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| April 25, 2007 |
| From Poverty To Prosperity | ||
| Go Beyond The Headlines | ||
| Coffee and Donuts Not Included | ||
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CORRECTION: Two days ago, some of our readers received The Progress Report with the word "credibility" spelled incorrectly in the subject line of the e-mail. For the sake our own credibility, we want to acknowledge and apologize for the error.
When Hurricane Katrina struck in Aug. 2005, "it revealed that in one of the nation's proudest cities, racial and economic disparities were enormous. Tens of thousands of families were living in severe poverty, jobless and unable to afford transportation out of town or a night in a motel as disaster approached." The plight of poverty in New Orleans laid bare by Katrina forcefully reminded the country of the economic hardships that a significant share of Americans face everyday. In an economy that produces $13 trillion annually, 37 million Americans still live below the official poverty line. "Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities or run out of savings when they lose their job or have a health emergency." This continuing poverty effects more than just the poor who live in it, as "the lost potential of children raised in poor households, the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults, the poor health, increased crime, and broken neighborhoods all hurt our nation. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost our nation $500 billion each year, or about 4 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product." Last year, the Center for American Progress put together a Task Force on Poverty, gathering "a diverse group of national experts and leaders to examine the causes and consequences of poverty in America and make recommendations for national action." Today, the task force released its final recommendations in a report -- "From Poverty to Prosperity" -- that calls for "a national goal of cutting poverty in half in the next 10 years and proposes a strategy to reach that goal."
BAD GETTING WORSE: There are more Americans living in poverty today than there are total people living in the state of California, the most populous state in the nation. The number of poor Americans has grown by five million in the past six years, while inequality has reached historically high levels. In 2005, the richest one percent of Americans had the largest share of the nation's income -- 19 percent -- since 1929, while the poorest 20 percent of Americans had only 3.4 percent of the nation's income. Though the number of Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily in the past three decades, a study by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that since 2000, "the number of severely poor has grown 'more than any other segment of the population.'" In 2005, 16 million people -- 5.4 percent of all Americans -- had incomes below half the poverty line. The number of Americans living in such extreme poverty grew by over three million between 2000 and 2005, and the share of poor people living in extreme poverty is now greater than at any point in the last 32 years. Without urgent action, these numbers are on course to continue growing. The federal minimum wage has remained static for nearly a decade. At $5.15 an hour, it is at its lowest level in real terms since 1956. The federal minimum wage was once 50 percent of the average wage, but is now only 30 percent of that wage. If Congress were to restore the minimum wage to 50 percent of the average wage -- about $8.40 an hour in 2006 -- it would help over 4.5 million poor workers and nearly nine million other low-income workers.
NOT JUST A 'POOR PERSON'S' PROBLEM: Poverty is not isolated to those who are currently experiencing it and the tens of millions who hang on the precipice of falling in. Economist Rebecca Blank, a member of the poverty task force, has found that a third of all Americans will "experience poverty within a 13-year period. In that period, one in 10 Americans are poor for most of the time, and one in 20 are poor for more than 10 years." Furthermore, "large numbers of Americans -- both low income and middle class -- are increasingly concerned about uncertain job futures, downward pressures on wages, and decreasing opportunities for advancement in a globalized economy." Employment for millions of Americans is now less secure than at any point in the post-World War II era. Women and minorities are much more likely to feel the sting of poverty than are white Americans. African-Americans (24.9 percent were poor in 2005), Hispanics (21.8 percent), and Native Americans (25.3 percent) all have poverty rates far greater than those of whites (8.3 percent). With a poverty rate of 14.1 percent, women are substantially more likely to be poor than are males (11.1 percent). If a national agenda to reduce poverty were implemented, it would benefit more than just the poor, as it would promote opportunity and security for millions of other Americans, as well.
MAKING WORK PAY: As history has shown, poverty is conquerable if smart steps are taken. During the strong economy of the 1960s and the War on Poverty, the poverty rate fell from 22.4 percent to 11.1 percent between 1959 and 1973. In the 1990s, a strong economy was combined with policies to promote and support work, and the poverty rate dropped from 15.1 percent to 11.3 percent between 1993 and 2000. Fighting poverty does not require extensive new bureaucracy or more government programs. The Task Force on Poverty found that there are four principles that should guide a strategy to cut poverty in half: 1) "People should work and work should pay enough to ensure that workers and their families can avoid poverty, meet basic needs, and save for the future." 2) "Children should grow up in conditions that maximize their opportunities for success; adults should have opportunities throughout their lives to connect to work, get more education, live in a good neighborhood, and move up in the workforce." 3) "Americans should not fall into poverty when they cannot work or work is unavailable, unstable, or pays so little that they cannot make ends meet." 4) "All Americans should have the opportunity to build assets that allow them to weather periods of flux and volatility, and to have the resources that may be essential to advancement and upward mobility. Read the Task Force's 12 key steps to cutting poverty in half here.
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ETHICS -- ROVE INVESTIGATOR BESET WITH ETHICAL PROBLEMS: The head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), Scott Bloch, told the Washington Post and L.A. Times that he is "launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations" led by presidential adviser Karl Rove, and "will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities." At issue are potential violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits the expenditure of government resources "on behalf of a political party or cause." While Bloch promised the investigation would "leave no stone unturned," watchdog groups including the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have voiced objections, noting that Bloch's involvement in such an investigation "suggests the possibility that the White House is orchestrating a cover-up of its illegal and improper activities." Bloch, who is also charged with "defending the rights of government whistle-blowers and protecting government employees from discrimination," is currently under investigation for accusations that his office "retaliated against employees who took issue with internal policies and discriminated against employees who were gay or members of religious minorities." CREW has reported that the investigation into Bloch's conduct has "been stymied by the fear of OSC staff that speaking to investigators will result in reprisal." A lawyer for a group of OSC employees "said it was obvious that Mr. Bloch was trying to use the investigation to divert attention from his own problems." She added, "Mr. Bloch's assertions that he would conduct a wide-scale investigation...were not believable because his office had only limited authority in such matters." |
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Several retired generals endorsed Congress's Iraq withdrawal legislation yesterday. Maj. Gen. John Batiste called it "important legislation [that] sets a new direction in Iraq," while Lt. Gen. William Odom said it will "re-orient US strategy to achieve regional stability, and win help from many other countries -- the only way peace will eventually be achieved." "Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, this time to meet" with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), "who recently called for the attorney general's resignation, accusing Gonzales of lying to the senator and his constituency in Arkansas." "After more than a decade of government inaction, gay-rights proponents in Congress have gotten several major bills moving through the Democratic-controlled chambers, a development that could result in the greatest expansion of federal protections for gays and lesbians in US history." The measures include tougher action against both workplace discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation. "The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts." The United Nations released its own figures, showing that sectarian violence remains high in Baghdad, despite the U.S. escalation strategy. "After months of furious debate and threats of excommunication by the Catholic Church, Mexico City's legislative assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to legalize abortion for the first time in the capital's history." President Bush said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might have one-on-one talks with Iranian leaders at an international conference on Iraq next month. "What I'm not willing to do is sit down bilaterally with the Iranians," he said in an interview. Later, he said Rice and Iran's foreign minister might have bilateral conversations. "They could. They could," Bush said. Newly-appointed Defense Undersecretary James Clapper Jr. "is moving to end the controversial Talon electronic data program," which "collected and circulated unverified reports" about alleged threats, including data on "anti-military protesters and peaceful demonstrators." And finally: There are "problems" in Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-AK) office, according to an internal memo sent to staff. The biggest one: "[I]f you have a long magazine-reading bathroom trip planned (and you know what I mean), please go to the public restrooms. We don't want to subject our staff or constituents to any fowl (sic) smelling odors while they are in the office." |
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