The Poverty Epidemic Hits the Suburbs

[marmar]

from truthdig:


The Poverty Epidemic Hits the Suburbs

Posted on Jul 26, 2012
By Bill Boyarsky


Why is this presidential campaign so centered on the middle class? What about the poor people? Their numbers are growing, but their fate hasn’t made it into the debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Of course, the Democratic candidate and his Republican opponent don’t have the same vision of where America should go. The president favors an activist government. He bet his political future on an Affordable Care Act that makes a big start toward assuring the availability of health care. Romney favors the crimped vision of the Republican economic leader Rep. Paul Ryan, and his plan to reduce taxes for the rich, eventually privatize Medicare and dismantle Medicaid for the poor.

But little, if anything, is said about the disastrous phenomenon of rising poverty, which, as Hope Yen of The Associated Press reported this week, is “on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century. ... Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor.” Census figures that will be released in the fall, she wrote, are expected to show that poverty has exceeded the level it was at in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s launched his War on Poverty.

These truly are the forgotten Americans. They are invisible to candidates, strategists, pundits and even journalists, except for those dedicated few who stick with the poverty beat. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_poverty_epidemic_hits_the_suburbs_20120726/

[mia]

1. "Only an Obama victory will offer the poor any hope."

"... Only an Obama victory will offer the poor any hope. But so far, his promises of tax reductions for the amorphous middle class are not enough. He must speak up for the invisible poor, and say that it’s not acceptable to shed what’s left of their safety net, returning us to the days before the War on Poverty."

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt