The below is a bulletin I recieved on MySpace from A Crazy Idea:
A Crazy Idea and Youth Against Poverty have teamed up to form a coalition to end poverty in America, and they need your help!
The numbers are staggering. Today 37 million Americans live in a state of poverty, hunger and hardship. That’s more than last year, More than ever before. But one by one, working together, we can reverse the trend. For the fourth consecutive year, the poverty rate and the number of Americans living in poverty both rose from the prior years. Since 2000, the number of poor Americans has grown by more than 6 million. The official poverty rate in 2004 (the most current year for which figures are available) was 12.7 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2003. Total Americans below the official poverty thresholds numbered 37 million, a figure 1.1 million higher than the 35.9 million in poverty in 2003. The U.S. Census Bureau defines poor families as those with cash incomes of less than $15,067 a year for a family of three or $19,307 for a family of four. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004) On average, more than one out of every three Americans – 37 percent of all people in the United States – are officially classified as living in poverty at least 2 months out of the year. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004)
The number of Americans living in severe poverty – with incomes below half of the poverty line – remained the same at 15.6 million. (U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004)
A single parent of two young children working full-time in a minimum wage job for a year would make $10,712 before taxes – a wage $4,355 below the poverty threshold set by the federal government. (U.S. Department of Labor; U.S. Census Bureau.) About 40 percent of poor single-parent, working mothers who paid for child care paid at least half of their income for child care; an additional 25 percent of these families paid between 40 and 50 percent of their incomes for child care. (Child Trends, 2001.)
More than two-thirds of all poor families with children included one or more individuals who worked in 2003. Whats more, family members in working-poor families with children typically worked combined totals of 46 weeks per year.
We can end this now! As Americans we have a duty to stand up for those citizens who are suffering in our own country. Learn more on how you can change your own country and change the world. Get involved! Some tips on where to start: Write a letter to your local newspaper, alerting the editors to the information you’ve learned about poverty in America, and what is being done to eliminate it. Submit an article to the newsletter published by your church, synagogue, mosque or house of worship about poverty in your community, and about successful initiatives that are bringing long-term results. Follow local politics, and tell your local elected officials that you support policies aimed at permanent solutions to poverty in your community and your nation. Question candidates on their plans to address poverty in your state and nation, vote your conscience — and hold politicians to their promises if elected.