Poor Losers (Mother Jones)

[NMMNG]

Excellent collection of facts. Highlights include:

1 in 4 U.S. jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.

During the 1980s, 13% of Americans age 40 to 50 spent at least one year below the poverty line; by the 1990s, 36% did.

Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has steadily risen. Now 13% of all Americans—37 million—are officially poor.

<snip>

Bush’s tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those earning $1 million are saved $42,700.

In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) compared those who point out statistics such as the one above to Adolf Hitler.

Bush has dedicated $750 million to “healthy marriages” by diverting funds from social services, mostly child care.

Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50%.


<snip>

Since 1983, college tuition has risen 115%. The maximum Pell Grant for low- and moderate-income college students has risen only 19%.

52% of poor college-qualified students go to a 4-year college within 2 years of graduating. 83% of richer qualified students do.

<snip>

Per capita, the nih spends $68 on diabetes, which disproportionately affects the poor, and $1,414 on Lyme disease, which is named after a suburb in Connecticut.

63% of federal housing subsidies go to households earning more than $77,000. 18% go to households earning less than $16,500.

Since 1976, the federal budget has doubled, while hud’s budget has declined by 65%.

<snip>

Credit card late fees are 194% higher than in 1994.

<snip>

41% of those making less than $30,000 think there is “a lot” of tension between the rich and the poor. Only 18% of those making $100,000 to $150,000 think this.


Full List

[Sapphocrat]

1. As one...

...of the 36% of Americans age 40 to 50 who spent at least one year below the poverty line by the {late 1990s and beyond}, I have absolutely nothing to add to this, except a K&R.

This should be read; attention must be paid. Excellent catch from an excellent source, Buffy. :thumbsup:


On edit: Stupid typo

[Richard Steele]

2. K&R

[bicentennial_baby]

3. K&R....Beautiful baby

:D

:kick:

:loveya:

[Sapphocrat]

4. Kickin'

:kick:

[Jamastiene]

5. K & R

:thumbsup:
It's about time someone addressed the astute poverty in this country. Kudos to Buffy.

[NMMNG]

6. Indeed

But the haves don't want it adressed, so it will continue to be largely ignored.

[NutmegYankee]

9. Agree.

[NutmegYankee]

7. Lyme, Conn. is a town of ~2000 people, not a suburb.

I liked most of it, but that was BS. As if deer ticks in the country side give a damn about your social status. Lyme disease gets so much spent on it because it is feared to be a spreading epidemic, and the disease is poorly understood.

[Puglover]

8. K and R

Michael Moore sez at the end of "Sicko", "Better days are coming" My God I hope he's right.

[flvegan]

10. With so many successes for Bush on this list, I don't see

why so many folks around here complain so much.

(just in case) :sarcasm:

K&R!

[eallen]

11. One item struck me as so absurdly incorrect, I had to look it up....

Per capita, the nih spends $68 on diabetes, which disproportionately affects the poor, and $1,414 on Lyme disease, which is named after a suburb in Connecticut.

That seems unbelievable. Fortunately, the NIH has its budget on the web:

http://www.nih.gov/news/fundingresearchareas.htm

The NIH budget for Lyme disease is $24 million, or about $0.08 per capita. The NIH budget for diabetes is 43 times larger, $1,031 million, or about $3.44 per capita. Now, maybe Mother Jones is giving the statistics per disease sufferer. But that's not what the text reads, and in any case, that's an unfair comparison between a disease that strikes tens of millions of Americans, like diabetes or hypertension, and diseases that is relatively rare to Americans, like Lyme disease or West Nile Virus. If funding for diseases were strictly proportionate to the number of victims, diseases that strike relatively few victims would be ignored, and at some point, Mother Jones likely would write an article about their forgotten sufferers. While it makes sense to pour more money into diseases that strike millions, the fact remains that it takes some minimal amount of research to make any progress against a disease, even if strikes only a few, and that research also faces diminishing returns. Strict proportionality according to number of sufferers simply doesn't make sense.

With regard to diabetes, note that the NIH also budgets $2,411 million for minority health, and $6,775 million for prevention, both of which will have significant focus on preventing diabetes, and that there are several line items, from kidney disease to stroke, that deal with the worse consequences of diabetes.

:hippie:

[NMMNG]

12. Interesting

I wonder where MoJo got its stats. :shrug:

[eallen]

13. I'm always suspicious of articles that are lists of stats.

When an author writes on a specific topic, the author has an opportunity to research the topic, and when pulling together statistics relevant to it, to learn what those statistics mean. The problem with articles that are lists of unrelated statistics is that some likely are on point, and others likely seem on point, but with a little digging, really aren't. Mother Jones has a lot of good articles. But it is not exempt from the research problems that plague all popular magazines.

:hippie:

[NutmegYankee]

14. Thanks for looking that up.

I posted earlier that that stat seemed funky.

[Octafish]

15. Smirko has Lyme Disease

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3460193

Welfare for the wealthy. Heh heh heh.

[NMMNG]

16. And got the best medical care of course

Unlike the millions of un-insured Americans he doesn't give a rip about. :-(