Paul Ryan tried to put a face--a black face--on American poverty. As it turns out, Ryans dog-whistle to the GOPs right-wing base wasnt merely cynical, it was also wrong. After all, about two-thirds of the nations 46.5 million people living in poverty are white. The U.S. Census Bureau also informs us that the 17.7 percent poverty rate in rural areas is almost three points higher than the national average. (Poverty is highest in the South, which in 2012 was the only part of the country where it increased.) In many cities and across the countryside, tectonic structural changes in regional economies, and not Paul Ryans tailspin of culture, are wiping out good paying jobs. The result is that many communities are sustained by a patchwork of federal and state programs helping to provide food assistance, income support, unemployment benefits, health care and more. To put it another way, the faces of American poverty can be found in Rust Belt cities, in the Mississippi Delta and in Appalachia. And now--just as it did when LBJ launched his War on Poverty 50 years ago--Kentucky shows why. (
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 17:34:17 +0000
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