Some things that increased in the 90s

[eridani]

--which still look good in retrospect because of how shitty it's gotten since then. But still--

1. Homelessness

http://www.nhlp.org/html/hlb/299/299conference.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/9691/homelessnesshowmany.html

2. Food insecurity and use of food banks

http://www.seedsofchange.org/hunger_malnutrition.htm

Is the situation in the U.S. getting better or worse? "The U.S. Government just recently began gathering data on hunger and food insecurity. But the dramatic growth of private charitable feeding efforts since the late 1970s suggests growing hunger. . . . There were few in 1980, but an estimated 150 thousand private feeding agencies are . . . passing out food to hungry Americans ." (Beckman & Simon., p. 27) ". . . Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services of America, the Salvation Army and other assistance networks all reported sharp increases in requests for emergency food in the late 1990s . Catholic Charities reported a 26 percent increase between June 1997 and April 1998. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported a 14 percent increase in requests for emergency assistance in 1998, and said that 21 percent of all requests went unmet." (Id., p. 29)


3. Prison population (continuing trend started by Reagan)

http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/law15.htm

As of June 1999, prisons and jails held 1,860,520 people, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. That's an increase of more than a million people since 1985, when the figure was less 800,000.


4. Income disparity

http://pnews.org/ArT/YuR/DiS.shtml

During the years of the Clinton administration, the rich became richer at much faster rate than during Reagan's regime. In Clinton's first term, from 1993 to 1996, the average income of the richest five percent of households rose from $173,784 to $201,220. 46 Even during the Reagan years, the plunderers had not seen their income rise as fast. And in 1997 - the first year of Clinton's second term - it leapt to $215,436. All the statistics reveal that since Clinton has resided in the White House, the rich have experienced a financial bonanza unprecedented in modern times.


As economist Paul Krugman noted, "These widening disparities are often attributed to the increasing importance of education. But while it's true that, on average, workers with college education have done better than those without, the bulk of the divergence has been among those with similar levels of education. High-school teachers have not done as badly as janitors but they have fallen dramatically behind corporate CEOs, even though they have about the same amount of education." Insofar as corporate chief executives pay themselves and thus are able to collectively drive up the level of their own wages, thereby establishing the appearance of a "market-driven" norm, that should hardly be surprising.

[whistle]

1. All because of the proliferation of supply-side pseudo-economic theories

...along with the installation of rigid monetarism policies

[eridani]

2. Yep, and I don't want more of it in 2008 with a nominally Dem president n/t

[Perry Logan]

3. The poverty rate dropped from 15.1 percent in 1993 to 12.7 percent in 1998.

That was the lowest poverty rate since 1979 and the largest five-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years.

Under Clinton, Americans at all levels enjoyed increased income.

The African-American poverty rate dropped from 33.1 percent in 1993 to 26.1 percent in 1998 -- the lowest level ever recorded and the largest five-year drop in African-American poverty in more than a quarter century (1967-1972).

The poverty rate for African-American children fell from 46.1 percent in 1993 to 36.7 percent in 1998 -- the lowest level in 20 years and the biggest five-year drop on record.

The poverty rate for Hispanics fell to the lowest level since 1979, and dropped to 25.6 percent in 1998.

The Clinton Administration also had the lowest poverty rate for single mothers on record.

By contrast: In 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that poverty rates in U.S. had increased for the fourth straight year and had jumped from 31.6 million people in 2000 to 37 million, including 13 million children.

[eridani]

4. The poverty rate has no relationship to real life

It is based on the assumption that food is 1/3 of expenses. They then calculate a standard food basket and multiply by 3. Any idiot ought to know that rent and utilities are the budget breakers for people of modest means. Disappearance of cheap rental housing dramatically escalated homelessness.

[whistle]

5. Actually that is correct, Bill Clinton was moving the country in the

...right direction for the poor and middle class which is why these right wing republican neocons wanted to get him in any way they could. He also made it possible for people to have more to spend by lowering the interest rates, increasing jobs and keeping real inflation to under 2 percent.

If Bill Clinton had been more like FDR than Hugh Hefner he could have beaten those Federalist Society bastards and maybe we just might have kept the White House, Congress and the SCOTUS under Democratic domination. But, I suppose the "what ifs" are meaningless in historical politics. The "what wills" make more sense, as in what will democrats do to assure victory in 2008?

[eridani]

6. I'll accept just blocking a few nasty Repub initiatives if I must

But I really want more than that.