EARNINGS AND WEALTH DISTRIBUTION/POVERTY

• The richest Americans’ share of national income has widened. With Americans earning a smaller income, adjusted for inflation, in 2005 than 2000, nearly half of Americans earning slightly more than $30,000 and two thirds make less than $50,000. The wealthiest 1% earned 21.2% of all income in 2005 up sharply from 19% in 2004. The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004. . (The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2007, and the New York Tiimes, August, 21, 2007 referring to new data from the IRS)
• 94 million Americans live in families of 4 who have incomes of less than twice the poverty level (under $40,000), higher healthcare costs, healthcare insurance costs (if they have healthcare insurance as 47 million Americans don’t), and higher fuel costs, more Americans, it becomes more difficult to make ends meet and not go deep into debt. (Katherine Newman, The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor In America, interviewed on Bill Moyers Journal)
• According to the IRS, the number of taxpayers making more than $1 million grew more than 26% from 239,685 in 2000 to 303,817 in 2005. These individuals, making up about 1% of all taxpayers, received nearly 47% of the total income gains in 2005. (August 21, 2007 New York Times)
• The real income of the richest 0.1% of Americans increased by 51% between 2003 and 2005. However, the last four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers and wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated. “Billionaires Up America Down” MacClathy-Tribune New Services October 21, 2007
• 5 million more people living below the poverty line than in 2000.
• In 2004, one out of six households had a zero or negative net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity…and that was before the mortgage crisis hit. (“Billionaires…”
• The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - the total annual value of goods and services produced by our nation of 303 million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP. (“Billionaires…”)
• The top 1 percent of households - average income $1.5 million - will save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. That's more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department, Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission. (“Billionaires…”)
• Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus interest. (“Billionaires..”)
• 37 million people—one in eight Americans—live below the federal poverty line (about $20,000 for a family of four), with 5.3 million added between 2000 and 2004. This is in addition to the 9 million uninsured kids in the country with 90% coming from working households, a Food Stamps program benefit that equates to $1 per meal per person, a cut of $8.4 billion in child-support collection, no additional support in the welfare to work program to help the poor afford child care while they work with the spending level flat since 1996, and a desperate need to create something like a housing trust to pay for new homes for extremely low-income people. (Special Report: The New Congress, Strengthening The Safety Net, National Journal Group, January 30, 2007)
• The US Agriculture Department said a total of 12.65 million households were “food insecure”, or 10.9% of U.S. homes, up from 12.59 million a year ago. Over 35.52 million people, including 12.63 million children, went hungry compared with 35.13 million in 2005. (Strengthening The Safety Net, National Journal Group, January 30, 2007)
• Some 27 million people enrolled in the food stamp program alone and USDA has estimated 65% of eligible people participate in the program, up from 54% in 2001. (Strengthening The Safety Net, National Journal Group, January 30, 2007)
• In 2006, 25 million people sought help from food banks, marking an 18 percent increase from 1997. (Strengthening The Safety Net, National Journal Group, January 30, 2007)
• The first national survey of utility arrearages and shut-offs, completed this year, indicates that, based on a sample of eleven states representing 25% of all households, an estimated 1.2 million households have been disconnected from electric and natural gas service during March through May 2007, following the expiration of state shut-off moratoriums. On average, these households owed about $850, with a total amount exceeding $1 billion. (National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, representing state directors of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
• Food banks around the country are reporting critical shortages that have forced them to ration supplies, distribute staples usually reserved for disaster relief and in some instances, close. Supplies from the Agriculture Department’s surplus program dropped to $67 million worth last year, from $154.3 million in 2005 and $233 million in 2004. Figures for this year are not yet available. There are efforts to raise the funds for emergency aid to food banks to $250 million a year, from $140 million. That figure has remained steady since 2002. . (Food Banks, in a Squeeze, Tighten Belts, New York Times, November 30, 2007)