Brownwood Poverty & Pocketbooks..........
More in U.S. fall into poverty
Average salary stays same in Census survey
By Mary Deibel / Scripps Howard News Service
August 31, 2005
Despite robust economic growth and record corporate profits, the average American household's income held steady at $44,400 for the third straight year in 2004, the government reported Tuesday.
Another 1.1 million Americans fell into poverty last year, bringing the total to 37 million people living below the poverty line, defined as $19,307 for a family of four, the Census Bureau said in its 2004 income and poverty report. The poverty rate was 12.7 percent last year, up from 11.3 percent in 2000 before the beginning of the last recession.
The Texas poverty rate was 16.5 percent in 2004, up from the poverty rate of 15.4 reported by Census 2000. Texas' 2004 poverty rate ties it with New Mexico for the fifth-highest rate in the nation.
''Texas has traditionally been in the bottom 10th,'' said Steve Murdock, the Texas state demographer at the Texas State Data Center in San Antonio. ''I think it's because we have a diverse population and a history of discrimination against minorities. Certainly immigration plays a role. Immigrants to Texas tend to have lower incomes and tend not to have educated backgrounds.''
Murdock predicted that the percentage of Texans who live below the poverty line will continue to rise, at least in the short term.
Frances Deviney, a senior research associate with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, agreed.
''I think it's a safe assumption that the poverty rate in Texas will continue to increase,'' Deviney said. ''We've lost a lot of jobs that we had 20 years ago, good blue-collar jobs, and we've outsourced a lot of jobs.''
CPPP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank dedicated to improving public policy and private practices for the economic and social betterment of low-income and moderate-income Texans, according to its Web site.
source: http://reporter-news.com/abil/nw_state/article/0,1874,ABIL_7974_4043403,00.html
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CEO pay: Sky high gets even higher
A new report shows top-dog pay bites shareholders, and alleges war profiteering among some CEOs.
August 30, 2005: 12:24 PM EDT
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money senior writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – If sky-high executive pay at publicly traded companies gives you vertigo, you might want to read this sitting down.
In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to "Executive Excess," an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies.
That's not the highest ever. In 2001, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay hit a peak of 525-to-1.
Still, it's quite a leap year over year, and it ranks on the high end historically. In 1990, for instance, CEOs made about 107 times more than the average worker, while in 1982, the average CEO made only 42 times more.
The cumulative pay of the top 10 highest paid CEOs in the past 15 years totaled $11.7 billion.
And though the specific individuals in each of those annual top 10 lists changed year to year, many bosses did pretty well throughout the entire period. Citigroup's Sandy Weill, for example, has made $1.1 billion since 1990.
"Pay" in this instance refers to total compensation – including salary, bonuses, restricted stock awards, payouts on long-term incentives and the value of options exercised during the year.
The report also compares the growth in average CEO pay – which was $11.8 million in 2004 – to the growth in the minimum wage. Had the minimum wage risen as fast as CEO compensation since 1990, the researchers calculated, it would now be $23.03 an hour instead of just $5.15. And the average production worker would be making $110,126 a year instead of $27,460.
to read the entire article go to: http://www.rawstory.org/
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