Poverty

Two days ago, I had the amazing privilege of watching loggerhead turtle hatchlings scramble from a nest on Emerald Isle into the breaking waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Ninety turtles made the trip in all, but I only saw the last four. They were helped out of their nest and scootched along, sort of, by the Turtle Rescue people.

Three of the four came out of their nest and charged ahead like hell on wheels, heading straight for the ocean without even the hint of distraction. But then there was the fourth one, the one that spent half its time heading the wrong way and wandering around like a lost soul. The first three made it to the ocean (not the safety of the ocean, just the ocean) in less than five minutes. The fourth took twenty minutes. It was exhausting.

I have always been intrigued by the seemingly random nature of drug pricing and was inspired by a recent NPR story about Genentech to find a way to fill the Medicare Part D donut hole. It seems Genentech has a conundrum. It recently won approval for Lucentis, a drug to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which costs $1,950 per treatment. At the same time eye doctors have been treating AMD in patients with small off-label doses of Avastin, another Genentech drug approved to treat colon cancer. The cost for the amount of Avastin used for AMD is $50 per treatment.

While surfing the anti-Blue blogs, I came across World Can't Wait's website, in which they call for a massive protest on Oct. 5th.

They basically stand for doing something now about Bush and Company, before the 2008 election, and that Democrats will not save the country.

You can read the ad they took out in the New York Times yesterday here. (pdf)

So my question is this. Is this a legitimate avenue to express dissent against our current government? Or is it just of anarchist idiots trying to take advantage of democracy?

The NC Conservation Network is posting a series on poverty and the environment:

Inspired by a recent seven week series on Grist online magazine on poverty and the environment, we will launch a weeklong discussion of the topic “Poverty and the Environment in NC” on our blog starting Monday April 24. Here’s a preview of what’s to come...

Our own Grady McCallie will start things off with an analysis of the link between poverty and environmental issues in North Carolina. Then three grassroots activists, Kathy Knight, Frank Warren, and Hope Taylor-Guevara, will be adding their thoughts.

The North Carolina Conservation Network is launching a series on poverty and the environment in North Carolina starting next week. Their preview is here. It should be an interesting series, go check it out.

A number of North Carolina groups are starting a fair wage campaign today. Facing South has a post on these events here:

This week, a coalition of groups including ACORN, the NC Justice Center, and Institute for Southern Studies are launching a new coalition: North Carolinians for Fair Wages. The coalition's immediate goal is to pass an 85 cent increase in the state minimum wage in 2006, which has a very good chance of passing.

Among the events:

NEWS CONFERENCE

Robert started our week with his piece on Medicaid. I thought I would include my take on it to start our weekend.

A program essential to the health, even the survival of many of our most vulnerable citizens has been targeted for massive cuts by the Bush administration and the Republicans in congress. The poor, the elderly and disabled children will be particularly affected by these cuts and in many states are in a more tenuous situation than ever before. These groups may fare a bit better in North Carolina than in other states, but the possibility of a negative impact looms in the future.

Keep reading . . .

From Yes! Weekly:

Half of North Carolina families with children don’t earn sufficient income to pay for basic expenses, according to a new report by the Raleigh-based NC Justice Center.

“Failing Jobs, Falling Wages: The 2005 North Carolina Living Income Standard,” authored by John Quinterno and Elizabeth Jordan and released on Dec. 8, found that a majority of North Carolina children, blacks, Hispanics and women — practically every demographic except white males — live in households where income falls short of the cost of living.

“What we’re finding is that families are carrying a heavier burden because childcare and housing costs are increasing,” Legislative Director Sorien Schmidt said. “Median incomes are falling and more families are in poverty.”

I was just browsing NC Policy Watch's website and came across this study by the NC Budget & Tax Center (PDF). I'll post a few facts and figures below the fold, but the quick summary is that North Carolinians aren't getting any richer while the world around us gets more expensive.

• Half of all NC full time workers in 2000 made less than $24,246. Half of all NC full time workers in 2004 made less than... $24,246.
• What would you do with $2,800? Don't think too hard, because chances are you don't have it to spare. The median household income fell $2,806 between 2000 and 2004. That's a drop from 91.4% of the national average to 88.5%. I guess our $2,800 is off in some other state.
• The percentage of North Carolinians living in poverty rose from 13.2 to 15.1 between 2000 and 2004. 15.1% is about one in every seven people. With about 8 million people living in the state, 15.1% is about 1.2 million people. By comparison, the entire combined population of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point is about 1.3 million people.
• 14.9% of families with children under the age of five years lived in poverty in 2000. In 2004 it was 21.2%. One of every five children under the age of 18 lives in poverty.
• 14.1% of North Carolinians had no health insurance in 2000. By 2004, another 2.4% joined that group.
• The average man in North Carolina earns less than his counterparts in each of the other southeastern states; the average woman fares better than only those in West Virginia and South Carolina.

There is also data suggesting that Raleigh is doing unusually well, with a median household income near $50,000. On the whole, however, North Carolinians are worse off than they were in 2000, and "the data suggest that recent trends are not temporary ones caused by the last recession." What does all this mean? I'm no economist, but it seems to me that in times like these, we desperately need a government that is tuned in to the concerns of the working class. The rich, I'm sure, will take care of themselves.

This is embarrassing. North Carolina is tied for fourth among states with the most hungry families at 4.9%. We are only doing better than Oklahoma (lots of reservations that are difficult to serve), Arkansas, and South Carolina. While the reason for North Carolina's place on the list are unclear, the loss of manufacturing jobs certainly plays a role. But regardless of the reason, this is unacceptable. Certainly the progressive agenda to allieviate poverty will help, but for 1 out of 20 North Carolinians it cannot happen soon enough.