Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Economic growth still bypassing most Americans

Here's the headline and spin from today's Census Bureau announcement:

U.S. poverty rate declines significantly
The nation's poverty rate dropped last year, the first significant decline since President Bush took office.
Here's the reality-based breakdown from the CBPP:
Today’s figures also show that while the overall poverty rate declined slightly (from 12.6 percent to 12.3 percent) between 2005 and 2006, the decline was largely concentrated among the elderly. The poverty rates for children and for working age adults remained statistically unchanged as compared to 2005, and well above their levels in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom.
Even more disturbing was this data:
The percentage of Americans who lack health insurance stood at 15.8 percent in 2006, up from 15.3 percent in 2005. The number of people who are uninsured rose by 2.2 million in 2006, to 47 million, the highest level on record (with comparable data going back to 1999).
I don't call those significant achievements by any stretch of the imagination and, as the EPI points out, once again it's the households at the top who gained the most:
Between 2000 and 2006, the average income of the lowest fifth is down 4.5%, the middle fifth is down 2.5%, and only the top fifth is up, by 1%. Similarly, today’s report revealed that the share of income going to the top fifth of households was 50.5%, the highest share on record going back to 1967. The middle-income share was 14.5%, the lowest on record. The bottom income share has been 3.4% since 2003, also an historic low.
Although the decline in poverty rates for the elderly was welcome news, living standards have not recovered to their levels in 2000 when poverty was 11.3% compared to 12.3% in 2006. That's an increase in the poverty rolls of 4.9 million persons, including 1.2 million children. Same for median household income. In 2006 it was $48,201, about $1,000 dollars (minus 2%) below its 2000 level.

No wonder consumer sentiment continues to fall. As Robert Greenstein, executive director of the CBPP notes:
“Five years into an economic recovery, the country has yet to make progress in reducing poverty, raising the typical working-age family’s income, or stemming the rise in the ranks of the uninsured, compared even to where we were in the last recession. The new figures on median income and poverty are the latest evidence that the economic growth of the past few years has been very uneven, with the gains being concentrated among those who already are the most well off. Too many middle- and low-income families are not sharing in the gains.”
All I can say is, the Bush administration should be ashamed.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Geeez…another waste of bandwidth lib blog. Ok, I’ll play.

Lets start with this… “The nation's poverty rate dropped last year, the first significant decline since President Bush took office.”

Sounds like great news to me. How did Michigan do? Yikes, the Census Bureau found the state's poverty rate increased from about 12 percent in 2005 to 13.3 percent in 2006. This was among the largest increases in the nation.

Of course Jenny gets a free pass because:

a) She’s Canadian
b) She’s never in the state long enough to accept responsibility
c) It’s Bush’s fault
d) It’s Engler’s fault
e) She’s a lib

This one was tricky but the best answer is e) She’s a lib.

Some intellectual honesty would help your blog. Bashing President Bush is… well, quite frankly it’s boring. The only thing his administration should be ashamed of is their open border policy.

The real question is does Jennifer Granholm have any shame?

Larry said...

Good post and with the mortgsge industry falling apart, and will no doubt affect the economy to near devastation, layoffs mounting, it is going to grow.

What a travesty!

Anonymous said...

Geez, that was close. I thought anonymous was going to mention that under my watch 3,000,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. I guess my Harvard MBA didn't do the country much good. Well, actually, it did help all my rich friends get richer, so who the hell cares what happens to the poor people.

Ya know, I like that Jenny woman cause she's real purty and damn smart, but I don't understand her willingness to go anywhere and do anything for the people of Michigan. My buddy Engler would never have done anything so demeaning. Heck, I wouldn't do that either. Let the little guys eat cake, or in this case crumbs. We gotta worry about protecting the rich and powerful people. They're what makes this country great.

Kathy said...

Larry, I feel for the people faced with losing their homes. It's a very unsettling time in our country.