Let’s Look at the Issues

Many years ago that wonderful blues artist Billie Holiday sang the words, “Them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose, so the Bible says and it still is news.” 

Well, 70 years later it really is still news. The latest U.S. Census report has confirmed that the rich in the U.S. are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Making matters worse, the report also reveals that it isn’t just the poor who are getting poorer, the middle class is getting poorer, too. The number of people in the middle class is declining and the amount of money earned by members of the middle class is waning as well.

The statistics are stunning. Median household income fell last year for the fifth straight year! In fact, the median middle class income, when adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest level in 18 years. The average American family has seen its income drop every single year since 2007, the Census Bureau reports, and is actually nine percent (9%) lower than it was in 1999, after adjustments for inflation.

And while the middle class continues to lose ground, we regret to report that the number of people who are living at or below the poverty level is gaining ground. In 2012 almost 20 percent of all children in the U.S. were living at or near the poverty level. Yes, one out of five children in the U.S. is living in poverty and this statistic represents a full one-third increase since just 2009! Statistics along racial lines were even worse. As an example, the median income for black households in the U.S. in 2012 was only 60 percent (60%) of the national median income!

It’s frightening, isn’t it? The richest country in the world has almost a fifth of its population living in poverty. Meanwhile, the rich get richer. And, again, you don’t have to take our word for it because these are actual statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here’s what we mean: The top five percent of the U.S. population earned almost a quarter of all income last year. And what do wealthy people do with their income? Well, we can tell you one thing a lot of rich people in the U.S. don’t do with the money they earn: pay taxes. According to the federal government, more than 70,000 households with more than $200,000 in income will not pay any federal income tax in 2013.

Here in New York, the Census Bureau study shows that Bill de Blasio’s description of “two cities” is painfully accurate. The poverty rate in our city rose last year to 21.2 percent. There are 1.7 million New Yorkers below the poverty level. Almost one third of children in New York (31 percent) are below the poverty level; 32 percent of families headed by single mothers and almost one in five (19 percent) of our city’s seniors live in poverty. The lowest 20 percent of New York’s adult population has a mean income of $8,993. The top fifth in New York averaged $222,871 and the top five percent in our city had an average income of $436,931.

The statistics are clear and the candidate our Union has endorsed for Mayor, Bill de Blasio, is absolutely correct. There are two cities in New York, and frankly income inequality is a growing problem across the U.S. The gap between rich and poor grows wider every year and any effort in Washington, D.C. to correct this situation is struck down by the Republicans.

Many GOP members of Congress, especially Tea Party politicians, refuse to consider even the slightest tax increase on the wealthy, even though the Census Bureau confirms that the wealthiest Americans have been enjoying large increases in their income while middle class incomes have fallen each year. Corporation taxes can’t be changed, either, the GOP says.

Instead, Republicans want to cut taxes, even though every study showed that the richest five percent of the American population enjoyed 90 percent of the Bush tax cuts that caused this five-year-long recession in the first place.

Taxes aren’t the only thing Republicans want to cut. They also want to slash the federal budget, most especially programs designed to lift children out of poverty. Republican budget proposals call for elimination or sharp reductions in programs like food stamps, Head Start, child immunization, Pell grants and others. Right now, the Republicans are threatening once again to shut down the federal government and/or default on the nation’s debt if they don’t get the things they want like the defunding of Obamacare. And if you think the recession that started five years ago has been long and difficult, wait until you see what happens if the U.S. defaults on repaying its debt.

The Wall Street Journal compares the GOP’s plan to suicide. The New York Times has called it dangerous. The Republicans’ idea of stopping the government and throwing the country — and indeed the world — into economic chaos to win things that they have been unable to win at the ballot box borders on anarchy, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said quite unsubtly.

The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. The backbone of our country, the middle class, is declining in both numbers and income. And the best the GOP can come up with is the idea of shutting down the federal government and/or defaulting on the national debt. House Republicans (and a few Senate GOP members like Ted Cruz) are again holding the nation’s economic stability hostage by insisting that they will not raise the debt ceiling next month to pay for federal government expenditures that they and the other members of Congress have already authorized. They are threatening the world with the potential economic calamity of a U.S. default on its debt. These are the solutions they are offering to the growing problem of income inequality. There’s only one word to describe this political strategy: sad.