APA speakers on hidden poverty & USA "budget surplus" FWD

Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Mon, 5 Oct 1998 17:24:30 -0400 

FWD
Institute for Public Accuracy
(202) 347-0020  *  http://www.accuracy.org
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
___________________________________________________

Wednesday, September 30, 1998

"SURPLUS" AND POVERTY IN AMERICA

     WASHINGTON -- While President Clinton announces budget
surplus figures today, some economists and poverty specialists
are challenging the idea that poverty is receding as a national
problem. Among those available for comment are:

ANURADHA MITTAL, (510) 654-4400, amittal@igc.org,
www.foodfirst.org
     Policy Director at the Institute for Food and Development
Policy - Food First, Mittal said: "Extreme poverty is growing
fastest among young children. The United States already has the
highest child poverty rate in the industrialized world."

DIANA PEARCE, (206) 616-2850, pearce@u.washington.edu
     Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of
Washington in Seattle, Pearce said: "What is happening at the
median hides what is happening at the ends of the distribution."
Particularly for women-maintained families, poverty is
increasing. "Now, 54.5 percent of poor families are maintained by
women alone."

CHUCK SHEKETOFF, (503) 873-1201, csheketoff@ocpp.org,
www.ocpp.org
     Executive Director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy,
Sheketoff questioned the decline in the Census Bureau's poverty
rate announced last week. "We did not have a decline in the
number of people in poverty (35.6 million), only the poverty rate
-- and only slightly -- from 13.7 to 13.3 percent. Meanwhile,
you're seeing big declines in welfare caseloads. We are seeing
basically the same number of poor people with less of a safety
net."

FRANCES FOX PIVEN, (518) 789-3525, fpiven@email.gc.cuny.edu
     Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and
Sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the
City University of New York. Her books include "The Breaking of
the American Social Compact." Piven noted that while the 13.3
percent poverty figure continues a drop of the last few years,
"the poverty rate was a little over 11 percent in the mid-1970s.
We are still far away from where we should be. Moreover, this
13.3 percent is at the peak of a boom that is just now slowing
down... Nor do these figures show the full effects of the welfare
reform legislation passed two years ago. Welfare time limits have
yet to take effect. In the meantime, some of the people who have
gotten off welfare have gotten jobs, and that's good, but some
have gone deeper into poverty."

GWENDOLYN MINK, (831) 459-4443, (831) 425-1536,
mink@cats.ucsc.edu
     Mink, professor of politics at the University of California
at Santa Cruz and author of "Welfare's End," said: "The poverty
level for a family of three is very, very low -- $13,650 per
year. A living wage, by comparison, would pay $25,907 per year.
That's a huge gap... Most stunning about the new poverty
statistics is how disproportionately meager has been poor
people's share of the recent prosperity."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public
Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 332-5055, or David Zupan,
(541) 484-9167.

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