Kimberly Warner-Cohen is a New York City-based novelist and economic activist.
It’s not news that there’s been a deepening wealth inequality in the United States. Since1979:
[For] the top 1% of the population, average inflation-adjusted household income grew by 275%…the poorest fifth of the population saw their incomes rise by just 18% in a little less than 30 years, according to the study, which was based on IRS and Census data.
The current poverty guideline in the United States for a family of four is only $22,350. Since 2007,, real median household income dropped 6.4%, based on a study administered by the Census Bureau. It also found:
The official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent—up from 14.3 percent in 2009. This was the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points, from 12.5 percent to 15.1 percent.
This, too, unfortunately, isn’t new information. However, a study put out by Wider Opportunities for Women, shows just how large of a swath of the American public lives in economic insecurity. A staggering 45% of the country lives above the poverty line, but does not have enough to make ends meet when it comes to basic necessities like shelter, food and transportation.
One in four full-time working-age adults has annual earnings below his or her family’s economic security requirements…Twenty percent of white workers, 29% percent of black workers and 43% of Hispanic workers live in two-full-time worker households with earnings below the economic security line
Statistics are especially hard on single women:
More than 60% of single women live in economic insecurity…In 2009, women’s median earnings were just 70% of men’s median earnings—$27,836 versus $39,186.4 In 2009, women who worked full time earned median wages that were only 80% of their male counterparts’ wages…Eighty-two percent of single mother households live below the BEST Indexes for their family types.
These findings need to be a wake up call to Congress to reinvest in our country before this situation spins even more out of control, instead of waging yet another conflict overseas.
“These findings need to be a wake up call to Congress …”
I completely agree, but unfortunately, I don’t think they will be.
Over the years, when talking about outsourcing, it was common practice to label the person or organization speaking out against it, as stuck in the past. The proponent’s of outsourcing would accuse their opponent’s of having their head’s in the sand. There was a new global reality, they would say. The United States had better keep up with the changing economic landscape or be left behind.
This country was and is considered to be rich by many around the world. What is left out in this false vision are the million’s who are not rich, or even middle class, but working poor. It was the working poor who were most affected by the first stage’s of outsourcing. American’s were told we did not need these job’s, we were on our way to becoming a leader in innovation, science and technology. We would be a nation of high paying job’s, the engine of growth for all the other poor slobs in the world who now had those low paying sources of employment to keep their peasant’s in line.
Movies like ” Norma Rae “ put a romantic gloss on the struggle for equality in the textile industry, but their was nothing romantic about it. It was a dirty, ugly and violent little war that never really ended. Yet it was job’s like those, as well as many other’s that kept those on the edge of the cliff from falling over. Not everyone can go to college, or become an engineer, software writer, app designer or cloud computing specialist. Not everyone can be a financial industry player. There must be something for the other’s, the “ underclass ” as Ken Auletta once called them.I don’t believe American’s really have a true idea of the extent and breath of the underclass in this nation. They have been out of work, and hope, for a very long time, and they are angry.
Thanks Kimberly, your posts are so timely for what people are facing today.