US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

WASHINGTON (AP) - The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.

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US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

Countdown until we hear, “It’s not MY fault, it was George Bush that caused this” begins in 5 … 4… 3 … 2 …

Wait a minute, wasn’t Barack Hussein Obama going to FIX all of this? Wasn’t he going to turn the economy around and repair all the damage done under the EVIL Bush administration?

Sadly, I have to say, George W. Bush and his foray into Iraq is the biggest contributing factor to the poor economy; we were spending money to destroy Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida in Iraq that we just didn’t have to spend. At the same time we were rebuilding everything imaginable IN Iraq long before the fighting was done and as soon as the USA spent however many MILLIONS on a building or some such, al-Qaida blew it right back down.

Yes indeed, in the grand scheme of things I honestly believe that Bush bears much of the blame for our current financial difficulties. Unlike Obama, I don’t believe that NOW it’s all Bush though. Today, Obama owns the economy, he’s been in office almost four years, he is now the responsible party!

Look at the incredible amount of deficit spending the Obama administration has incurred. Look at the bailouts made under Obama’s administration, look at the FAILED solar power companies that Obama and the left, still, to this very day, continue to tell us are such a good deal and so good for us AND the environment.

Too bad they’re all bankrupt, or are about to be.

“I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I’m here, applying for assistance because it’s hard to make ends meet. It’s very hard to adjust,” said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.

Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz’s college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.

I know a lot of people that lost money in the Dot.com crash, and even more that lost money in the bust of 2008, but I don’t know anyone that was forced to actually live in abject poverty because of it.

I lost money, I can’t deny it. I was invested with a company that was supposed to a “Wealth Management” company and when the bust hit in 2008 the guy that handled our account sat on his conceited, over-educated ass and watched as the numbers tumbled, and did NOTHING to stop, or alleviate the slide.

Shortly thereafter we moved what we had left into an account with a large investment and management concern that has an office very near my home and is run by a personal friend that takes care of MY retirement money just like he takes care of his own.

Are we getting rich? Hell no, but the bleeding has been stopped, at least for now, and all we can do is continue to work and try to make money back to replace that which was lost in 2008. It hasn’t ALL come back yet, not even close to back yet, but we’re not living in poverty and having to rely on welfare and other forms of public assistance.

“The issues aren’t just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy,” said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.

“I’m reluctant to say that we’ve gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon,” Edelman said.

I know life can be hard at times, but you either have the resilience to bounce back and survive, or you don’t.

Look at the ages of Garrett Goudeseune and Laura Fritz; 25 and 27. They are youngsters yet, in the same age group as my son and daughters. Maybe it’s because of the way my kids were raised, I don’t know, but none of them have ever been unemployed at ANY time I am aware of. They are hard workers and have found good jobs, in my son’s case, a great paying job, and they have made lives for themselves.

Now, here’s something a lot of folks in their age group don’t consider; getting a job at age 60 is NOT an easy task!

My wife had a GREAT paying job for a long time, but she lost that job and had to settle for a couple of jobs that were *get by* jobs. One had really good insurance, that was the only saving grace, but now she has a job that does pay her well, with good insurance, and we are beginning to see *daylight* again, for the first time in quite a while.

If folks in OUR age group can survive, and even begin to flourish in these tough financial times, the youngsters, able-bodied youngsters, should be able to do likewise.

Maybe it’s time to give Mitt Romney a chance; he is, after all, a business man that has held REAL jobs, hired REAL people, run successful businesses and knows how to make money.

So, to all of you Obama supporters that are living off the sweat of someone else’s brow as you see your public welfare benefits possibly coming to a close as your hero bankrupts America, I have a question; how’s that Hope and Change BS working out for you?