Mayors Survey reveals U.S. Poverty 2003
By Heather Cottin
The economy is not booming for everybody.
While Wall Street billionaires are slapping each other on the
back and crowing over their profits, hunger and homelessness in
the United States are spreading.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report on Dec. 18
that gives the lie to George W. Bush's claim that the economy
has turned around. There is no chicken in every pot. Prosperity
is not around the corner--poverty is.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors-Sodexho Hunger and
Homelessness Survey notes that prospects for millions of people
in U.S. cities are bleak. The survey cites unemployment, low
wages and the high cost of housing as factors in the 25 cities
they surveyed.
Requests for emergency food assistance increased by an
average of 17 percent over the past year, and requests for
emergency shelter assistance increased by an average of 13
percent.
With money going to military spending, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and corporate welfare, there is less available for
social services. All talk of "faith-based initiatives" and
compassionate conservatism hasn't improved things for the urban
poor in the U.S. The Bush administration, like the Clinton,
Bush Sr. and Reagan administrations, has cut back welfare, food
stamps, medical care and other spending for the poor.
In this land of plenty, people are suffering.
Over 9 million people in the U.S. are officially unemployed.
Over 2 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared from the
U.S. in the first three years of the 21st century. Now "white
collar" information workers are losing their jobs. One IBM
executive warbled cheerfully about "shifting a lot of jobs,
opening a lot of locations in places we had never dreamt of
before, going where there's low-cost labor, low-cost
competition, shifting jobs offshore." An executive at Microsoft
exhorted his managers to "pick something to move offshore
today." (Bob Herbert's column, New York Times, Dec. 29)
People are going hungry.
In 56 percent of U.S. cities the Home lessness and Hunger
Survey reports that poor people's needs are outstripping
available resources. Over 14 percent of the requests for
emergency food assistance in the major cities of the U.S. were
refused in 2003. Some 15 percent of the requests for assistance
for families were turned down by the agencies responsible for
them.
Just over half the cities surveyed indicated that emergency
assistance facilities have provided fewer bags of food and
diminished the number of times per month people can receive
food. Of these cities, 48 percent have had to significantly
limit food provided.
The survey reveals that 40 percent of those people seeking
emergency food assistance are actually employed--a grim
testament to the epidemic of low wages. Almost 60 percent of
people applying for food at the churches and pantries that
distribute this assistance are families with children.
The condition of homelessness is getting worse. Lack of
affordable housing and low-paying jobs account for the homeless
crisis in the majority of the cities surveyed. Some 84 percent
of the cities in the U.S. are reporting that shelters are
turning away people because of lack of resources.
Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2003 shows that in about 90
percent of U.S. cities hunger and homelessness are expected to
increase in 2004. Meanwhile, on Wall Street at the end of 2003,
the Dow Jones average of major stock prices was up over
10,000.
The rich are getting richer because the poor are growing
poorer. As the contradiction between the capitalists and the
workers becomes clearer, the need to organize grows
stronger.
Reprinted from the Jan. 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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