WASHINGTON — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration’s emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to “rebuild ladders of opportunity” and reverse income inequality.
As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused – on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy “poor.”
“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn’t generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.
“If you do try to go apply for a job, they’re not hiring people, and they’re not paying that much to even go to work,” she said. Children, she said, have “nothing better to do than to get on drugs.”
While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government’s poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.
Hey, maybe this would be a good time to cut Social Security payments!
Ain’t Capitalism grand?
And Corporatism is several powers worse….
Obama has made Corporatism visible, I’ll give him that. Bill Clinton never let it show’; Barry can’t help himself as he is a true believer in the rightness and wisdom of Corporatism.
At least we’ve got this discrimination thing licked. In our race to the bottom, austerity and cuts made on the phoney ‘balance the budget’ issue are making paupers out of everybody, regardless of race, creed, religious affiliation, etc.
Oh – by the way – can we all agree that the NSA fuss over ‘we need all these Patriot Act powers, and we’ve got to tap every phone call and e-mail to look for those scary terrorists to prevent, you know, another 9/11’
(which of course is just down the block from the 7/11)
is a bunch of hooey?
Seems to me the real reason the military/government/security industry complex wants to spy on us night and day is to look for signs for the next French Revolution.
They don’t care bull feathers about some foreign threat. They just want to know when enough folks start to have the scales fall away from their eyes that they start making problems for the 1%.
Seems to me the real reason the military/government/security industry complex wants to spy on us night and day is to look for signs for the next French Revolution.
They don’t care bull feathers about some foreign threat. They just want to know when enough folks start to have the scales fall away from their eyes that they start making problems for the 1%.
Makes perfect sense to me.