AFT Joins Partnership to Improve Schools, Lives, in Rural West Virginia
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AFT and West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced they are leading an unprecedented public-private partnership to improve educational opportunity and address complex social and economic problems in the Central Appalachia community of McDowell County, W.Va.
Gov. Tomblin and AFT President Randi Weingarten announced the “Reconnecting McDowell” initiative, which includes more than 40 partners in a comprehensive effort that will take place over the next three to five years. Says Weingarten:
McDowell County is an American story that deserves a new chapter. Given the challenges, being conventional won’t be good enough. We will be flexible, creative and entrepreneurial, and will take risks.
McDowell is the southernmost West Virginia county and has suffered devastating economic and social problems due to the decline of the coal economy in recent decades. As reported by the Washington Post, 80 percent of the students in the county’s Anawalt Elementary School meet the state’s definition of poor. Read the rest of this entry »
America the Vulnerable
The following is by John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. Read the full version of his column is at L&M Partnership.
The U.S. Census Bureau released new measures of poverty in November. According to the New York Times, “All told 100 million people – one in three Americans – either live in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.”
Or put another way:
“They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as just scrapping by.” (New York Times, November 19, 2011).
The new approach taken by the U.S. Census Bureau gives us a much more Read the rest of this entry »
New Census Data Show Many in Middle Class Are ‘Near Poor’
When the U.S. Census Bureau retooled its formula for determining the number of poor people living in the United States, the number the bureau estimated to be living in poverty shot up from 46.1 million to 49.1 million. Now that reformulation is shining a light on the vast numbers of people who appear to be middle class but who actually fall into a category called the “near poor.”
The new numbers reveal a grim portrait of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, often without access to health care, many behind the middle-class exterior of a suburban home. According to the new data, some 51 million Americans receive incomes that are just 50 percent higher than the official poverty line—a figure that is 76 percent higher than the previous measure, according to The New York Times, which reports:
More Older Americans Slipping Into Poverty
When the U.S. Census Bureau updated its model for calculating the nation’s poverty rate, it arrived at an unexpected result: nearly twice as many older Americans qualify as poor than had been previously thought. The new data suggest that 16 percent of those 65 and older are poor. Under the old formula, which failed to accurately reflect housing and medical costs, the poverty rate for older Americans stood at 9 percent.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
[M]edical costs are pushing low-income seniors living on fixed incomes over the brink, said Kathleen S. Short, a U.S. Census Bureau economist.
For many, that fixed income amounts to Social Security benefits and not much else, due to the declining numbers of Americans who have a traditional pension.
Join AFT in Alleviating ‘Children’s Famine’ in Somalia
AFT sends us this report.
AFT President Randi Weingarten urged President Obama to “help marshal the humanitarian aid needed to halt the advance of the apocalyptic ‘children’s famine’ spreading through Somalia and neighboring nations in the Horn of Africa.”
President Obama has called a meeting of heads of state and ministers in New York this week to address the crisis.
Median Income Down, Poverty Up
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More troubling news on the downward economic spiral of America’s working families. In 2010, median household income declined and the poverty rate increased, according to U.S. Census Bureau data announced this morning.
Running counter to the American tradition of ever-rising prosperity, real median household income in the United States declined by 2.3 percent from 2009 to 2010 and now stands at $49,445. Further:
The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009—the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009—the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
Behind the bad data are two factors, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). First, the unemployment rate increased from 9.3 percent in 2009 to 9.6 percent in 2010. Second, long-term unemployment, or the percent unemployed 27 weeks or more, grew from 31.2 percent in 2009 to 43.3 percent in 2010.
U.S. Working Poor Now Majority in Poverty
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How appropriate. We’re drowning in rain here in the nation’s capital, while outside the Beltway, America’s working families are drowning in one disastrous economic wave after another. A few recent nuggets.
- The new working-age (18-64) poor now make up nearly three out of five poor people—a switch from the early 1970s, when children made up the main impoverished group. The nation’s working-age poor share surpasses a previous high of 55.5 percent, first reached in 2004—and are at the highest level since the 1960s when the war on poverty was launched.
- People who are laid off from previously stable employment, if they are lucky enough to find work, take a median wage hit of more than 20 percent, which can persist for decades.
- The median working-age household saw its income decline by $2,700 from 2007 to 2009. As a result, the typical working-age household brought in roughly $5,000 less in 2009 than it did in 2000.
- As the chart here shows, CEO pay last year jumped an average 27.8 percent and is now 325 times the average pay of a U.S. worker.
- The New York Times is now asking, “Can the Middle Class Be Rebuilt?” implying, of course, that the foundation of solid middle-wage earners that fueled America’s historic strength is broken beyond possible repair.
Recession Aftermath: Child Poverty, Black Female Unemployment Increase
The recession is hurting America’s children today and could have a negative impact on their future as well, according to two new reports. A survey of child welfare released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009. As a result, 14.7 million children, or 20 percent, were poor in 2009. That represents a 2.5 million increase from 2000, when 17 percent of the nation’s youth lived in low-income homes. Read the survey here.
Black children face a double whammy. A second study by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) found black women, who head a majority of black households with children, are losing jobs during the recovery while other groups, including black men, are adding jobs. Read the report here.
These two studies taken together should ring “alarm bells” for policymakers, says Roderick Harrison, a senior fellow at Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Boehner’s Budget ‘Tantamount to Class Warfare’
Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s proposed budget is ”tantamount to a form of class warfare,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). If enacted, “it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.” The CBPP says the proposal:
would essentially require, as the price of raising the debt ceiling again early next year, a choice between deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans.
The CBPP details why Boehner’s plan is a disaster for the middle class here. But in short, Read the rest of this entry »
Pop Quiz: What Will Rep. Ryan’s Robin Hood in Reverse Budget Do to America?
Manny Herrmann, AFL-CIO online mobilization coordinator, details the extent to which the Republican budget proposal would hurt working families.
Pop Quiz: What would America look like under Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) radical tea party-inspired budget?
A. A typical 65-year-old would spend $6,359 more per year out of pocket for health care by 2022 because Medicare’s promise would be replaced with underfunded vouchers.
B. At least 15 million U.S. residents would lose Medicaid health care.
C. $4.2 trillion in new tax cuts would be handed out mostly to corporations and the rich.
D. All of the above.
