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In reply to the discussion: Obama launches his WAR ON POVERTY!!! [View all]ProSense
(116,464 posts)43. Here's some stuff to add
to your reading list.
Obama Heads the Right Way on Poverty, Jobs
Scholar William Julius Wilson tells us what it will take for more blacks and the poor to have jobs.
By: William Julius Wilson
(The Root) -- Despite all the rhetoric about reclaiming the American dream for middle-class Americans in this past presidential election, Barack Obama has done more for lower-income Americans than any president since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Quite frankly, I think that Obama's programs prevented poverty -- including concentrated poverty -- from rapidly rising over the past several years, considering the terrible economy.
Obama's stimulus package (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) earmarked $80 billion dollars for low-income Americans, which included an extension of unemployment benefits, a temporary increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit and substantial additional funds for food stamps (what we now call the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). It also included nearly $4 billion in job training and workforce-enhancement programs, and $2 billion for neighborhood-stabilization efforts.
Moreover, I consider the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly termed Obamacare) as an antipoverty program. Over the long term, this health care legislation will significantly benefit lower-income Americans. Indeed, the share of Americans who are uninsured declined between 2010 and 2011. And this improvement was in part due to a provision of the health care bill that allows children to remain on their parents' health insurance plan until they reach age 26.
Also, Obama worked out a deal with Congress to address the impact of the recession on lower-income Americans, a negotiation that led to a 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits for more than 7 million jobless workers, as well as the continuation of programs that benefit the poor and working classes, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the refundable component of the Child Tax Credit and the 2 percent reduction in the Social Security payroll tax for one year -- all of which put more money in the hands of ordinary Americans. Finally, I should mention the $144 billion package passed in early 2012 by Congress to extend the payroll-tax cut and unemployment insurance, programs that Obama pushed.
- more -
http://www.theroot.com/views/obama-heads-right-way-poverty-jobs
Scholar William Julius Wilson tells us what it will take for more blacks and the poor to have jobs.
By: William Julius Wilson
(The Root) -- Despite all the rhetoric about reclaiming the American dream for middle-class Americans in this past presidential election, Barack Obama has done more for lower-income Americans than any president since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Quite frankly, I think that Obama's programs prevented poverty -- including concentrated poverty -- from rapidly rising over the past several years, considering the terrible economy.
Obama's stimulus package (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) earmarked $80 billion dollars for low-income Americans, which included an extension of unemployment benefits, a temporary increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit and substantial additional funds for food stamps (what we now call the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). It also included nearly $4 billion in job training and workforce-enhancement programs, and $2 billion for neighborhood-stabilization efforts.
Moreover, I consider the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly termed Obamacare) as an antipoverty program. Over the long term, this health care legislation will significantly benefit lower-income Americans. Indeed, the share of Americans who are uninsured declined between 2010 and 2011. And this improvement was in part due to a provision of the health care bill that allows children to remain on their parents' health insurance plan until they reach age 26.
Also, Obama worked out a deal with Congress to address the impact of the recession on lower-income Americans, a negotiation that led to a 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits for more than 7 million jobless workers, as well as the continuation of programs that benefit the poor and working classes, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the refundable component of the Child Tax Credit and the 2 percent reduction in the Social Security payroll tax for one year -- all of which put more money in the hands of ordinary Americans. Finally, I should mention the $144 billion package passed in early 2012 by Congress to extend the payroll-tax cut and unemployment insurance, programs that Obama pushed.
- more -
http://www.theroot.com/views/obama-heads-right-way-poverty-jobs
<...>
Perhaps the best prism through which to see the Democrats gains is inequality. In the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama said that his top priority as president would be to create bottom-up economic growth and reduce inequality...In the 2009 stimulus, he insisted on making tax credits fully refundable, so that even people who did not make enough to pay much federal tax would benefit. The 2010 health care law overhaul was probably the biggest attack on inequality since it began rising in the 1970s, increasing taxes on businesses and the rich to pay for health insurance largely for the middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us/politics/for-obama-fiscal-deal-is-a-victory-that-also-holds-risks.html
Perhaps the best prism through which to see the Democrats gains is inequality. In the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama said that his top priority as president would be to create bottom-up economic growth and reduce inequality...In the 2009 stimulus, he insisted on making tax credits fully refundable, so that even people who did not make enough to pay much federal tax would benefit. The 2010 health care law overhaul was probably the biggest attack on inequality since it began rising in the 1970s, increasing taxes on businesses and the rich to pay for health insurance largely for the middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us/politics/for-obama-fiscal-deal-is-a-victory-that-also-holds-risks.html
Esther Duflo: Obama taps povertys rock star.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/01/13/obama-taps-esther-duflo-poverty-s-rock-star.html
Feed the Future is the United States Government's global hunger and food security initiative
http://www.feedthefuture.gov/
Good stuff.
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^^^ Thanks for writing all of that. Calling it out here in hopes more might read it.
cthulu2016
Jan 2013
#60
"War on Poverty" = war over poverty. Corporations.gov would rather have war than help people. n/t
L0oniX
Jan 2013
#64
I guess with the inauguration in a couple of days, the ghosts are coming out
DainBramaged
Jan 2013
#16
I'm pretty sure that this time around many a red state will go blue.
Lady Freedom Returns
Jan 2013
#55