Wealth of Facts on Our Growing Poverty

One of the emphases of Cracks (thanks to the efforts of my co-blogger, Old Fogey) has been to call attention to the state of poverty in the United States, and what we can do as citizens and voters to alert our elected leaders that this is an issue that is well worth their time. Today, it was reported that the number of people living in poverty (according to 2005 census data) has finally stopped climbing four years into the current economic recovery (see WaPo story). Thank goodness the poverty rate hasn't gotten any worse, but it's not getting any better and we still need action on the part of our governments. The Center for American Progress (the home of the ThinkProgress blog) puts together an exhaustive briefing on one topic each day, entitled The Progress Report. Today's was on the poverty numbers, and I'll excerpt some of it, but I recommend a full reading.

WAGES DOWN AND INCOME INEQUALITY UP: The inflation-adjusted median hourly wage for American workers has declined two percent since 2003, the New York Times reported yesterday, and "wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947." Unlike late 20th-century trends, wages have not kept pace with increasing productivity. "Worker productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, while total compensation for the median worker rose 7.2 percent," with benefits -- not wages -- accounting for most of the increase. Meanwhile, the top one percent of earners "received 11.2 percent of all wage income" in 2004, "up from 8.7 percent a decade earlier and less than 6 percent three decades ago." America's growing income inequality led economist and columnist Paul Krugman to label the past 25 years the "The New Gilded Age." From 1980 to 2004, "real wages in manufacturing fell 1 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent -- people with incomes of more than $277,000 in 2004 -- rose 135 percent." Administration policies are only widening the gap. Aug. 20 marked the 10-year anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase to $5.15 an hour. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 51 years, but conservatives played politics with the proposed increase by tying it to estate tax cuts for multimillionaires.

HEALTH CARE CRISIS WORSENS POVERTY: Our broken health care system has made surviving in today's economy more difficult. The new Census data for 2005 shows 46.6 million Americans do not have health insurance, up from 45.3 million in 2004. Since 2000, the Bush administration has created three times as many uninsured Americans as new jobs: six million uninsured versus 1.9 million new jobs between 2000 and 2005. The cost of employer-based insurance increased 9.2 percent in 2005 as hourly earnings climbed by only 3.2 percent. The average costs of providing medical care for a family of four rose 9.6 percent. The Commonwealth Fund found 50 percent of families earning less than $35,000 a year reported having trouble paying medical bills. (The percentages are similar for families earning $35,000 to $49,000, making it more likely medical costs could drive them into poverty.) Ninety-five percent of companies polled by benefits consultants Watson Wyatt expect to restrict health benefits for retirees in the next five years. And recently, the administration angered governors by announcing plans to "cut Medicaid payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for millions of low-income people." The administration's focus has been on health savings accounts (HSAs) and Association Health Plans (AHPs), proposals that "will not begin to solve the problems of the 46 million Americans without health insurance" and "will cause new dilemmas for those fortunate enough to have health care coverage." "We've had absolutely no federal effort or interest in insuring the uninsured since 2000," Emory University's Ken Thorpe said. "This has not been a priority of the Bush administration." To fill the void, states are working to provide comprehensive health care coverage.