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From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The Other America

“The official poverty measure is published by the United States Census Bureau and shows that: In 2010, 46.9 million people were in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007 -- the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty . This is the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty rates have been published. The 2010 poverty rate was 15.1 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 1997. This is the highest poverty rate since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for poverty estimates. The 2010 poverty rate for Hispanics was 26.6 percent, for Blacks 27.4 per cent. In 2010, the poverty rate increased for children under age 18 from 20.7 percent to 22.0 percent. 20.5 million Americans live in extreme poverty. This means their family's cash income is less than half of the poverty line, or about $10,000 a year for a family of four. 49.9 million people or 16.3 percent of the American people, do not have medical insurance.” Hunger in America: 2013 Hunger and Poverty Facts World Hunger Education Service http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm

Listening to the corporate media you would believe because the stock market is doing well and the official government line says the economy is on the uptake, all is well for Joe and Jane Sixpack, Pooky and Shananay and the rest of America. Not so. The state of the stock market is not, I repeat is not a true indicator of the wealth, health or vitality of the US economy in general nor the state of working class folks in particular. Despite the rosy picture the Obama administration tries to paint of the economy things are not good! I hate being a prophet of doom and gloom but I have been saying for years both the Bu$h and Obama administrations lied about job statistics and the real employment situation to hide the fact the US economy is in a depression. Now it is becoming increasingly clear this is true.

“The US economy added 162,000 net jobs in July, the Labor Department reported Friday, the worst jobs figure in four months. The jobs total was lower than economists projections and well below the number needed to have an impact on mass unemployment. The report underscored the fact that, five years after the 2008 financial crash, the US remains mired in a deep economic slump. Over the past four months, the US economy averaged only 173,000 new jobs per month, even though the working-age population is growing by a monthly average of 184,000. The official unemployment rate dropped by 0.2 percent in July to 7.4 percent, mainly because 240,000 people left the labor force. The US has recovered only about six million of the 8.5 million jobs lost during the 2008-2009 recession. Since the official end of the recession in June of 2009, the working-age population has increased by six million, meaning the gain in jobs relative to population growth has been essentially zero. The share of the US population that is employed remained at 58.7 percent in July, largely unchanged from what it has been since 2009 and down from 62.7 percent in December 2007. The labor force participation rate, meanwhile, dropped 0.1 percent to 63.4 percent, near its lowest level in decades. The number of people working part-time for economic reasons last month was 8.2 million, up by 19,000 from June, and the total number of people who are either unemployed or under-employed was 22 million. Of the jobs created last month, the majority were low-wage and part-time positions, mainly in sectors such as food service and home health care. ‘Over the last four months, we've created 4.2 part-time jobs for every one full-time job. That trend is not going in a good direction,” Burt White of LPL Financial told CNBC.’ ” As Dow Hits Record: Dismal Jobs Report Exposes Claims of US Recovery by Andre Damon http://www.globalresearch.ca/as-dow-hits-new-record-dismal-jobs-report-exposes-claims-of-us-recovery/5344974

What this means is more and more Americans are either sinking into unemployment, long term joblessness and poverty or they are forced to settle for part time work. This is the story we are not being told by the corporate media. Why should they? Their agenda is to depict the world through the eyes of the one per centers, their minions and acolytes. The media's goal is to keep us distracted with sports, fake news and scripted illusions of “reality TV”. The fact of the matter is, there is another America, one we don't see on TV or hear about in the corporate media that is rapidly morphing into rigid economic apartheid and inequality.

“Once considered the definition of the middle-class American dream, the suburbs are now home to a larger, faster-growing poor population than urban areas, according to a new analysis. During the 2000s, the number of poor living in U.S. suburbs grew by 64 percent -- more than twice the 29 percent growth rate in cities. Overall, 16.4 million poor people consider suburbia home, compared with 13.4 million in big cities and 7.3 million in rural areas, researchers for the Brookings Institution said in a book published Monday. The shifting poverty demographic can be seen in Chicago's suburbs, where the number of poor increased by 99 percent in the last decade -- from 363,966 to 724,233, said Elizabeth Kneebone, co-author of "Confronting Suburban Poverty in America." That was a greater increase than recorded in the New York City or Los Angeles regions, according to the book.” Suburban Poverty Growth Outpacing Urban Cores McClatchy News http://www.governing.com/news/local/mct-suburban-poverty-growth-outpacing-urban-cores.html

When we add these numbers to the total of the working poor, factor in the abysmal job opportunities, college grads who cannot find jobs in their fields, the increasing native job eligible population and immigrants, we have a volatile situation. “In the face of this crisis, the Obama administration and the ruling class as a whole have no policies to offer for serious economic growth or job-creation. Their response is to intensify the assault on the working class. Obama’s so-called ‘jobs’ program consists entirely of tax cuts and subsidies for business and incentives to slash the wages and benefits of workers—in the name of increasing US ‘competitiveness’ and convincing transnational companies to shift jobs from foreign cheap labor havens to take advantage of near-poverty wages in the US. This is combined with austerity policies that further depress economic growth.”

Yet government policies and Obama’s steadfast unwillingness to prosecute the banksters who caused the implosion have allowed these criminals to get rich off the backs of the rest of us. “The profits of the biggest US banks continued to swell in the second quarter of this year. Last month, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, among the largest US banks, announced record quarterly profits. JPMorgan made $6.1 billion in the second quarter, up 32 percent from a year ago, while Wells Fargo took in $5.27 billion, up 20 percent. JPMorgan Chase is expected to make $25 billion in profits this year, equivalent to the gross domestic product of Afghanistan, a country with a population of 30 million. According to an analysis conducted by Equilar Inc. for the Wall Street Journal, the CEOs of 200 US companies with revenues over $1 billion saw their pay swell by 16 percent in 2012, with the average hitting $15.1 million.” As Dow Hits New Record: Dismal Jobs Report Exposes Claims of US Recovery by Andre Damon http://www.globalresearch.ca/as-dow-hits-new-record-dismal-jobs-report-exposes-claims-of-us-recovery/5344974

There are no new lucrative jobs being created, “The US has recovered only six million out of the 8.5 million jobs lost during the recession. However since the beginning of the economic ‘recovery’ in 2009, the working age population has increased by six million, meaning that the gain in jobs relative to population growth has been essentially zero. The share of the US population that is employed remained at 58.6 percent in May, largely unchanged from what it has been since 2009 and down from 62.7 percent in December 2007.” Anemic US jobs report points to ongoing slump by Andre Damon http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/08/econ-m08.html

Don't believe the corporate media hype, we are not in a jobs/economic recovery, in fact the American economy is on life support.
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