primitives discuss Allentown

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7151240

Oh my.

Bella Abzug:

Nikki Stone1  (1000+ posts)     Thu Dec-03-09 11:12 PM
Original message

Half of children in 17 U.S. counties live in poverty

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5AH5EH20091118

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At least one in two children in 17 small counties in the United States is living in poverty, according to a U.S. Census survey measuring income and poverty in small areas and school districts.

Ziebach County, South Dakota, an area with a population of 2,542, leads with a poverty rate for those under the age of 18 of 67.1 percent, the survey released on Wednesday showed. For all ages, the poverty rate is 54.4 percent.

In at least 30 counties with populations ranging from just over 2,000 people to nearly 62,250 people, the poverty rate for all ages is more than one in three, the Census showed.

Douglas County, Colorado with a population of 280,621 has the lowest poverty rate of 3.1 percent, while New Mexico's Los Alamos County has the lowest rate for children of 2.8 percent.

The survey, which relies on 2008 data, is an indication of how American small towns and rural areas are faring economically. The data is also important as the stimulus plan passed in February has special programs targeted to "recovery zones," areas with high unemployment rates and low incomes, and schools where large numbers of the students live hand to mouth.

The county with the smallest median income was also in South Dakota. Buffalo, which has a population of 2,142, has a median household income of $19,182. In 23 small areas, median income does not even reach $25,000.

Virginia is home to the top two counties for median income. Loudon, with a population of 289,995, has a median household income of $111,582 and Fairfax, population 1.02 million, has a median income of $107,075.

The Census also released estimates of poverty for the more than 13,000 U.S. school districts. The New York City Department of Education has the highest number of students living in poverty at nearly 352,670, but it also has the highest number of students at 1.33 million. Still, more than a quarter of its students live in poverty.

Five out of six students in California's Kashia Elementary School district live in poverty.

But I thought Bo was going to take care of this at 11:01 a.m. January 20, 2009.

The primitives promised us he would.

Nikki Stone1  (1000+ posts)     Thu Dec-03-09 11:14 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades (NY Times)

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html?... 

The skumbag primitive:

Ian David  (1000+ posts)        Thu Dec-03-09 11:16 PM
NOMINEE FOR TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
 
2. But there's good news if you live in Allentown, PA. 

If you live in Allentown, you have finally achieved the national average in all economic indicators.

(Per a statistic I heard on NPR this morning).

The rest of the country has settled to Allentown's level.

Congrats!

Someone find out what Billy Joel thinks.

Nikki Stone1  (1000+ posts)     Thu Dec-03-09 11:18 PM
Response to Reply #2
 
4. Allentown was a bellwether.

They lost steel early on. The rest of the nation followed suit.

The Allentown dude primitive:

AllentownJake  (1000+ posts)        Fri Dec-04-09 04:12 AM
NOMINEE FOR TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #2
 
7. Because it is getting very hard to stay......or move for that matter.

Nikki Stone1  (1000+ posts)     Thu Dec-03-09 11:17 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. Recession sends more seniors to soup kitchens: Increase of 81 percent...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34182502/ns/us_news-giving /

"Recession sends more seniors to soup kitchens

Increase of 81 percent last year from two years earlier, USDA reports

ALBANY, N.Y. - Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired lifelong habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first time after seeing retirement funds, second jobs and nest eggs wiped out by recession.***

"What we see in line is lots of gray hair, lots of walkers," said Marti Forman, CEO of The Cooperative Feeding Program in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The help is crucial for many fixed-income seniors, who can't always keep up with rising food prices...."

***Recession? More like Wall Street theft. Robert Rubin, Goldman Sachs and Wall Street have left seniors who had saved for retirement penniless.

How come Bo hasn't taken care of all of this?

beyurslf  (1000+ posts)      Thu Dec-03-09 11:24 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. I wonder that cost of living is in many of those counties listed with such high populations under the poverty line. The poverty line is a national standard. $20,000 a year in a small town in South Dakota is not the same thing as $20,000 in NYC. I have a kid I work with getting an apartment in a small town about 2 hours from here and the rent is $250/month with bills paid. A friend of mine's mom is selling her house in a small town. It is a nice house with 4 bedrooms and she is selling it for 55k. That is considered good there.

Not saying they aren't poor, I just wonder how far their dollar stretches comparatively.

Hannah Bell (1000+ posts)        Fri Dec-04-09 04:26 AM
Response to Reply #5
 
9. I think we can pretty well figure that places like Ziebach County, South Dakota, have a pretty low cost of living. It's an Indian reservation.

and I'd guess the counties are mostly in such traditionally high poverty zones: reservations, appalachia, etc., & high cost of living is not the problem, lack of income is.

Persistent Poverty Counties —

The Economic Research Service (ERS) of USDA categorizes non-metropolitan counties by their dominant economic foundation and by characteristic policy type.

Persistent poverty counties are those where 20% or more of the county population in each of four Census years (1960, 1970,1980, 1990) had poverty level household incomes.

In 1989, there were 535 such counties concentrated largely in the Delta South, Central Appalachia, Rio Grande Valley, the Northern Great Plains, and western Alaska. The average poverty rate in these counties was approximately 29% in 1989.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_Poverty_Countie...

Golden Raisin (1000+ posts)      Fri Dec-04-09 04:09 AM
Response to Original message
 
6. But we have unending buckets of billions for stealth fighter planes and spend billions a week in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

Doug's stupid ex-wife:

EFerrari  (1000+ posts)        Fri Dec-04-09 04:18 AM
NOMINEE FOR TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
 
8. But our tax money keeps funding the contractors that clean up the fake threats.

Cool.

[Freeper]

Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line.

Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers at the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow
And we're living here in Allentown.

But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
aaaaaaah aaahhhhh ooooooooh ooooooh ohhhhhhh.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved.

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron or coke,
Chromium steel.

And we're waiting here in Allentown.
But they've taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaah.

Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got.
If something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face, oh oh oh.

Well I'm living here in Allentown
And it's hard to keep a good man down.
But I won't be getting up todaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy
aaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaah.

GUITAR SOLO

aaaaaaah aaaaaaah aaaaaaah oh oh oh.

And it's getting very hard to staaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
And we're living here in Allentown.

Every time I hear the word, Allentown, I think of that song.

[franksolich]

Every time I hear the word, Allentown, I think of that song.

Notice, please, sir, when the primitives gripe and whine and complain about the deterioration of an inner city, or a whole city, the primitives always omit to point out the main cause of such decline--corrupt one-party dominance, usually for decades and generations.

One wonders why the primitives never mention that.

[Chris]

Remind me again who runs the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

[Freeper]

Notice, please, sir, when the primitives gripe and whine and complain about the deterioration of an inner city, or a whole city, the primitives always omit to point out the main cause of such decline--corrupt one-party dominance, usually for decades and generations.

One wonders why the primitives never mention that.

That sir is a huge mystery, you would think they would be proud of what the unions and dems accomplished. 

[SilverOrchid]

Someone find out what Billy Joel thinks.

I'm confused. I don't spend as much time in the DUmpster so is this a inside joke? What does Billy Joel have to do with this? And why do they care?

[franksolich]

That sir is a huge mystery, you would think they would be proud of what the unions and dems accomplished.

One question I've asked for years and decades is, what big cities are dominated by a corrupt Republican party machine?

Never gotten an answer, but I already know the answer.

There hasn't been a "corrupt Republican party machine," for either a major city or a state, since the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh machines were demolished (by fed-up voters) circa 1930.

In case one has forgotten, 1930 was a very long time ago.

[terry]

I'm confused. I don't spend as much time in the DUmpster so is this a inside joke? What does Billy Joel have to do with this? And why do they care?

Allentown is his song.
Allentown

[Freeper]

One question I've asked for years and decades is, what big cities are dominated by a corrupt Republican party machine?

Never gotten an answer, but I already know the answer.

There hasn't been a "corrupt Republican party machine," for either a major city or a state, since the Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh machines were demolished (by fed-up voters) circa 1930.

In case one has forgotten, 1930 was a very long time ago.

How about the republican mayor that let New Orleans drown? Oh wait....

[franksolich]

Remind me again who runs the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

As you know, sir, I lived in Allentown during the 1980s.

Right smack near downtown Allentown, the eastern side.

When I voted, the final numbers for the precinct in which I lived showed zero votes for the Republican candidate, whatever offices they were.

Unfamiliar with voting machines then in use (Nebraska has always used pencil-marked paper ballots), I suppose I may have pulled the straight "D" lever by mistake.

By the way, the Allentown dude primitive's, the "AllentownJake" primitive's, grandfather was mayor of Allentown.

[SilverOrchid]

Allentown is his song.
Allentown

Shows how much I know about Billy Joel. 

[JohnnyReb]

42 years ago, a new industry moved into our small town. I worked for that company that had fled Allentown and the unions. It's still here and operating...nothing of it is left in Allentown...hasn't been for 30+ years.

[franksolich]

42 years ago, a new industry moved into our small town. I worked for that company that had fled Allentown and the unions. It's still here and operating...nothing of it is left in Allentown...hasn't been for 30+ years.

They really don't get it, do they?

[kenth]

As you know, sir, I lived in Allentown during the 1980s.

Right smack near downtown Allentown, the eastern side.

When I voted, the final numbers for the precinct in which I lived showed zero votes for the Republican candidate, whatever offices they were.

Unfamiliar with voting machines then in use (Nebraska has always used pencil-marked paper ballots), I suppose I may have pulled the straight "D" lever by mistake.

That must have been it frank, you screwed up. I've never heard of democrats chea... 

I couldn't finish.