The Bush Boom
continues, with second quarter economic growth at a higher than expected annual rate of 4 percent.
*sigh*
So easy....
From AP via
The Houston Chronicle:
The median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. But the number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million.
Evelyn Brodkin, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said she expects the rising number of people without insurance to get more attention in the campaign. The share of Americans without health insurance hit 15.8 percent last year, up from 15.3 percent the previous year.
Johnson said the increase in the percentage of uninsured was mostly fueled by a decline in employer-provided health coverage. “It affects people in the middle, and it affects corporations,” Brodkin said. “Especially those who compete globally, they are really hurting because they have to compete with companies that don’t have huge health insurance bills for their labor force.”The New York Times touched on the same data.
Census Shows a Modest Rise in U.S. IncomeThe
NYT’s headline makes it sound like the latest data is encouraging: “Census Shows a Modest Rise in U.S. Income.” The article reflects a more dispiriting reality.
The nation’s median household income grew modestly in 2006, the Census Bureau reported yesterday, even as the percentage of people without health insurance hit a high.
Experts said the rise in income was mainly a reflection of an increase in the number of family members entering the workplace or working longer hours. Average wages for men and women actually declined for the third consecutive year.
The NYT then added this gem:
Some Republicans seized on the new data as evidence that Bush administration policies had been good for people’s pocketbooks.
Seriously, it’s as if Republicans are trying to appear foolish and out of touch. People are working more for less and the GOP responds to the news by saying, “See? I told you we knew what we were doing.”
3 Jobs?
