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-- 43% with at least one minority parent households were low-income, nearly double the percentage for white families at 22%;
-- income inequality kept growing with the richest 20% earning 47% of all income, 10 times that of lowest earners;
-- the number of children in low-income families rose by over 700,000 from 2008, one third of all children in the country; and
-- according to recent Pew Research Center data, 55% of America's labor force "suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers" since December 2007.
As a result, many middle class families "fell into the low income trap," their numbers growing annually. In addition, unemployment and underemployment hit hard, especially with fewer better-paying full-time jobs, offshored to cheap labor markets or not available because companies cut payrolls to increase profits.
Measuring the full impact on working families is hard to gauge because broader social, economic, structural, and demographic factors are at work, many predating the current crisis, making current conditions worse.
At the same time, Wall Street and other corporate favorites got trillions of dollars in handouts. The largest ever defense appropriation bill passed (officially $725 billion, but, in fact, around double that amount, including supplementary add-ons, black budgets and more), and America's aristocracy got a holiday stocking-stuffer worth the lion share of Obama's yearend tax cut of up to $1 trillion by some estimates.
In contrast, temporary unemployment benefits were extended, and a destructive 2% payroll tax was enacted, a stealth scheme to drain hundreds of billions from the Social Security Trust Fund to wreck it and destroy the system altogether. At the same time, 2011 austerity cuts are planned, hitting entitlements hard when they should be generously increased.
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