Free Republic

Despite Germany’s prosperous image, the country faces a widening income gap and growing outrage over “breadline wages” for the working poor, reports AFP’s Arnaud Bouvier. Germany's image is often of a prosperous country with autobahns chock-a-block with Mercedes and BMW cars. But for more than one million Germans, wages are so low they cannot get by without welfare. The fate of the country's 3.6 million unemployed (8.6 percent of the population) often figures prominently among the concerns of politicians. But that of the working poor – a hairdresser earning €3 ($4.50) an hour, or a security guard earning €748 ($1,137)...

WASHINGTON -- The IRS is making a big push this year to make sure certain taxpayers know they can take the earned income tax credit, a benefit for lower income workers and working families that goes unclaimed by up to 25 percent of those who are eligible.The EITC is intended to offset a portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes, thus boosting take-home income in low-wage jobs and providing an incentive to work. It's a "refundable" credit, meaning that after it is figured against your tax liability, the IRS sends you any money you're due.For 2007 tax returns, the maximum...

President Bush’s latest attempt to salvage the Immigration Bill has made it crystal clear that there is indeed a political class of those we elect, who blatantly ignore the wishes of the electorate. Despite the overwhelming outcry against the bill in its present form, the president and many members of Congress seem determined to pass a collection of glued-together agendas, which are far from being a comprehensive solution. The Senate responded to the outcry by voting to not end debate, which prompted Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, to pull the bill from the floor for the time being. That...

Thousands struggle in the shadow of affluence The signs of poverty are everywhere in Long Beach, if you care to look. By Greg Mellen, Staff writer LONG BEACH - Take a walk in Long Beach and what do you see? Stray from the palm-lined streets by the ocean shore, the bustling hubs at Pine Avenue, the Pike or Belmont Shore; leave the manicured lawns of the Virginia Country Club area or the Bixby neighborhoods, and there's another Long Beach. It is the Long Beach that struggles daily to make the rent, rather than the one that plops down a fortune...

The nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The percentage of people without health insurance did not change. Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

The working poor also have a tenuous relationship with the big-screen. Conservative critics might see the presence of a big-screen in a dilapidated tract house as a product of misguided spending; for liberals, it could merely represent inchoate class longings. In a heartbreaking example that would satisfy both camps, the Los Angeles Times profiled a family of four—total income: $19,000—who had driven themselves to the brink of insolvency by buying a big-screen TV. In 1998, a Business Week writer described his amazement upon entering the house of a down-at-heels Massachusetts woman: "I beheld the trappings of upper-middle-class comfort. The big-screen...

Brenda Ellis's day begins at 6:30 a.m., when she rousts her 11-year-old son, Imani, from bed, hustles him into the kitchen for breakfast and to the school bus by 7. Tianna, 13, and Dikia, 17, quickly follow. Then she's off, some days to a substitute-teaching job in Prince George's County, others to tax clinics for the working poor, where she is earning credit for a hoped-for career in accounting. If it's a school night for her, Ellis, 41, rushes home to her Landover apartment to quickly fix dinner before bolting out at 5:45 p.m. for the half-hour drive to Strayer...

Forty years ago a young, radical journalist helped ignite the War on Poverty with his pioneering book The Other America. In its pages, Michael Harrington warned that the recently proclaimed age of affluence was a mirage, that beneath the surface of U.S. prosperity lay tens of millions of people stuck in hopeless poverty that only massive government intervention could help. Today, a new generation of journalists is straining to duplicate Harrington's feat—to convince contemporary America that its economic system doesn't work for millions and that only government can lift them out of poverty. These new journalists face a tougher task...

BY THE TIME my mother, sister and I joined my father in America in 1976, he had saved $6,000 after two years of working as a violinist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. His salary was $11,000 (that’s $36,000 in today’s dollars). The former Soviet dissident considered himself lucky. The $6,000 ($19,600 today) was enough for a down payment on a house in the suburbs, and his salary managed to support a family of four. We had a car — a 1966 Plymouth my dad bought for $60. When Mom started working as a computer programmer at $9,000, our cup was...

Summary: Census data show that most people who are working are not poor and most people who are poor are not working.

<p>THE WORKING POOR Sun Apr 25, 9:40 AM ET Add Top Stories - Chicago Tribune to My Yahoo!</p> <p>The food line begins to form during the sunrise chill, more than two hours before the metal gates to the Care United Methodist Outreach pantry open.</p>

Welfare Rolls Drop Again, Says HHS 3/30/2004 10:35:00 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: ACF Press Office, 202-401-9215 WASHINGTON, March 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced the number of families and individuals receiving assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program continues to decline and urged the United States Senate to act quickly to reauthorize the landmark welfare reform program. There were 2,006,597 families receiving TANF cash benefits in September 2003, the most recent month for which data are available. The total represents a 1.2 percent decline from June 2003 and a...

<p>LOS ANGELES — Homelessness and hunger has increased an average of 16 percent annually for the last 15 years, according to a recent study by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (search), while the Census Bureau (search) has found the number of poor increasing slightly last year, to 35 million.</p>

Working Poor Worry About Losing Homes BOISE - Idaho lawmakers are hearing from the working poor, who believe the state is threatening them with losing their homes. The Idaho Community Action Network was at the Statehouse Friday protesting the lien law, that places a lien on anyone who doesn't pay for indigent medical care. The group is trying to get the lien law removed from state law books. "The way the law is set up, " said Sharon Cayler with the Idaho Community Action Network "they put a lien on your property before they ever make a payment." County...

WASHINGTON: It's difficult to pin down the exact numbers, but most nutrition experts agree that on any one day, about 13 million children go hungry across the United States. For older children, the situation improves during the school year when many receive free or reduced-price lunches. But when the schools close, like they did in the Washington region and up and down the East Coast recently because of heavy snow, these children - instead of cheering over the free day off - must put up with emptier stomachs than usual, child advocates say. Even more worrisome to people who help...

It may be too early in this election year to determine which will be the biggest of the Big Lies in this political campaign. However, my feeling is that it may be "the working poor." While there are working people who are poor, most poor people are not working full time, not working very long, or not working at all. These are not matters of opinion. Census data make it unmistakably clear. When it comes to full-time year-around workers, there are more heads of households who fall into that category in the top 5 percent of income earners than in...

It may be too early in this election year to determine which will be the biggest of the Big Lies in this political campaign. However, my feeling is that it may be "the working poor." While there are working people who are poor, most poor people are not working full time, not working very long, or not working at all.These are not matters of opinion. Census data make it unmistakably clear. When it comes to full-time year-around workers, there are more heads of households who fall into that category in the top 5 percent of income earners than in the...

The poor keep getting poorer Jim Behnke Sierra Vista Herald/Review Opinion When I was a kid, we only had one parent working - my dad - and we always seemed to have enough. Not plenty, but enough. This is particularly amazing in view of the fact that my dad was a preacher - you know how they overpay those guys - and had five children. Today it seems both parents have to work full time, and even then lots of families barely scrape by. The latest issue of Time magazine has a book review about this subject. The book was...

July 7, 2002 Money hungry: FOOD for Lane County considers distribution fees, other ways to pump up its sagging bottom line By SUSAN PALMER The Register-Guard TONYA HALEY went through the Creswell emergency food box line selecting lettuce, tomatoes, bananas, bread and milk. The stay-at-home mother of four needs help feeding her family. And it's not that her husband lacks a decent job. He works as a registered nurse at an Albany hospital. The simple fact is, his $20-an-hour salary doesn't stretch all the way across the monthly bills. Until last November, Haley worked, too, as a clerk in a...