By Gene Ogorodov
The numbers one will almost never hear in the press in the United States are 1 in 2, 1 in 4, 1 in 5, and 3 in 100. Even the far left refuses to acknowledge these numbers. The same old Government lies. It is a well known fact that the Bureau of Labor criteria for poverty is perfectly capricious, but still their official number of 1 in 6 is considered gospel truth. Even though the facts are before the eyes of opposition journalists in the US, and ostensibly it is in their interest to crunch the numbers; it is impossible to find headlines that give these numbers their appropriate exposure.
According to EU and OECD guidelines households that have a combined income of less than 60% of the national median household income are considered to be in poverty. For 2011 the IRS reported that 50% of US households reported income of less than $34K. Since $37K was 60% of the median household income in the US in 2011 it is fair to say that according to OECD standards more than 1 in 2 people in the US are in poverty.
In 2012 the Department of Agriculture estimated that 21% of Americans qualified to receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). However, there is a significant gap between a livable income that can provide a healthy diet and the 130% of the poverty line which is the cut off for food stamp benefits. If one assumes the food gap chart on Moyers and Company is reflective of the nation at large, a more reasonable calculation for the number of people that are food insecure is about 24% or 1 in 4.
Earlier this week Democracy Now! interviewed Laura Gottseidner, the author of Dream Foreclosed. The magic number that was branded about as the number of people who lost there homes to foreclosure during the Lesser Depression was 10 Million. I have no idea how she came up with that number. According to Statistic Brain 26.6 Million houses have been foreclosed or repossessed since the beginning of the housing crisis in 2006. Considering that the average household is not half a person but rather 2.58 people, the actual number of people who have lost there homes is 68.8 Million which is 1 in 5 Americans.
If the real poverty in the US doesn't sufficiently demonstrate that America is no longer a developed nation, it should be self evident that the police state that the Federal Government has created is interested in slightly more coercive behavior that reading your emails. That is why 2.9% of Americans are incarcerated. If that number seems high, let me reassure you that it is. Stalin's Gulags never exceeded 1% of the Soviet population.
According to EU and OECD guidelines households that have a combined income of less than 60% of the national median household income are considered to be in poverty. For 2011 the IRS reported that 50% of US households reported income of less than $34K. Since $37K was 60% of the median household income in the US in 2011 it is fair to say that according to OECD standards more than 1 in 2 people in the US are in poverty.
In 2012 the Department of Agriculture estimated that 21% of Americans qualified to receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). However, there is a significant gap between a livable income that can provide a healthy diet and the 130% of the poverty line which is the cut off for food stamp benefits. If one assumes the food gap chart on Moyers and Company is reflective of the nation at large, a more reasonable calculation for the number of people that are food insecure is about 24% or 1 in 4.
Earlier this week Democracy Now! interviewed Laura Gottseidner, the author of Dream Foreclosed. The magic number that was branded about as the number of people who lost there homes to foreclosure during the Lesser Depression was 10 Million. I have no idea how she came up with that number. According to Statistic Brain 26.6 Million houses have been foreclosed or repossessed since the beginning of the housing crisis in 2006. Considering that the average household is not half a person but rather 2.58 people, the actual number of people who have lost there homes is 68.8 Million which is 1 in 5 Americans.
If the real poverty in the US doesn't sufficiently demonstrate that America is no longer a developed nation, it should be self evident that the police state that the Federal Government has created is interested in slightly more coercive behavior that reading your emails. That is why 2.9% of Americans are incarcerated. If that number seems high, let me reassure you that it is. Stalin's Gulags never exceeded 1% of the Soviet population.
