Poverty at a glance
by David Atkins
Slate has become such a hub for conventional wisdom disguised as faux contrarianism that it often veers into self-parody. Hence, it has turned from a regular stop on my daily readings to an also-ran if I feel I've exhausted everything else worthwhile.
Still, the site does manage to produce some great content now and again, and this interactive map showing county-by-county poverty rates is one of them. As they say:
It’s hardly news that the Great Recession pushed millions of Americans into poverty. In 2010, “poverty” meant having an income of less than $22,113 for a family of four; 15.1 percent of Americans were below that line. As this map shows, some areas of the country fared worse than others between 2007 and 2010. While some counties saw their poverty rates increase only slightly, and some even saw them drop, the number of people under the poverty line in Oregon’s Malheur County doubled to nearly two-fifths of its population. And those “bright spots” that appear as dark blue? Look closer—a full 6-point improvement in South Dakota’s Ziebach County still left more than one-half its residents below the poverty line. And even the poverty rate itself understates the privation in the country.
Click through to the map to see the devastating toll the recession has taken on communities all across America.
Keep in mind that this recession was created by the greed of the Wall Street elites, and then contrast the poverty figures on the map with the income inequality figures here.
It's almost enough to make one wish for a 1789-style revolution, if it weren't for the indiscriminate blood in the streets and the minor problem of the autocracy that usually follows in the wake of such things. Still, there comes a point at which the inequality and injustice gets so bad that the instinct to right the scales becomes strong enough to overwhelm our reason. Perhaps the wealthy believe they'll be able to take a jet to Dubai when that time comes. But human history suggests that most will wait until it's too late, being far too cocky and comfortable at home.
If and when that time comes, they'll wish they hadn't tried to extract every last farthing for their own enrichment, or so thin-skinned at even muted criticism of their wanton greed. But it will have been too late.
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