With Poverty Up and Middle Class Income Down, Sanders Says It’s Time to End Tax Breaks for the Rich
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/11768Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 09/18/2010 - 10:43am.
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
The following is a news release from the office of Senator Bernie Sanders, also a BuzzFlash reader.
Forty-four million people in the United States, one in seven Americans, lived in poverty in 2009. The number increased 4 million from the year before, the Census Bureau reported today.
“While poverty is increasing and the middle class is declining, it is incomprehensible to me that Senate Republicans are pushing for more tax breaks for the rich,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. “Senate Republicans should not be allowed to hold middle class tax cuts hostage in order to give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires – especially when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider.”
Measuring the impact of the worst recession since the 1930s, the stark statistical snapshot by the Census Bureau showed that the median income of all families declined by $337 from 2008 to 2009, and well below the levels of the late 1990s, another sign that Americans are working for lower wages. Middle-class families have seen their incomes go down by over $2,600 over the past decade going from $52,388 in 1999 to $49,777 in 2009 after adjusting for inflation. Middle-class families earned more income in 1998 than they did in 2009.