New York Times, October 8, 2004
by BOB HERBERT
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Reality keeps rearing its ugly head. The Bush administration's case for the
war in Iraq has completely fallen apart, as evidenced by the report this week
from the president's handpicked inspector that Iraq had destroyed its illicit
weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's.
Coming next week are the results of a new study that shows - here at home -
how tough a time American families are having in their never-ending struggle to
put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. The White House, as deep
in denial about the economy as it is about Iraq, insists that things are fine -
despite the embarrassing fact that
President Bush is on
track to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net
loss of jobs during his four years in office.
The study, jointly sponsored by the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations, will show that 9.2 million working families in the United States -
one out of every four - earn wages that are so low they are barely able to
survive financially.
"Our data is very solid and shows that this is a much bigger problem than
most people imagine," said Brandon Roberts, one of the authors of the report,
which is to be formally released on Tuesday. The report found that there are 20
million children in these low-income working families.
For the purposes of the study, any family in which at least one person was
employed was considered a working family. Very wealthy families were included.
The median income for a family of four in the U.S. is $62,732. According to
the study, a family of four earning less than $36,784 is considered low-income.
A family of four earning less than $18,392 is considered poor. The 9.2 million
struggling families cited by the report fell into one of the latter two
categories. And those families have one-third of all the children in American
working families.
Not surprisingly, the problem for millions of families is that they have jobs
that pay very low wages and provide no benefits. "Consider the motel housekeeper,
the retail clerk at the hardware store or the coffee shop cook," the report said.
"If they have children, chances are good that their families are living on an
income too low to provide for their basic needs."
Neither politicians nor the media put much of a spotlight on families that
are struggling economically. According to the study, one in five workers are in
occupations where the median wage is less than $8.84 an hour, which is a
poverty-level wage for a family of four. A full-time job at the federal minimum
wage of $5.15 an hour is not even sufficient to keep a family of three out of
poverty.
Families with that kind of income are teetering on the edge of an economic
abyss. Any misfortune might push them over the edge - an illness, an automobile
breakdown, even something as seemingly minor as a flooded basement.
For the families in these lower-income brackets, life is often a harrowing
day-to-day struggle to pay for the bare necessities. According to federal
government statistics, the median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment in
major metropolitan markets is more than $8,000. The annual cost of food for a
low-income family of four is nearly $4,000. Utility bills are nearly $2,000.
Transportation costs are about $1,500. And then there are costs for child care,
health care and clothing.
You do the math. How are these millions of poor and low-income families
making it?
(A lot of those families are going to get a shock this winter as price
increases for crude oil get translated into big jumps in home heating bills.)
The economy relies heavily on the services provided by low-wage workers but,
as the report notes, "our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that
these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, no
matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient."
Mr. Roberts said he hoped the study, titled "Working Hard, Falling Short,"
would help initiate a national discussion of the plight of families who are
doing the right thing but not earning enough to get ahead. "Seventy-one percent
of low-income families work," he said. More than half are headed by married
couples. But economic self-sufficiency remains maddeningly out of reach.
Even in a presidential election year, these matters have not been explored in
any sustained way. We're quick to give lip service to the need to work hard, but
very slow to properly reward hard work.
....back to:
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American Pictures
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thanks
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liberation
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blues
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world vote on Bush-Kerry
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