The US Census annual statistical snapshot reflected a mixed bag about the progress made by the Bush administration, while trying to veil the rising poverty. While Kathleen B. Cooper, undersecretary of commerce and economic affairs speaking at a panel tried to play down the rising poverty, taking solace from a reportedly lower poverty rate, the grim fact was more and more Americans are living in abject poverty.
The Census data revealed a rise in the numbers below the poverty line for the fourth time in a row since 2000, widening income discrepancies between the wealthy and the poor. The threshold metric for poverty in America is an income of $19,157 or less for four-member family (with two children), an income of $12,649 or less for a two-member family (with no children) and an income of $9,060 for a 65 year old or over living alone. The 37 million Americans defined as poor by these metrics contributed to 12.7 percent of the population against 35.9 million in 2003 who made up 12.5 percent of the population. Clearly, the economic upswing and policy measures of the Bush administration had done little to arrest growing poverty. Also evident was the failure of the publicized tax cuts in impacting the lowest economic rungs of the society.
Since Bush’s election as President in 2000, the population of poor in America has grown by 6 million people till 2004, almost 20 per cent over 2000 figures, with an equally large populace of 45.8 million going without any health insurance. The census data corroborates another report by a leading labor federation, which suggested a rising number of American labor force feeling left out by the economic boom, with 70 percent of 800 respondents feeling a fall in their standard of living. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, pay scales of top management in top American companies rose 13 per cent in 2004.
The 2004 median household income of $44,389 also did not offer any reason to rejoice about, remaining flat over that of 2003. The only ethnic group that stood above the insipid census data were Asians, whose households earned the highest median incomes of $57,518 and showed a decline in poverty from 11.8 to 9.8 percent of their populace. However, Hispanic whites experienced the largest rise in poverty from 8.2 to 8.6 percent of their populace, while African American households had the lowest median incomes of $30,134.
Sheldon Danziger of the National Poverty Centre was optimistic in saying : "The good news is that poverty is a lot lower than it was in 1993, but we went through a hell of an economic boom. Nobody is predicting we're going to go through another economic boom like that". But Robert Greenstein, an executive director at the non-profit institution, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, begged to differ saying that the data was “particularly troubling” for working people who suffered a “backward movement” in short suggesting that the 2002 and 2003 economic recovery “was neither robust nor broad-based".
Democrats found this an opportune reason to nitpick the Bush Administration’s policies while some Republicans also suggested that the wealthy were doing well while most Americans were “losing ground". Bonnie Ballard, a spokeswoman for a 100-year-old institution that offers help to the homeless suggested that rising costs made those who are poor stay poor and only deeper into poverty, with their dollars not worth as much as they were before. Though the annual statistical snapshot is based on the Census bureau's Current Population Survey’s supplementary three-month survey that covers 100,000 households nationwide, one can only hope that figures emerging do not give the real picture about the world’s wealthiest nation’s own poverty.
