"Gaza" <gary.humble@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:2pbhcnFiksfjU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> You seem to have remarkable difficulty following a thread.
> I have changed the thread back and have cut the crap you posted since
> nothing in it was in any way relevant.
>
> Poverty in the U.S. climbs for third year
> Brian Knowlton/IHT IHT
> Friday, August 27, 2004
>
>
> WASHINGTON The U.S. poverty rate and the number of Americans without
> health
> insurance rose
> last year, each for the third consecutive year, the Census Bureau
reported
> Thursday. The
> figures, which the administration released a month earlier than usual,
> quickly became the
> focus of a partisan debate.
>
> "Under George Bush's watch," said Senator John Kerry, referring to the
new
> data,
> "America's families are falling further behind." The report said that
the
> number of
> Americans in poverty rose from 12.1 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent a
year
> later, totaling
> 35.8 million people, and that the number of uninsured Americans rose
> during
> the same
> period by 1.4 million, to 45 million, or 15.6 percent of the population.
>
> Median household income remained basically flat, at $43,318 when
adjusted
> for inflation,
> ending a two-year decline.
>
> The numbers were not unexpected, and do not reflect the economic growth
of
> the past
> several months, which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
>
> Dan Weinberg, a Census Bureau analyst, said that the data was typical
for
> a
> post-recession
> economy, but that the numbers of the uninsured reflected continued
> uncertainty over
> employment. Employers, who have cited the high costs of providing health
> insurance as a
> reason to hire conservatively, are also offering less generous benefit
> plans.
>
> The poverty rate was the highest since 1998, when it reached 12.7
percent.
> The Census
> Bureau places the poverty threshold for a family of four at $18,810.
>
> The Census Bureau noted that while the overall poverty rate was up from
> 2002, it remained
> below the average of the 1980s and 1990s.
>
> Still, the new data comes amid a close election campaign in which debate
> over economic
> health and fairness loom large.
>
> For campaign advisers to Kerry, who have been striving to turn attention
> away from a
> bitter controversy over his Vietnam War record and toward the economic
> issues, the new
> numbers were a welcome gift. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, wasted no
time
> seizing on the
> Census report as evidence to bolster his critiques of administration
> economic and health
> care policies.
>
> The new figures mean that "five million Americans over five years have
> lost
> their health
> insurance," Kerry told an audience of supporters and undecided voters in
> Anoka, Minnesota.
> "About 45 million Americans go to bed every night worried."
>
> A Kerry campaign statement called on Bush to debate the senator "once a
> week
> between now
> and the end of the campaign, so that the issues that really matter to
the
> American people
> - like the number of uninsured and people living in poverty - can be
front
> and center in
> this election."
>
> The debate proposal was of a sort often made by presidential
challengers,
> but rarely
> agreed to by incumbents, who are generally thought to have more to lose
in
> debates. For
> now, the candidates are expected to have three debates, on Sept. 30,
Oct.
> 8
> and Oct. 13.
>
> Bush, giving a fairly standard stump speech Thursday during an
appearance
> in
> Las Cruces,
> New Mexico, did not specifically address the Census numbers.
>
> "We have more to do to make this economy stronger," he said, mentioning,
> as
> he often does,
> the economic shocks of recent years, from recession to terrorist attacks
> and
> corporate
> scandals. The president, as he also does, credited American workers and
> entrepreneurs, as
> well as his own "well-timed tax cuts," for moving the country beyond the
> worst economic
> woes.
>
> But there was immediate dispute over the Census report.
>
> Some Republicans noted that even as the number of uninsured Americans
grew
> by 1.4 million,
> the number of insured did as well, by 1 million. Bush's health and human
> services
> secretary, Tommy Thompson, said that Bush was working to reduce health
> insurance costs to
> businesses.
>
> Some Democrats saw political manipulation in the fact that the
> administration issued the
> new numbers a month before their usual release in late September. But
> Louis
> Kincannon, the
> Census director and a Bush appointee, said that the earlier release was
> intended to
> coordinate better with other reports. It came, he said, without
"influence
> or pressure"
> from the Bush campaign.
>
> International Herald Tribune
>
>
Exactly what policy of Kerry's is intended to solve the above mentioned
problems?
|
