The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
THE AMERICAN DREAM
"More than one in ten Americans, or 36.5 million people, live in poverty in the United States, with children and blacks the worst hit, an annual report by the US Census Bureau showed Tuesday. According to the report, around 12.8 million children under the age of 18, or around one-third of the poor, existed in 2006 on incomes below the threshold used by the Census Bureau to determine who lives in poverty. The number of children without health insurance swelled by 700,000 in 2006 compared with the previous year, according to the report, which also showed that the total number of Americans without health coverage had risen by three million to 47 million." (Yahoo News, 28 August) The USA is the richest country in the world, but even there the so-called American Dream for many of its citizens is more like a nightmare. RD
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Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patria...
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The data reveals continued inequality and concentration of wealth in the United States, with the top 20 percent of households receiving over 50 percent of the nation's income, while the lowest 20 percent got just a little over 3 percent.
According to the data, more than 8 percent of non-Hispanic whites, about 10 percent of Asians, over 20 percent of Hispanics, and some 24 percent of African Americans are "poor."
The data shows that more than 28 percent of women raising their children without husbands are condemned to suffer from poverty.
Recent studies point out that over 23 million Americans seek emergency food each year. 13 million American children worry where their next meal is coming from "because their parents do not earn enough to pay for food, rent, heat, health care, and transportation."
Currently the U.S. government spends about $720 million a day on the war in Iraq.
American dream , or American nightmare for many
http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20070831/wl_oneworld/45361528041188602495;_ylt=AkHYgpPGgWncKJZdvZ6IGFiEDvII
47 million Americans had no access to health insurance.Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaska natives are three times more likely than whites to lack access to medical care.
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