8.26.2004
"The Haves & The Have Mores"
A government report thursday revealed that 1.3 million Americans joined the impoverished brack in 2003, making the number of Americans living in poverty swell to 35.9 million. Though our economy is said to be "recovering", 12.5% of America now lives in poverty. In related news, the top 1% of all American's received the majority of Shrub's tax breaks, so everything will sort itself out, I'm sure.
Thanks to Yahoo for their fact-filled news story, the terms of "poverty" are made clearer.
The poverty line is set at an annual income of $9,573 or less for an individual, or $18,660 for a family of four with two children. Under that measure, a family would spend about a third of its income on food.
The poverty rate of African Americans remained nearly twice the national rate, with 24.4 percent of blacks living below the poverty line in 2003, nearly unchanged from 24.1 percent a year earlier.
The report showed real median income for all races was unchanged at $43,318 in 2003, while the number of Americans with no health care coverage rose to 45.0 million from 43.6 million in 2002.
Even with all this, there's even more to the story. This report normally comes out in September, but if you look at your calendar, you'll see it's still August. The Kerry campaign pointed out that the last time this report was released in August was 1992, to "hide" the bad news during an election year. Mid to late August is considered a poor time to release statistics such as this as many families are enjoying end-of-summer vacations and the news tends to go largely unnoticed.
Thanks to Yahoo for their fact-filled news story, the terms of "poverty" are made clearer.
The poverty line is set at an annual income of $9,573 or less for an individual, or $18,660 for a family of four with two children. Under that measure, a family would spend about a third of its income on food.
The poverty rate of African Americans remained nearly twice the national rate, with 24.4 percent of blacks living below the poverty line in 2003, nearly unchanged from 24.1 percent a year earlier.
The report showed real median income for all races was unchanged at $43,318 in 2003, while the number of Americans with no health care coverage rose to 45.0 million from 43.6 million in 2002.
Even with all this, there's even more to the story. This report normally comes out in September, but if you look at your calendar, you'll see it's still August. The Kerry campaign pointed out that the last time this report was released in August was 1992, to "hide" the bad news during an election year. Mid to late August is considered a poor time to release statistics such as this as many families are enjoying end-of-summer vacations and the news tends to go largely unnoticed.
