[Mb-civic] Working for a Pittance....and the world prefers Kerry

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

October 8, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST 
Working for a Pittance
By BOB HERBERT
 
Reality keeps rearing its ugly head. The Bush administration's case for the 
war in Iraq has completely fallen apart, as evidenced by the report this week 
from the president's handpicked inspector that Iraq had destroyed its illicit 
weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's.

Coming next week are the results of a new study that shows - here at home - 
how tough a time American families are having in their never-ending struggle 
to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. The White House, 
as deep in denial about the economy as it is about Iraq, insists that things are 
fine - despite the embarrassing fact that President Bush is on track to 
become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of 
jobs during his four years in office.

The study, jointly sponsored by the Annie E. Casey, Ford and Rockefeller 
Foundations, will show that 9.2 million working families in the United States - 
one out of every four - earn wages that are so low they are barely able to 
survive financially.

"Our data is very solid and shows that this is a much bigger problem than 
most people imagine," said Brandon Roberts, one of the authors of the 
report, which is to be formally released on Tuesday. The report found that 
there are 20 million children in these low-income working families.

For the purposes of the study, any family in which at least one person was 
employed was considered a working family. Very wealthy families were 
included.

The median income for a family of four in the U.S. is $62,732. According to 
the study, a family of four earning less than $36,784 is considered low-
income. A family of four earning less than $18,392 is considered poor. The 
9.2 million struggling families cited by the report fell into one of the latter two 
categories. And those families have one-third of all the children in American 
working families.

Not surprisingly, the problem for millions of families is that they have jobs that 
pay very low wages and provide no benefits. "Consider the motel 
housekeeper, the retail clerk at the hardware store or the coffee shop cook," 
the report said. "If they have children, chances are good that their families 
are living on an income too low to provide for their basic needs."

Neither politicians nor the media put much of a spotlight on families that are 
struggling economically. According to the study, one in five workers are in 
occupations where the median wage is less than $8.84 an hour, which is a 
poverty-level wage for a family of four. A full-time job at the federal minimum 
wage of $5.15 an hour is not even sufficient to keep a family of three out of 
poverty.

Families with that kind of income are teetering on the edge of an economic 
abyss. Any misfortune might push them over the edge - an illness, an 
automobile breakdown, even something as seemingly minor as a flooded 
basement.

For the families in these lower-income brackets, life is often a harrowing day-
to-day struggle to pay for the bare necessities. According to federal 
government statistics, the median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment 
in major metropolitan markets is more than $8,000. The annual cost of food 
for a low-income family of four is nearly $4,000. Utility bills are nearly $2,000. 
Transportation costs are about $1,500. And then there are costs for child 
care, health care and clothing.

You do the math. How are these millions of poor and low-income families 
making it?

(A lot of those families are going to get a shock this winter as price increases 
for crude oil get translated into big jumps in home heating bills.)

The economy relies heavily on the services provided by low-wage workers 
but, as the report notes, "our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure 
that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, 
no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient."

Mr. Roberts said he hoped the study, titled "Working Hard, Falling Short," 
would help initiate a national discussion of the plight of families who are doing 
the right thing but not earning enough to get ahead. "Seventy-one percent of 
low-income families work," he said. More than half are headed by married 
couples. But economic self-sufficiency remains maddeningly out of reach.

Even in a presidential election year, these matters have not been explored in 
any sustained way. We're quick to give lip service to the need to work hard, 
but very slow to properly reward hard work. 


E-mail: bobherb at nytimes.com


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company 



-----

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/politics/campaign/15CND-
POLL.html?ex=1098892840&ei=1&en=5df46107b532a6ab

International Poll Finds Support Ebbing for U.S. Policy
By PATRICK E. TYLER

Published: October 15, 2004


ONDON, Oct. 15 — It is getting down to the wire and the rest of the world is 
still trying to elbow its way into the American presidential election.

With the professed goal of showing how the United States "is perceived by 
the rest of the world," 10 leading newspapers around the globe today 
published the results of public opinion surveys in their countries, where 
residents in eight of them said they strongly favored Senator John Kerry in 
the race for the White House.

 
The surveys also found that opinions of the United States had worsened 
during President Bush's tenure in each of the countries except Israel. 

"Clearly, if the world had a vote, the result on Nov. 2 would not be in doubt," 
The Guardian said in an editorial on the polling result.

The surveys found that while a majority of opinion in those countries is still 
strongly disposed toward Americans in general, and that 80 to 90 percent of 
respondents said it was important to maintain good relations with the United 
States, there was sharp disagreement with American foreign policy under 
President Bush, as other international surveys have found.

In Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Spain, France and Canada, 
residents said the United States was wrong to have invaded Iraq. And by 
large margins, those surveyed in Canada (86 percent to 11 percent), Britain 
(73-17), Mexico (66-30) and South Korea ( 87-11) said the United States 
wielded excessive influence on international affairs.

Organized by the newspaper La Presse in Montreal, the surveys were 
conducted in Britain, France, Spain, Russia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, 
Mexico, Canada and Australia, a sampling of countries with strong historical 
ties or alliances with the United States. 

Support for President Bush was strongest in Israel and Russia, according to 
the polling in those countries, with 50 percent of Israelis favoring Mr. Bush's 
re-election and 24 percent favoring Mr. Kerry. In Russia, Mr. Bush was a 52-
48 favorite.

But elsewhere, Mr. Kerry was a strong favorite, leading in percentage terms 
among Britons by 50-22, Mexicans by 55-20, Japanese by 51-30, South 
Koreans by 68-18 and among the French by 72-16. 

The Guardian newspaper, which participated in the survey in Britain, pointed 
out that while Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry had emerged from their three debates 
neck and neck in the contest for votes in America, the rest of the world "has 
already made up its mind," said an editorial. 

But the newspaper went on to note with some concern that young Britons 
were turning against Britain's strongest ally in large numbers, pointing out 
that among Britons under 25, some 77 percent express a dislike for Mr. 
Bush.

"Young Britons, avid consumers of Big Macs, Starbucks and `Friends,' are 
now hostile to American culture on a scale traditionally associated with the 
French," The Guardian asserted.

The surveys were similar, but not identical. Most were conducted in late 
September and early October, but the Russian survey, for instance, was 
conducted between Sept. 3 and Sept. 10 among 1,050 Russian respondents. 
The survey samples varied in size from 522 in Israel to 1,417 in Australia. 
Not all of the questions were identical, but pollsters in each country all 
reported results for the first five questions relating to support for Mr. Bush 
and Mr. Kerry. Margins of error varied from 2.6 percent (Australia) to 4.38 
percent (Israel).

In an e-mail message this week to newspaper editors participating in the poll, 
Jean-Pascal Beaupré, the assistant managing editor of La Presse, said, 
"Thanks to you, people from around the globe will know how the United 
States are perceived by the rest of the world, two weeks before the U.S. 
presidential election."

The home affairs editor of The Guardian, Alan Travis, said the editors 
decided to participate as a means of communicating world views to 
Americans.

"We are acutely conscious that the outcome of the American election has an 
impact on the rest of us," he said. "If we can articulate the views of the 
outside world to the American political debate, that is a useful addition to the 
quality of democracy." 

On the other hand, he acknowledged, "Some might regard it as outside 
interference, but the rest of the world should get a chance to be heard."

The newspapers that commissioned polls for the survey included Le Monde 
in France, Asahi Shimbun in Japan, JoongAng Ilbo in South Korea, Reforma 
in Mexico, Ha'aretz in Israel, the Moscow News in Russia and El Pais in 
Spain.

The polling confirmed the results of other international surveys that have 
plotted a decline in support for American foreign policy and a worsening view 
of the Bush administration. 

"In recent years, the perception of the United States among many Koreans 
has changed drastically," wrote Young Hie Kim of JoongAng Ilbo in South 
Korea. "This is especially the case for the younger generation."

South Korea is among America's strongest allies in Asia since the Korean 
War, and Washington continues to guarantee the country's security with the 
deployment of more than 30,000 troops there.

"Less a benevolent friend, the United States is seen as a hegemonic power 
that takes unilateral military action without regard to enormous 
consequences," he added. 

At the same time, Israelis by a margin of 2 to 1 expressed their support for 
Mr. Bush. 

Shmuel Rosner, a columnist for Ha'aretz, summed it up as: "Israel loves the 
U.S. president because he holds the umbrella that protects it from its 
enemies."

In Russia, the survey was conducted in the wake of the terror attack on the 
school in Beslan, and Mr. Bush was seen as a strong supporter of President 
Vladimir Putin in antiterror efforts.


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