More Americans are now living in more poverty than at any time on record, according to a report released last week by the U.S. Census. There were 46.2 million people, or about one in six residents, living in poverty in 2010 as the nation’s poverty rate hit 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent a year before and 12.5 percent in 2007.
According to the U.S. government, poverty is defined at the absurd level of $22,000 a year for a family of four and $11,000 a year for an individual. The more-than 20 million people in the US living in what is considered deep poverty subsist on less than half these incomes.
The increase in poverty is driven by the persistent high levels of unemployment. Even so, the Obama administration has yet to address the issue in any serious manner. It is particularly damning that these statistics are for the year following the official start of the recovery hailed by the president in June 2009.
To the shame of American capitalism, 16.4 million children – one out of every four – were living in poverty last year. Moreover, the report showed that 36 percent of those living in deep poverty were children.
Students and young people have also been particularly hard-hit. According to the report, median income for those between 15-24 years old dropped 9 percent last year to $28,322. An increasing number of young workers between the ages of 25 and 34 have been forced to move back home with their parents to survive. The poverty rate of this group stands at 45.3 percent when parents’ incomes are not taken into account.
Students are being forced to take on impossible amounts of debt to pay for an education only to graduate into a society that offers few prospects for a secure and meaningful future. The social contract that held that hard work will be rewarded with opportunity has been torn up for an entire generation.
However, the political establishment has proven indifferent to this unfolding social catastrophe. Monday, Obama unveiled his “balanced approach” to reducing $4 trillion from the deficit, which included a populist appeal for raising $1.5 trillion of this sum through tax hikes on the wealthy.
The president’s appeal is dishonest, for he knows there is little chance of Congress increasing taxes on the rich. The proposed tax hike mostly involves eliminating the Bush-era tax cuts already set to expire. Moreover, they are still in effect only because Obama balked on his campaign pledge to repeal these breaks for the wealthiest Americans- even when the Democrats held both houses of Congress.
In the unlikely event the final deficit plan includes his tax increase proposal, this will do little to address the problem of unemployment or the increasing level of social misery illustrated in the census poverty report.
Nevertheless, in exchange, the working population is expected to accept deep cuts in spending on vital social programs, including reductions in Medicare benefits. Medicare remains one of the most significant pieces of reform legislation of the 20th century. It is responsible for raising tens of millions of Americans out of poverty and adding years to the life expectancy.
Opinion polls consistently show that a large majority of Americans favors raising taxes on the wealthy to balance the budget and oppose cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Yet does anyone doubt these opinions will be ignored? In the end, Obama’s demagogy about taxing the wealthy is a cynical appeal to the sentiments of working Americans in order to carry out an assault on popular and essential social programs- cuts once considered politically impossible.
