INEXCUSABLE
Ranks of Poor, Uninsured Rose in 2003: "It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. While not unexpected, it was a double dose of bad economic news during a tight re-election campaign for President Bush."
Not to mention the 1,300,000 newly impoverished persons.
posted by VMM at 11:58 AM
1 Comments:
I should note that the federal standard for poverty is so low that even I'm in the middle class: a little over $9100 per person, or about $18,000 for a family of four(!)
There are at least 36 m people in the US in situations as bad or worse than this.
I heard a story on NPR on modern slavery the other day which I think speaks to the underlying problem. Slavery doesn't really confer on the employer a significant economic advantage - but the cultures involved demand it, and have no mechanism to not have slaves.
Our culture seems to need endemic poverty, decades after it became avoidable through intelligent policy, as some kind of twisted morality lesson about wages of sin, and the inevitabilty of economic hierarchy. Some of the Christian right lives in a sick puritan world where poverty is the just dessert of immorality, and money is conferred on the righteous.
Explain that one to Jesus, please.
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