Poor in America grow under Obama

By Catholiic Online
9/12/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Grim statistics find many Americans hard off

Since President Barack Obama has taken office, the numbers of America's poor has steadily climbed. Working-age poor people are reaching the levels of the 1960s, before the national war on poverty.

The expected increase, from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent people living below the poverty line, would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Census figures for 2009 are to be released this week, and demographers expect troubling statistics.

The findings come at a most unfortunate time - seven weeks before Congressional elections, with many Democrats and Obama supporters expected to be voted out. The expected increase, from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent people living below the poverty line, would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

If these estimates hold true, some 45 million people in this country -- more than one in seven, were poor last year. It would be the highest single-year increase since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The previous high was in 1980 when the rate jumped 1.3 percentage points to 13 percent during the energy crisis.

"The most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy and making sure there are enough jobs out there," Obama said at a news conference last week. The president stressed his commitment to helping the poor achieve middle-class status. "If we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous cycle."

Among the 18-64 working-age population, the demographers expect a rise beyond 12.4 percent, up from 11.7 percent. These figures would make it the highest since at least 1965, when Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson, launched the war on poverty.

Demographers feel that the report will also show child poverty increasing from 19 percent to more than 20 percent. In addition, the figures will show that African Americans and Latinos were disproportionately hit, based on their higher rates of unemployment.

Metropolitan areas that posted the largest gains in poverty included Modesto, California, Detroit, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

"My guess is that politically these figures will be greeted with alarm and dismay but they won't constitute a clarion call to action," William Galston, a domestic policy aide for President Bill Clinton says. "I hope the parties don't blame each other for the desperate circumstances of desperate people. That would be wrong in my opinion. But that's not to say it won't happen."

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Rob
2 years ago
The problem Larry is that it's too difficult to seperate the greedy from the successful. If we continue along the path of rewarding good and bad behavior of the elite, nothing will change. And until our country begins to create things again instead of financial instruments no one understands or pumping up bottom lines by shipping jobs overseas, nothing is going to turn the tide on poverty.
Larry
2 years ago
It's the birds coming home to roost. This attiitude in the Democrat Party have existed for years and Obama is just the lightening rod for them of government running our lives. More poor are just the results of what this way of thinking brings. In the name of equality, of abortion because it's a woman's right to choose, of the government knowing what is best for us, of fighting for civil rights turns into taking away others rights to make it all even, redistribution of wealth, brings us all down. I used to be a democrat, marched in the Grape boycotts, with Jessie Jackson and many other causes in the day, and I changed when I saw the direction that democrats started going. Bernie Goldberg wrote a book "Crazies to the left of me, wimps to the right of me' and that is an apt title. The left has lost its mind but the right doesn't have enough guts to confront them and stand up for its principles. The church leadership has to direct the Catholic community and priests have to be preaching on these issues, but priests have to change from the reminents of the dreams of the 60s to realities (many priests and lay leadership are still facinated by Liberation Theology today). Most of us do not know how the economics of this or any country work well enough to reward those who are successful and take care of those who need help. We just pity and side with those who complain and join in their complaint and think that the more there is a gap between those who have more and those who have less is terrible rather than trying to find ways to help those who have less gain more (other than stopping, taking from or punishing those who gain more). It's time for the church to rethink its views on social justice and what it may take to get there. When you attack the successful, they take their success somewhere else or stop being successful.
Rob
2 years ago
The American people have been sold out for a buck. Special interest have been buying our legislators for years. And pro-life issues and Catholic social teaching just doesn't bring in the money. Tax cuts for millionaire investment bankers or a healthcare plan that further enriches the insurance industry or perhaps a war or two....those bring in the bucks. The rest is placating the masses. The politician says I will tell the Catholic Christians just enough to get their vote, but I won't follow through on any of it. And I'll blame it on the media, liberal establishment or whatever boogey man I can conjure up. The sad thing is that we buy this year after year hoping that the government will make our social ills go away.

The only thing that will change hearts is Christ. If we teach our famlies properly, and they teach theirs, we will win this war. If we answer the Church's call to evangelize, we will change hearts and minds. But if we continue to put all our eggs in some politician's basket, nothing will change. We have to start doing the heavy lifting or nothing will change.
Norsegael
2 years ago
Dear Mr. Vance,

I will agree that Obama has not been able to overcome the recession left him by the previous republican administration, who was also responsible for war and death. It is obvious that neither party is concerned with Catholic Social Doctrine. I believe ALL incumbents need to be voted out and replaced with politicians aware of the might of the vote, aware that if they will not or cannot represent the citizens properly, then the citizens will replace them.

Bravo, Mr. Caperton, Bravo!!! :)
vance
2 years ago
THANKS OBAMA! THANKS DEMOCRAT PARTY!! THANKS LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT!! All you guys create is poverty and death. You create permenant Black and Hispanic underclasses and kill their babies by your abortion industry. Your Public Education system turns out massive numbers of high school drop outs and illiterate children especially among those who you crow about protecting-Blacks and Hispanics. Sounds pretty evil to me.
Jeffrey Caperton
2 years ago
Actually, some things have changed. I can still remember during the 1981-1982 recession how Ronald Reagan was very successful in deflecting the blame onto James Earl Carter, generally with the blessings of the American people. Today it would appear that the American people are not so willing to allow Barack Obama deflect blame for the current economic hard times onto George W. Bush. Tongue-in-cheek aside, I can think of no time in history where knowing who to blame has actually solved a problem. But, since we are playing the blame game, I place the blame upon the amoral capitalist system and the American people who have bought into the capitalist lie that "greed, for lack of a better word, is good". And, finally, I blame American Christians who have become so embroiled in partisan politics to a point that they believe that their personal politics and prejudices are religious dogma. Does that spread the blame onto a significant number of people?
Luis Rivera
2 years ago
It's funny. I thought he was going to bring great change to the United States. But I guess it's gonna be more of the same.

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