The Rude Pundit: America the Poorhouse

[meegbear]

In Fort Myers, Florida, the Salvation Army reports a 60% jump in families seeking its services.

In Tucscon, Arizona, a local soup kitchen has seen the number of people it serves nightly go from an 40 to 150-200.

In the last year, in Livingston County, Michigan, the number of people looking for food and cash assistant has risen by over 30%. In Jackson County, it's up over 24%.

In Texas, more than one out of every four kids under the age of 18 lives in poverty. That's higher than the national average of one out of every five. And over a quarter of the entire state is without health insurance. Charities there report 25-50% more demand for food and assistance since 2008.

In Steuben County, New York, homelessness has risen by 15% since 2009. And Catholic Charities says that it's serving 33% more people than last year.

In Minnesota, "At Families Moving Forward, a Minneapolis network of churches offering shelter to families with children, the number of calls for housing has shot up from 50 for every opening to 150."

According to the census, the poverty rate in the United States has risen from 13.2% in 2008 to 14.3% in 2009. For those of you doing math, that's one out of every seven Americans. Income has fallen. The number of people without health insurance has risen. Extended unemployment benefits are all that kept 3.3 million more people from falling below the cruel poverty line.

Oh, and by the way: "The top fifth of households accounted for 50.3% of all pre-tax income; the bottom two-fifths got 12%." When it comes to tax cuts and discretionary spending cuts, we're arguing about what now?

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[tularetom]

1. Not very rude but awful depressing

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. There is nothing more rude than telling the truth. nt

[SomeGuynTexas]

2. Where in Texas? That might be relevant to your story...

"In Texas, more than one out of every four kids under the age of 18 lives in poverty. That's higher than the national average of one out of every five. And over a quarter of the entire state is without health insurance. Charities there report 25-50% more demand for food and assistance since 2008."

Where in Texas are 1 in 4 (25%) of kids under the age of 18 living in poverty? Texas is a pretty damn big state. Mr. Rude are you saying 25% of those kids are in each of Texas' 254 counties?

Or are they concentrated in certain geographic/population centers?

Wonder where those might be.

Allow me to answer. The actual poverty rate in certain population centers is much higher. Even higher if you parse by demographics.

Pretty big elephant in the room (no pun intended) you're ignoring.

California suffers from the same issue, but again, you're ignoring that one too.

[marmar]

4. What exactly is your point?

nt

[meegbear]

5. Did you try clicking ... oh I dunno ... the link?

You know, the thing next to the number "18" that says lives and has a line under it?

[argyl]

7. Try the entire state of Texas. This stat appears in the Dallas Morning News,

not exactly an ultra liberal newspaper.

The methodology is quite simple: take the number of children under the age of 18 living in poverty and divide by the total population of children in Texas under the age of 18.If the result is .25 or higher then 25% or more of children in Texas under the age of 18 do indeed live in poverty.

Does it really matter that the poverty rate is much higher in,say,the Lower Rio Grande Valley or Southeast Texas? Or that it is much higher in Hispanic and African American children?

It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in Texas live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it.

[SomeGuynTexas]

8. Thanks for understanding my point....

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in Texas live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in Oklahoma live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in California live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in Mexico live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in Africa live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

"It's a damned shame and a disgrace that so many kids in the World live in poverty and their ethnicity and location does nothing to ameliorate it."

[Ignis]

6. K&R for the rudebwoy.

Less rude in this one, but much more depressing. :(