Poverty in the Suburbs by PETER DREIER [from the September 20, 2004 issue]
Hidden in a Census Bureau report on poverty released in late August is a factoid with significant political and social consequences.
Poverty has moved to the suburbs. Or, more accurately, poverty has expanded to the suburbs.
Today, 13.8 million poor Americans live in the suburbs-- almost as many as the 14.6 million who live in central cities. The suburban poor represent 38.5 percent of the nation's poor, compared with 40.6 percent of the total who live in central cities.
snip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040920&s=dreier ========================= "They understood that you didn't have to attack
the fortress anymore. You could just surround it,
make faces at the people inside and let them have
nervous breakdowns and destroy themselves."
-- Norman Mailer
Leigh Meyers leighcmeyers at yahoo.com ================================= ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Ballard To: lbo lbo Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 12:35 AM Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] happy happy happy all the time!
>From 2000 through 2003, the median household income
fell by $1,500 (in 2003 dollars) -- a significant 3.4
percent decrease, writes Bob Herbert on the op. ed
page (page A19) of The New York Times, September 6;
Daily Labor Report, page A-6). That becomes startling
when you consider that during the same period there
was a strong 12 percent increase in productivity among
U.S. workers. Economists will tell you that
productivity increases go hand-in-hand with increases
in the standard of living. But not this time. Here
we have a 3.4 percent loss in real income juxtaposed
with a big jump in productivity. "So the economic pie
is growing gangbusters and the typical household is
falling behind," said Jared Bernstein, the Economic
Policy Institute's senior economist and a co-author of
"The State of Working America 2004/2005" (Information
about "The State of Working America 2004/2005 is
available at http://www.epinet.org
<http://www.epinet.org> ).
Regards, Mike B)
===== "Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius."
George Sand
http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk