Arthur Brooks: How Obama Neglects the Poor <\/a><\/p>\n We have a robust and growing economy for high-income Americans.
\nThose at the bottom see few prospects for growth and little reason for
\noptimism. Nevertheless, a 2013 analysis by researcher Mark M. Gray at
\nGeorgetown University found that Mr. Obama mentions the poor less than
\nany president in decades. In his public statements and official
\ncommunications on social class, he mentioned the poor only a quarter of
\nthe time; in contrast, Ronald Reagan talked about the poor in two-thirds
\nof his public pronouncements. This is puzzling indeed.<\/p>\n
Census Bureau data show that in 2006-11, real annual income for the
\ntop 20% (quintile) of Americans fell by about 5% but rose almost 2% in
\n2010-11\u2014and shows signs of continuing an upswing. For the bottom
\nquintile, income fell by over 11%, and there was no upswing. <\/p>\n
In 2011, workers in households earning between $40,000 and $60,000
\nhad a 7.8% unemployment rate. In households earning under $20,000,
\nunemployment was 24.4%. The unemployment for households earning more
\nthan $150,000 was 3.2%<\/p>\n
In other words, high-income households were at or above full
\nemployment. Meanwhile, the lowest-income households looked at an
\nemployment landscape resembling the worst years of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n
The whole column is loaded with data (easy to read data). To me, here's a particularly astonishing bit –<\/p>\n
In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm
\nseasonally adjusted employment was 138 million workers. Today, it is
\nfewer than 136 million. Meanwhile, the number of Americans has grown by
\n12.8 million. In many areas of the country, more than one in five adults
\nwho want full-time employment can't find it. <\/p>\n
There's plenty more if you hit the link. <\/p>\n
Barack Obama won two elections with laudable promises to fight for
\npeople. That should include fighting for people at the bottom, even if
\nthe best policies for doing so contradict conventional progressive
\npolicy dogma. The American dream, so often mentioned in the president's
\nspeeches, won't be realized until the least among us have a real chance
\nto earn their success.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8457,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions\/8457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}