Sunday, September 04, 2005

Belabored Day 2005: The poor get poorer

Salt Lake Tribune:
"Sarah Wilhelm, the organization's director of fiscal analysis, says stereotypes that poor people don't want to work or don't do anything to improve their lives are not true. Roughly 75 percent of poor Utah families have at least one working person in the home, she says.
'It's frustrating that people are working very hard, playing by the rules and still not being able to make ends meet,' says Wilhelm.
In 1999-2000, the poverty rate in Utah was 7 percent. It increased to 10 percent in 2003-2004, according to the report. The federal poverty guideline for a family of four people is $18,850 a year. "

3 comments:

  1. I read in the NYTimes today that in Manhattan, the poor make two cents for every dollar a rich person makes (although now that I think about that, I'm not sure if I know what it means). It's basically the point that Barbara Ehrenreich made in Nickel and Dimed, isn't it? And it keeps getting worse.

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  2. Anonymous11:45 AM

    I think this really came out with the recent events in New Orleans. The rich were able to leave the city, while the poor had to stay and suffer.

    --Kim

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  3. I guess they all live in tents.

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