More Americans Sinking Into Poverty–Losing Hope
The most disturbing aspect of this lousy economy is the adversity that is coming at the American people from all directions, especially the poor.
The American people can handle one crisis, or perhaps even two or three crises, but add them all up and it is clear that both the middle class and the poor are getting hammered hard. Consider the following: 
Gasoline prices are at the highest price ever for this time of the year. They are expected to climb higher by summer.
After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in its report in February 2012.
Housing prices are continuing their year to year decline, and more of same is predicted for 2012.
The core prices of consumer goods, which strips out the costs of food and energy prices, is increasing at the fastest rate since September 2008.
For the first time since the Great Depression, medium household income has fallen to levels not seen since 1996.
More than 46 million Americans — one in seven of us — gets help from the federal government to feed ourselves and our families. The highest number in 52 years.
Only one in four U.S. teenagers held a job in 2011, the smallest percentage of teenage workers in decades, and half what it was in 1999-2000.
Household utility bills skyrocket. The jump has added about $300 a year to what households pay for electricity. That’s the largest sustained increase since a run-up in electricity prices during the 1970′s.
Although more Americans are getting help from scholarships and tax breaks, the net cost of college is eating up a higher share of the typical family’s income in 2011.
Attitudes of voters are crystallized by the degree of fairness in the political system, as perceived by the American people.
When Americans are being short-changed by a political system that puts tens of millions of dollars in the pockets of politicians, we know that the system IS unjust.
When the politicians return the favor by putting hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars in the hands of their crony capitalist friends, we know the system IS rigged.
When politicians are guaranteed to acheive personal wealth, simply by the sole act of getting elected into office, we know the system IS corrupt.
When more people are falling into poverty than those who are acheiving upward social mobility, we know that our economy IS is heading in the wrong direction.
The bottom line is that the American people live in the “real world,” while Washington politicians and thier cash-rich friends live in a “privileged world.” Our politicians, and not just the currrent administration, have cast a dark shadow over the future of America.
As long as jobs were plenty, and the economy was growing at a nice clip, the American people were more forgiving. The thinking was, “Political corruption is a fait accompli.”
However, if you take away the American people’s ability to support their families, if you cause the devaluation of their homes, if you steal away their children’s future., if you limit the people’s freedoms and thier social mobility, if you insult their dignity and quality of life, and you do all that at the same time, then the American people become desperate.
