It recently occurred to me that whenever someone talks about the economy in America, whether it is a politician or a media pundit, they always talk about the "middle class" and how it's shrinking.

They rarely if ever say "working class" or "working poor", and they never ever mention "extreme poverty". Why not? Because it doesn't exist here?

No. It's because they couldn't care less about people with no money. A person's value as a human being in this nation is measured in dollars and cents.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, recently spent two weeks examining poverty in the United States, and his report deserves more attention than it has gotten.



“I have been struck by the extent to which caricatured narratives about the purported innate differences between rich and poor have been sold to the electorate by some politicians and media, and have been allowed to define the debate. The rich are industrious, entrepreneurial, patriotic and the drivers of economic success. The poor are wasters, losers and scammers.

“Despite the fact that this is contradicted by the facts, some of the politicians and political appointees with whom I spoke were completely sold on the narrative of such scammers sitting on comfortable sofas, watching colour TVs, while surfing on their smartphones, all paid for by welfare.

“I wonder how many of these politicians have ever visited poor areas, let alone spoken to those who dwell there.”

In our post-reality America, facts are whatever we want them to be. If we want poverty to be a sign of personal failure, rather than systemic failure, then that's what it is. Facts be damned.

Which is why a majority of Republican voters strongly approved of a cut to food stamps that reduced benefits for all 47 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 7% of the population wants to completely eliminate food stamps. I guess because poor people can always eat cake.



The most recent official statistics from the US Census Bureau in September 2017 indicated that more than 40 million people - more than one in eight Americans - were living in poverty. Almost half of those, 18.5 million, were living in deep poverty, with reported family income below half of the poverty threshold.

Mr. Alston said the poor were assumed to come from ethnic minority groups, but noted that in reality there were eight million more white people than African-Americans living in poverty. “The face of poverty in America is not only black or Hispanic, but also white, Asian and many other colours,” he said.

18% of children—that’s almost one in five—were living in poverty. 21% of those experiencing homelessness are children. Republicans have decided that these children are lost causes.

In 1995 fewer than 100,000 children in single-mother households lived in extreme poverty. Then came welfare reform. In 2012 the number was over 700,000.

Child poverty in the U.S. is the worst of the G7 nations.

The most important point Alston made in his report is one that got the least amount of coverage: extreme poverty exists in America because we made the political choice to allow it to exist.



The persistence of extreme poverty, he contends, is not caused by impersonal factors beyond our control but stems from “a political choice made by those in power”; and since that is so, “with political will, it could readily be eliminated.” He explores in detail the measures that should be adopted to eliminate poverty, chief among which is a commitment to genuine democratic decision-making.

...Perhaps what the report does not state as explicitly as it could have done is the moral dimension of poverty in the midst of immense wealth. Political decisions flow from moral commitments, and thus the decisions that produce and sustain poverty, as made by elected officials, reflect a crisis in public morality. To enact policies that enrich the corporate and financial elite by undermining the economic and social welfare of ordinary people shows that the moral compass of our country’s leaders has gone awry.

The moral decay of our ruling elite is on display for all to see.

We could completely eliminate all poverty in America for the cost of the recently passed tax cut for the wealthy.

The moral vacuum of our society is on full display.



"I saw sewage-filled yards in states where governments don't consider sanitation facilities to be their responsibility." And "people who had lost all of their teeth" because dental care wasn't covered by their health insurance plans. And homeless people who were told to move by a police officer who had "no answer when asked where they could move to."

"People in the U.S. seem particularly unable to stomach the sight of homeless," he says, "yet are unwilling to enact policies to help them."

"While funding for the IRS to audit wealthy taxpayers has been reduced, efforts to identify welfare fraud are being greatly intensified."

"The reality is that the United States now has probably the lowest degree of social mobility among all the rich countries," Alston says. "And if you are born poor, guess where you're going to end up — poor."

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

― Ronald Wright

I guess America is overflowing with temporarily embarrassed millionaires. In much the same way that Americans believe that this is the Land Of The Free, despite having the world's largest prison system and surveillance state.

You know, at a certain point this denial stops being cute, and just becomes sad.

Finally, a new report today announces that we've hit a new record.



About 43 million American renters spent a record $485.6 billion on rent checks in 2017, up by an incredible $4.9 billion from 2016, according to a new report from real estate database Zillow.

On average, renter households spent nearly $11,300 last year

As you might imagine, this wasn't good news for the poor.



In real terms, the rent paid by low-income households has risen modestly -- about 9 percent. Meanwhile, real income for the bottom fifth fell by about the same amount. Squeezed between smaller paychecks and higher rents, the poor have less and less money each month to spend.



This boom is home prices since 2012, that is being driven by vacant investment homes, has translated directly into a growing homeless problem.