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août 2005 : la pauvreté s'étend dans le pays à l'économie la plus puissante du monde ...

Fin août 2005, le Bureau national des statistiques (Census) des États-Unis recense 1,1 million de nouveaux pauvres aux Etats-Unis. Le nombre de pauvres atteint 37 millions en 2004 parmi lesquels 15,6 millions de " très pauvres" . Le seuil de pauvreté est fixé à 9 645 dollars de revenu annuel pour une personne seule, et à 19 307 dollars pour une famille de 4 personnes. Le taux de pauvreté chez les Noirs est plus élevé que dans les autres communautés. Le revenu moyen d'une famille noire est de 30 124 dollars par an, celui d'une famille d'origine asiatique de 57 518 dollars. Dans la population blanche, ce taux moyen est de 48 977 dollars par an. -
source : AFP


multiculturalisme, force ou faiblesse ?

Aux Etats-Unis, les communautés apparaissent de plus en plus en concurrence tout emploi attribué à un Mexicain ou à un Vietnamien devient un emploi de moins pour un Noir déjà surreprésenté parmi les rangs des chômeurs. Les tensions ethniques montent en puissance comme en témoignent ce que les Américains appellent les «crimes de haine», dont le nombre ne cesse d'augmenter.
Mais il y a aussi l'hypothèse plus optimiste qui fait des Etats-Unis une société multiraciale constituée de groupes différents se tolérant les uns les autres, pratiquant un multiculturalisme qui peut être un atout important de réussite. Le pays, en qualité de laboratoire de l'économie et de la culture planétaire, serait ainsi déjà une grande puissance du XXI° siècle.
Néanmoins, pour prétendre être une grande puissance, il faut aussi pouvoir s'appuyer sur un édifice cohérent et non amoindri par des fissures internes,

D'après Etats-Unis d'Amerique: frontières et régions. CRDP Nord -Pas-de-Calais - 1997.


Des emplois précaires.


Sur les millions d'emplois créés aux États-Unis, une majorité se sont révélés précaires ou à temps partiel : ces emplois ne bénéficient généralement d'aucune couverture sociale. De plus, les ouvriers américains bénéficient de beaucoup moins d'avantages que leurs homologues européens : deux semaines de congés payés, peu ou pas de formation permanente, pas de congé ni d'allocation grossesse, six mois d'allocation chômage, que ne touchent en réalité que la moitié des travailleurs concernés; près de 20 millions de salariés n'ont actuellement aucune couverture en matière de santé.

M.-F. Toinet, Le Monde Diplomatique, n° 31 - 1996.


Ségrégation et pauvreté dans les métropoles américaines


Washington et Baltimore ont dû céder le contrôle d'une partie de leurs services municipaux à une commission fédérale (Washington) ou à l'État du Maryland (Baltimore) : les deux cités sont devenues, avec la suburbanisation de l'habitat et de l'emploi, des villes de Noirs pauvres. En 1950, Washington comptait 802 000 habitants, soit 55 % de la population de son agglomération, et Baltimore 950000 (71 %). Aujourd'hui, avec des populations respectives de 543 000 et 675 000, elles ne pèsent plus que 12 % et 27 % de leurs agglomérations. Mais Washington abrite 60 % des Noirs pauvres de son aire métropolitaine et Baltimore 85 %. Le même phénomène se répète à Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphie, Detroit, Saint-Louis...
L'étalement sauvage des banlieues et la ségrégation raciale en sont responsables. L'aire métropolitaine combinée de Washington-Baltimore s'étend aujourd'hui sur 130 km du nord au sud et 190 km d'est en ouest, formant avec sept millions d'habitants la quatrième agglomération du pays. L'espace bâti s'est accru trois fois plus vite que la population. On construit plus de 40 % de maisons neuves en banlieue que la croissance démographique ne l'exige, car elles se vendent bien. EIles laissent derrière elles des bâtisses abandonnées au centre-ville, sauf dans les quartiers historiques de Georgetown (Washington) ou Felis Point (Baltimore) qui attirent une population qui a les moyens de réhabiliter les logements.

David Rusk, Washington Post, 18 mai 1997.


Le désengagement social de l'Etat

« La politique fédérale de désengagement de la ville est allée s'accélérant pour atteindre son summum sous les présidences successives de Reagan. Entre 1980 et 1988, les fonds alloués au logement social ont été réduits de 70%. Il en est allé de même pour l'aide sociale. Dans l'Etat de l'Illinois, par exemple, la valeur de l'allocation de base (pension pour mère seule avec enfants à charge) a diminué de moitié entre 1977 et 1988. »

L.J. D. Wacquant, F. Bourin Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales n°93, 1992


Paying People to Work, but Not Enough to Live

By BOB HERBERT article paru dans "The New York Times" September 16, 2002

Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book "Nickel and Dimed," showed how difficult it is for a worker in the United States to survive on wages of $6 to $7 an hour. It's almost impossible. And if that worker has a family to support, forget about it. Which is why so many low-wage workers are toiling away at two jobs, or three, or even more.

The plight of the American worker is easily overlooked when the nation is grappling with the threat of international terrorism and the possibility of war with Iraq. But ignoring the economic pressures faced by millions of struggling families carries its own long-term consequences.

It is wrong, in a land of plenty, to ask people to work full time for pay that is not enough to feed, clothe and house them. And yet we do it all the time. The minimum wage is a meager $5.15 an hour. And, according to the Economic Policy Institute, 14 million people are working for $7 an hour or less.

This national problem of grossly underpaid workers is at the heart of a labor struggle currently under way in New York City. The powerful health-care workers' union, which has the unwieldy title 1199/S.E.I.U., has called the nation's first strike by home health aides.

"These are among the lowest paid workers in New York State," said Dennis Rivera, the union's president. "They take care of the people who are dying, or are too infirm to feed themselves. But they're so impoverished they can't provide for their own families."

The home health aides, nearly all of them women, usually earn $6 or $7 an hour. In most cases they receive no benefits - no health care, no paid vacation, no sick days, no pensions. Mr. Rivera's union, which has recruited more than 15,000 home health aides in the city, has called a strike for Wednesday - the day after tomorrow - against Premier Home Health Care Services. Premier is a licensed agency that employs about 3,500 home health aides.

One of the odd things about this dispute is that Arthur Schwabe, the president of Premier, is just as quick and vehement as the union in asserting that the workers are not being paid what they're worth.

"It's horrible the way these folks are treated," said Mr. Schwabe, a subcontractor who pays the workers approximately $6.50 an hour and is reimbursed at a rate of approximately $11 an hour.

He said he would love to pay the workers more. "Why wouldn't I want to pay a person more money and benefits?" he said. "I'd have better retention and I'd have a better work force, a happier work force."

He would pay more, he said, if only the market would let him. But he concluded, "I think in order to be competitive in the marketplace our pricing needs to reflect what other licensed agencies charge."

Mr. Schwabe, who makes a handsome living sending the health care aides into the homes of the sick and the infirm, has come up with a proposal that would pit one group of impoverished workers against another.

He noted that in January Gov. George Pataki and the State Legislature approved funding for raises for the state's personal care workers, a group that does similar tasks but is separate from the home health aides who work for private agencies. The personal care workers are also represented by 1199.

Mr. Schwabe said the best way to give raises to the home health aides would be to give them some of the money that is supposed to go to the personal care workers.

How likely is that? There is more of a chance that the sun will come up in the west tomorrow. But even if it could happen, it shouldn't. The personal care workers make about $7.25 an hour, and their raise in the first year would only be 50 cents to 75 cents an hour.

Mr. Schwabe would dilute that very modest increase by spreading the money to thousands of additional workers, giving tiny raises - raises so small they would effectively be worthless - to everybody.

"It's true," he said, "that I would like to see the funds distributed equally amongst all the workers."

In "Nickel and Dimed," Ms. Ehrenreich said that "employers resist wage increases with every trick they can think of and every ounce of strength they can summon."

As Wednesday's strike deadline nears, Mr. Schwabe - who admits that his workers are underpaid - is doing his heroic best to further that venerable tradition.


More Americans in Poverty in 2002, Census Study Says

By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 2003

The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, and the median household income declined by 1.1 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. The worsening economic conditions fell heaviest on Midwesterners and nonwhites.

(...)

The data, results of the Census Bureau's annual Current Population Survey, the official barometer for measuring income and poverty rates, showed that lingering negative effects of the recent recession cut across a broad swath of the population.

The official poverty rate rose to 12.1 percent in 2002 from 11.7 percent the year before, bringing to total number of people living below the poverty line to 34.6 million.

The median household earned income fell $500 over the same period to $42,400. Per capita income declined by 1.8 in 2002 to $22,794, the first decline since 1991.

(...)

"This is sad news that the Bush administration is trying to sweep under the rug," said Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, a Democratic presidential candidate. "I'd like to hear President Bush explain to all the single mothers with kids living in poverty how his tax breaks for the rich are helping them."

(...)

The Midwest was the only area of the country to have a significant increase in poverty rates, rising to 10.3 percent from 9.4 percent a year earlier. Real median income declined 2 percent in the region, with drops in important battleground states in next year's presidential election, including Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio.

Among racial groups African-Americans suffered the worst increases in poverty, after several years of economic progress in the 1990's. The poverty rate among blacks rose to 24.1 percent from 22.7 percent a year earlier. Median income for blacks fell 3 percent.

Other racial and ethnic groups also saw significant decreases in median income, which declined 4.5 percent for Asians, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and 2.9 percent for Hispanics, a group that Mr. Bush has been courting.

(...)

The poverty threshold for a family of four is $18,392. For individuals the amount is $9,183. The percentage of people in severe poverty, those with incomes below half of the poverty threshold, increased to 14.1 million from 13.4 million.

Liberal economists took the position that any increase in poverty was too high, given the relative prosperity of the country. Many also criticized policy shifts, which they said reduced the social safety net for the poor, like reductions in child care assistance and reduced unemployment insurance benefits.

"We would all expect poverty go up some in an economic downturn," said Robert Greenstein, executive director for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. "But misplaced priorities by Congress and the president are making the increase in poverty larger than it needs to be."

(...)

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More U.S. Families Hungry or Too Poor to Eat, Study Says

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 2, 2003


WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (AP) - Despite the nation's struggle with obesity, the Agriculture Department says, more and more American families are hungry or unsure whether they can afford to buy food.

About 12 million families last year worried that they did not have enough money for food, and 32 percent of them experienced someone's going hungry at one time or another, the agency said in a report released on Friday.

Nearly 3.8 million families were hungry last year to the point that someone in the household skipped meals because the family could not afford them. That is 8.6 percent more families than in 2001, when 3.5 million were hungry, and a 13 percent increase from 2000.

(...)

The survey also found more families who were unsure if they could buy food or did not have enough food in their cupboards. Last year, 11 percent of 108 million families were in that situation. That is up 5 percent from 2001 and 8 percent from 2000.

Most poor families struggling with hunger tried to ensure that their children were fed, the report said. Nonetheless, one or more children in an estimated 265,000 families occasionally missed meals last year because the families either could not afford to eat or did not have enough food at home. The report estimated there were 567,000 hungry children in all.

(...)

In the United States, 65 percent of adults and 13 percent of children are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Barbara Laraia, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said hunger and obesity could coexist because many hungry families buy high-calorie foods that are low in nutrients.

"They're dependent on foods that are going to make their bellies feel full, rather than on nutrients," Ms. Laraia said. "The diet is compromised."

Many families will spend their incomes on fixed expenses before buying food.

"Food is the most elastic part of the budget," Ms. Laraia said, "meaning that's what households will compromise on when they have fixed payments such as their rent and their utilities."


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