Blue Lyon has a great post up called ’employed but not getting by’
about living wages,etc. In it she uses the most recent census
calculation for the percentage of people who live in poverty, 14.6% is
the amount I believe. But (and I’m not criticizing Blue Lyon’s
research, but the census numbers) I’m pretty sure that we were at 17%
in 2007 or earlier. So either my brain is fuzzy (entirely possible) or
at the same exact time that we have record levels of disemployment,
shrinking wages and what little work is available is part-time, we’ve
also managed to cut poverty by almost 3%. That’s a fucking
miracle.That might even be better than Clinton’s record on poverty
amelioration. (As I type this I’m also remembering an 11.5% or 35
million people being floated about that time period, which means a 3%
increase or 10 million new members of the lowest class).