Sobering article on poverty in the U.S. – and it’s growth in the past five years

Pathetic.This should be read by all the prosperous upper middle class (dare I say, white?) folks who voted for progress and social justice (they thought) when they voted for Obama.

A WSJ op ed. from Thursday.

Arthur Brooks: How Obama Neglects the Poor

We have a robust and growing economy for high-income Americans.
Those at the bottom see few prospects for growth and little reason for
optimism. Nevertheless, a 2013 analysis by researcher Mark M. Gray at
Georgetown University found that Mr. Obama mentions the poor less than
any president in decades. In his public statements and official
communications on social class, he mentioned the poor only a quarter of
the time; in contrast, Ronald Reagan talked about the poor in two-thirds
of his public pronouncements. This is puzzling indeed.

Census Bureau data show that in 2006-11, real annual income for the
top 20% (quintile) of Americans fell by about 5% but rose almost 2% in
2010-11—and shows signs of continuing an upswing. For the bottom
quintile, income fell by over 11%, and there was no upswing.

In 2011, workers in households earning between $40,000 and $60,000
had a 7.8% unemployment rate. In households earning under $20,000,
unemployment was 24.4%. The unemployment for households earning more
than $150,000 was 3.2%

In other words, high-income households were at or above full
employment. Meanwhile, the lowest-income households looked at an
employment landscape resembling the worst years of the Great Depression.

The whole column is loaded with data (easy to read data). To me, here's a particularly astonishing bit –

In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm
seasonally adjusted employment was 138 million workers. Today, it is
fewer than 136 million. Meanwhile, the number of Americans has grown by
12.8 million. In many areas of the country, more than one in five adults
who want full-time employment can't find it.

There's plenty more if you hit the link.

Barack Obama won two elections with laudable promises to fight for
people. That should include fighting for people at the bottom, even if
the best policies for doing so contradict conventional progressive
policy dogma. The American dream, so often mentioned in the president's
speeches, won't be realized until the least among us have a real chance
to earn their success.