve Schwartzman, head of the Blackrock private equity company, compares the Obama administration's effort to close billionaires' tax loopholes to "the Nazi invasion of Poland." Then hedge fund mogul David Loeb announces that he's abandoning the Democrats because they're violating "this country's core founding principles" -- including "non-punitive taxation, Constitutionally-guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority, and an inexorable right of self-determination." Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth, the super-rich want us to pity them?

enzovoort, enzovoort .............

The Super-Rich Get Richer,
and Everyone Else Is Going Down the Drain
By Robert B. Reich ... September 24, 2010 ... http://www.alternet.org
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Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few,
yet they're going to keep their fat tax cuts.
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The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying
even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the
rest of us. According to Forbes magazine's annual survey, just released,
the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year,
to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.

For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring
vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all
over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is
now worth $21.5 billion.

Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in
finance or investments. From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund
managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent
in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at
15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).

The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a
post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million
Americans don't have work.

Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and
the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm - the late 1920s,
and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s. And yet the Bush tax cuts of
2001 and 2003, which conferred almost all their benefits on the rich, continue.

Democrats have decided to delay voting on whether to extend them for the top
2 percent of Americans or for the bottom 98 percent until after the mid-term
elections.
Democrats have thereby given up a defining issue that could have enabled them
to show the big story of the last three decades - the accumulation of almost all
the gain from economic growth at the top - and to make a start at reversing it.

When will they ever learn?
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Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman
School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.

Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth,

De vraag is:
Op wat voor basis wordt dit beweerd door de schrijver?
Denken amerikanen in het algemeen ook dat dit waar is?

.............................the richest nation on Earth,

Mariakat schreef:
Op wat voor basis wordt dit beweerd door de schrijver?
Denken amerikanen in het algemeen ook dat dit waar is?

Ik denk dat de schrijver appelleert aan het nationale bewustzijn
en trots : Wij als rijk(st)e natie hebben miljoenen inwoners die
voedselhulp nodig hebben.
Of zijn uitspraak waar is, doet eigenlijk niet terzake.De cijfers
van de hulporganisaties kloppen wel.