In U.S., 49.7 Million Are Now Poor, and 80% of the Total Population is Near Poverty

[RedSonRising]

http://politicalblindspot.com/us-poor/

http://politicalblindspot.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Man-in-american-poverty1-600x350.jpg

If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you are now living in poverty or near poverty. Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

That near poverty statistic is perhaps more startling than the 50 million Americans below the poverty line, because it translates to a full 80% of the population struggling with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on government assistance to help make ends meet.

In September, the Associated Press pointed to survey data that told of an increasingly widening gap between rich and poor, as well as the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs that used to provide opportunities for the “Working Class” to explain an increasing trend towards poverty in the U.S.

But the numbers of those below the poverty line does not merely reflect the number of jobless Americans. Instead, according to a revised census measure released Wednesday, the number – 3 million higher than what the official government numbers imagine – are also due to out-of-pocket medical costs and work-related expenses.

The new measure is generally “considered more reliable by social scientists because it factors in living expenses as well as the effects of government aid, such as food stamps and tax credits,” according to Hope Yen reporting for the Associated Press.

Some other findings revealed that food stamps helped 5 million people barely reach above the poverty line. That means that the actual poverty rate is even higher, as without such aid, poverty rate would rise from 16 percent to 17.6 percent.

Latino and Asian Americans saw an increase in poverty, rising to 27.8 percent and 16.7 percent respectively, from 25.8 percent and 11.8 percent under official government numbers. African-Americans, however, saw a very small decrease, from 27.3 percent to 25.8 percent which the study documents is due to government assistance programs. Non-Hispanic whites too rose from 9.8 percent to 10.7 percent in poverty.

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”

“Given current economic conditions,” he continued, “poverty will not be substantially reduced unless government does more to help the working poor.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. government seems to think that the answer is cutting more of those services which are helping to keep 80% of the population just barely above the poverty line, cutting Food Stamps since the beginning of the month. Democrats and Republicans are negotiating about just how much more of these programs should be cut, but neither party is arguing that they should not be touched.



(Article by Simeon Ari)

[erupt]

Medical costs are outlandish. I couldn't count the number of people I know who simply don't take a required, life-sustaining medication because of outrageous costs. Plus, most people who have to take one medication usually have to take others.

Remember, I'm not talking about "feel-good" medicine, I'm talking about necessary medication, like heart pills, for example.

[RadioRaheem84]

Considering these stats are solid, why is there all this talk about "middle class" in America. Clearly most Americans are working class but identify as middle.

[Bardo]

^Remnants of the concept of the "American dream" are still ingrained into the psyche of many Americans I think. Just by looking around at people I know, most of the working class people I associate with will describe themselves in some sort of reference to the "middle class". Either "middle", "lower middle", "upper-lower-sub-quasi middle".

They will say things like "well I own a tv with cable, so I must be middle class. I'm not sleeping on the streets or digging through garbage cans, so I must be some kind of middle class".

Meanwhile they're running around each month, stealing from Peter to pay Paul in order to keep the lights on.

The concept of the middle class is a hegemonic schema that has to be shifted.

[Alonso Quijano]

To quote Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine:

It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here?
What better time than now?

I honestly think that "my" form of communism (that others here support as well) died with Rosa in 1919. Now is exactly the time to push back for class consciousness through the masses and not through opportunism.

It's difficult to start almost from scratch - but we have to - and the next time we'll have such a good starting point can be in decades time.
I'm under no illusions that the revolution is close (though I wish...), but since it will take time - what are we waiting for? Our movement is practically non-existent in the mainstream. It's time to bring it back.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Medical costs are outlandish. I couldn't count the number of people I know who simply don't take a required, life-sustaining medication because of outrageous costs. Plus, most people who have to take one medication usually have to take others.

Remember, I'm not talking about "feel-good" medicine, I'm talking about necessary medication, like heart pills, for example.

A tiny vial of synthetic insulin costs like 200 dollars, it's pretty ridiculous...luckily I only go through a complete vial in about three + months, as I don't take very much, my insurance offers no co-pay on my drugs. I'm not sure what production costs are like with insulin but I do know that other medications like retrovirals get marked up to absurd amounts.

[erupt]

A tiny vial of synthetic insulin costs like 200 dollars, it's pretty ridiculous...luckily I only go through a complete vial in about three + months, as I don't take very much, my insurance offers no co-pay on my drugs. I'm not sure what production costs are like with insulin but I do know that other medications like retrovirals get marked up to absurd amounts.

This is my point exactly.

Also, is your medication considered life-sustaining? It should be.. but a lot of times the insurance companies claim the medications aren't.

[Ele'ill]

Just an anecdotal snapshot that I've briefly mentioned before in another thread: within the last year two folks from a 'middle management' position (the glorious carrot so many people chase) lost their apartments because of a combination of hours cuts, vehicle repairs and medical reasons. Two workers had to find other employment to continue paying the bills, the employment one of them found was about the same as what they were currently in regarding pay and hours (but potentially could 'offer new opportunities' (I highly doubt it). Currently three of us are houseless. Two other folks are in transitional low income housing for the second time after previous evictions due to hours being cut. The quota/requirements for continued employment at work has been upped twice costing two people their jobs as they couldn't keep up and upper management mobbed them then cut them, one of them was houseless when it happened. The three of us who are 'houseless' are chronically so and thus are closer to homeless as it isn't a first time thing. As I mentioned this is anecdotal and I'd really wish someone would tell me 'yeah that's probably just an extreme example' but I think not.

I was listening to the radio this morning and there was an interview with an author who just wrote a book http://www.amazon.com/In-Praise-Slowness-Challenging-Speed/dp/0060750510 and it really pissed me off that the author could identify that folks have no time, all time is work time either at work or preparing to go back to work but failed to address why people can't 'slow down' it's because the time doesn't exist. I would have thought that he could come to some relatively radical conclusion but he didn't. I think he's speaking as a privileged minority of folks who feel like they work harder than they have to and see the results and should just 'take it easier' as a zen thing where as the majority of us keep our legs moving just so we don't free fall to our deaths which for a lot of us will arrive prematurely as it is.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This is my point exactly.

Also, is your medication considered life-sustaining? It should be.. but a lot of times the insurance companies claim the medications aren't.

Yeah, another thing that bothers me is the differential insurance sometimes make between "body drugs" and "head drugs" (ie the denial of coverage for anti-psychotics, anti-depressants etc) Although I guess this was recently done away with via executive order.

The pharmaceutical industry is really interesting and disturbing, though. It's totally bizarre and artificial how a pill that costs literally pennies to produce can be sold for dollars. I mean I understand R&D costs but c'mon...

[RadioRaheem84]

Isn't R&D costs partially funded by the govt too? Ralph Nader once exposed that and revealed something like 40% of R&D research is by the NIH. So we subsidize the costs of producing these drugs then have to pay their grossly inflated price in the market.

[Bolshevik Sickle]

The only thing worse about America becoming Third World is the fact that once the economy completely crashes, people will start pointing fingers and playing the blame game. Much like Post-WW1 Germany, people will be looking for scapegoats. That's what I fear the most.

[Sea]

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”The charade of "humane capitalism", where the proletariat of the Western world was put in a rather good way compared to that of other countries and compared to itself in different time periods is coming to a close. Labor-minded policies, which used to throw more sizable scraps to the toiling masses, are winding down. Now we're back to the standard "accumulation of wealth at one pole, and of misery at the other" where, as the saying goes, the rich get richer. Of course, we have never deviated far from that scenario anyway. I really feel sorry for anyone that felt the rising living standard in the postwar era was a constant thing. Those who bought into that illusion only had to deal with the sad fact that their 'riches' were brought about by the plundering of foreign peoples. The sad truth is that, not only was this the case, but any relief it gave to the proletariat of the Western world is temporary! It is disappointing enough to realize that we're thriving on the blood and sweat of the oppressed peoples. Now we must face the reality that we're no longer thriving, and that simultaneously the peoples of the world are still being used up and replaced in the classic commercial fashion just as much as before.

[erupt]

The only thing worse about America becoming Third World is the fact that once the economy completely crashes, people will start pointing fingers and playing the blame game. Much like Post-WW1 Germany, people will be looking for scapegoats. That's what I fear the most.

People are already looking for scapegoats. I don't know about the economy crashing completely, but it's definitely not looking good.

The only thing that can prevent what your talking about in your scenario would be organization and coordination, in my opinion.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtfpHfS2pKg

[DasFapital]

They have no problem cutting food stamps but when it comes to the cops and the war machine they do their best to keep them alive.

[Prometeo liberado]

What I find most appalling is that any of this is a surprise to you. "Greater and greater profits concentrated in fewer and fewer hands".


There will be no leadership role for Marxist-Leninists in future class struggles if the vanguard doesn’t hold up the red banner of proletarian internationalism, if the vanguard can’t answer the question of how to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, of how to develop the power of the proletariat, of how to break the power of the bourgeoisie, if it isn’t prepared to do anything to answer these questions. The class analysis we require cannot be developed without revolutionary practice or revolutionary initiative.

Without political practice, reading Capital is nothing more than bourgeois study. Without political practice, political programs are just so much twaddle. Without political practice, proletarian internationalism is only hot air. Adopting a proletarian position in theory implies putting it into practice.

So what I guess what I'm getting at is cry, hem, and haw all you want. Keep asking about the weather but only action through the practice socialism internationalism at even the smallest level will prove or disprove theory and/or upset the order of things. You call it "terrorism" your no comrade of mine.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Less sloganeering, more discussion of implications, plz!

I think this raises interesting questions about the direction of working class politics in the US. Is it possible that the organized white working class might begin to change its political perspectives? Does anyone think that this, going on under Obama's watch, is the prelude to a break with the Democrats? Assuming that worsening conditions, in and of themselves, are insufficient to ensure a sea change in American politics, what role is there for the left in creating that change? What traditional strategies or assumptions need to be revisited and revised as precarity and poverty definitively become the "normal" conditions of the previously privileged (white, male, urban, etc.) sections of the American working class?

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaFGC8jGS3k

[Agathor]

Considering these stats are solid, why is there all this talk about "middle class" in America. Clearly most Americans are working class but identify as middle.

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Middle class in the US seems to mean a car, a mortgage, a house, and the ability to save money without cutting into necessities. Most working class people in the first world can do all of this. In the UK, most of the people who identify as middle class also identify as working class.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Considering these stats are solid, why is there all this talk about "middle class" in America. Clearly most Americans are working class but identify as middle.
It's part of the American political mythology. If you're not homeless or a billionaire, you're middle class. Even objectively impoverished people will call themselves "lower middle class." You almost never hear an American say "working class."

[Orange Juche]

The only thing worse about America becoming Third World is the fact that once the economy completely crashes, people will start pointing fingers and playing the blame game. Much like Post-WW1 Germany, people will be looking for scapegoats. That's what I fear the most.

That's what scares me about the Tea Party - it's going to be America's "Golden Dawn" party. And the thing is, when shit really does hit the fan, realistically our version of fascism will be fascism without social programs. A hyper-nationalistic, xenophobic, militaristic, economic "libertarianism". A real clusterfuck.

These people are more loud and obnoxious than I've ever seen what would be considered anything in "mainstream politics" - and they've become mainstream. They're verbally and attitudinally violent, which when we hit a real depression, leaves me no reason to think wont turn into actual violence against people on disability, immigrants, minorities, etc etc. They are the proto-plasm of American fascism in early formation stage, and scare the shit out of me for it.

[RedWaves]

The reason most people are not screaming and shouting about this is simple.

All that propaganda about the American way, and that American dream bullshit have sank in after years and years. Pull yourself up by your own boot straps and all this other nonsense from the Raygun era. Many poor people actually believe this crap, even though it's so obvious that no matter how hard they work, they will forever be pushed around.


Plus not to mention all the effects of our weakened society with drugs and alcohol and all the addictions they use to numb themselves from reality. Drug addiction is a lot more common around the poor, and in a way with alcohol it's practically shoved to them in advertisements as a way to get over things.

Fact is most Americans do not give a shit as long as they have a television and something to distract them from how misreable their lives are.