SUNS #4289 Monday 28 September 1998
UNITED STATES: SLIGHT REDUCTION IN POVERTY IN 1997
Washington, Sep 24 (IPS/Jim Lobe) -- Despite its booming economy, the United States in 1997 saw only a slight decline in the rate of poverty, which afflicted 35.6 million Americans - 40% of whom were children - according to figures from the Census Bureau.
While the absolute number of poor remained unchanged during 1997, the poverty rate itself fell from 13.7% to 13.3% due to the increase in the country's total population, the Census Bureau said.
The bureau's latest report Thursday came amid a renewed effort by some lawmakers and independent groups to persuade the government to take stronger action to reduce poverty in part by recognising the importance of economic rights included in the 50-year-old Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states very clearly that every human being has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their families," said John Cavanagh, director of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). "By a conservative definition, one in every eight Americans is denied that basic right."
The census report also found that median household income rose 1.9% in real terms to $37,005, restoring the income of most citizens to 1989 levels, the highest point median income had reached before and after the 1990-91 recession.
But there was no change in income inequality in the United States - the gap between the richest and poorest citizens remaining the widest in the industrialised world.
The new figures, especially on the declining poverty rate and rising incomes, were hailed by President Bill Clinton as evidence of success of his economic policies, and he cited the fact that inequality remained unchanged as a victory given more the more than 20 years of increasing inequality that had preceded 1997.
"That inequality is still too high," he declared, "and it simply means there are too many American families out there working hard, doing everything we could possibly ask of them and still have a hard time getting ahead."
Release of the new figures came 24 hours after rejection by the Republican-led Senate of a one-dollar increase in the U.S. minimum hourly wage. At a ground-breaking hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday a dozen witnesses testified to the difficulties they face in making ends meet, particularly in light of the sharp reduction in welfare benefits since 1996.
"The reason I am here is to tell you that the wages I receive are not enough to support my family," said Carmen Cabrera, a mother of four, who works as a cashier at a fast-food restaurant for $5.25 an hour.
"When I was on welfare, I sometimes went hungry because the money I received was not enough to pay the bills. I will have to go through more hunger now that I'm working because they will cut my food stamps and medicaid, and my salary will not be able to cover it."
The hearing itself, co-sponsored by the Institute of Policy Studies and the San Francisco-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (IFDP), was held by the 58-member Progressive Congressional Caucus to urge the government to recognise economic rights as defined by the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights which was adopted by the UN General Assembly 50 years ago Dec 10.
"While it has been said that (Declaration's) articles (on economic rights) were contributed by the Soviet Union," Californian Democrat George Miller told the hearing, "in fact they are genuinely American values that reflect the views of President Franklin Roosevelt, First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt), and the American experience in the Depression."
"Human rights" in the United States are generally assumed to be confined to political and civil rights and to the right to be free from torture and other abuses of the integrity of the person.
While Congress has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it has never been taken up the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which was signed by former President Jimmy Carter.
In addition, the rights to decent housing, to a job, and to adequate nutrition - all recognised by the Universal Declaration - are treated in the United States as welfare or charity in the United States rather than as legally enforceable rights which state, local, or national governments are required to respect and enforce.
"If we recognised these as rights," said Cavanagh, "we might begin to rethink national priorities."
"Though the United States has the highest average income in the world, it ranks the lowest in the poverty index table for industrialized countries," Miloon Kothari, a representative of the Habitat
International, an NGO coalition, told the hearing Wednesday.
The new poverty figures help illustrate the situation. Despite the return of real incomes and poverty rates to their 1989 levels, according to the Bureau, the number of poor has actually risen by 3.1
million more than the 1989 level when the poverty rate was 13.1 percent.
Moreover, children, who make up 26% of the total population, constitute 40% of the poor - the highest poverty rate of any other age group. One in five American children lives in poverty, a rate that has persisted since the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan was in office.
African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans suffered poverty rates twice as high as the general population, at 26.5 percent and 27.1 percent, respectively. Nonetheless, those figures represented declines of two percent for each group from 1996.
Altogether, about 400,000 fewer families were poor in 1997 than in 1996, and about 60% of those who moved up were African-American, according to the Census.
Among all ethnic groups, Asians and Pacific Islanders had the highest median household income in 1997 at $47,249. However, since they had larger families, Asians fell behind whites on a per capita basis. Per capita income for Whites came to $20,425; for Asians, $18,226; for African-Americans, $12,351; and for Hispanics, $10,773.
The poverty rate was set at $16,400 dollars for a family of four and $12,802 dollars for a family of three.