Expect an immediate ‘Bush’s fault’ from the White House. Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency — are to be released this week, and demographers expect grim findings.

Poverty Hits Hispanics and Blacks Disproportionately

From The Americano

One must be careful when writing or reading this story. This is only the consensus of what six demographers who closely track poverty trends believe will be the figures that the Census will release for 2009 in the coming days.

If these demographers are right, the news could not be worse for President Barack Obama and for the Democratic Party. According to the Associated Press, the demographers believe the number of people in the United States who are in poverty is on track to a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of the working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat’s presidency — are to be released this week, and demographers expect grim findings.

The AP story said that it is unfortunate timing for Obama and his party just seven weeks before midterm elections in which control of Congress is at stake.  The anticipated poverty rate increase – from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent – would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

Interviews with six demographers who closely track poverty trends found wide consensus that 2009 figures are likely to show a significant rate increase to the range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.

The picture these figures paint would indeed be grim. It means there would be approximately 45 million poor people in the country last year – that is about 1 in 7 people who live in this country.

The AP story said “it would be the highest single-year increase since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The previous high was in 1980 when the rate jumped 1.3 percentage points to 13 percent during the energy crisis.”

It added that among the 18 to 64 working-age population, the demographers expect a rise beyond 12.4 percent, up from 11.7 percent. That would make it the highest since at least 1965, when another Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, launched the war on poverty that expanded the federal government’s role in social welfare programs from education to health care.

Demographers also are confident the report will show:

? Child poverty increased from 19 percent to more than 20 percent.

? Blacks and Latinos were disproportionately hit, based on their higher rates of unemployment.

? Metropolitan areas that posted the largest gains in poverty included Modesto, Calif.; Detroit; Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.; Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.

“My guess is that politically these figures will be greeted with alarm and dismay but they won’t constitute a clarion call to action,’’ said William Galston, a domestic policy aide for President Bill Clinton. “I hope the parties don’t blame each other for the desperate circumstances of desperate people.’’

Lawrence M. Mead, a New York University political science professor who is a conservative wrote “The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America,’’ argued that the figures would have a minimal impact in November. “Poverty is not as big an issue right now as middle-class unemployment. That’s a lot more salient politically right now,’’ he said.

But if Thursday’s report is as troubling as expected, Republicans in the midst of an increasingly strong drive to win control of the House, if not the Senate, would get one more argument to make against Democrats in the campaign homestretch.

Rightly or wrongly, Republicans could cite a higher poverty rate as evidence that the Obama economic policies are not working. .

Of most concern for Democrats is the conclusion of the AP story printed in the Boston Globe and The Washington Post among others.

The story states that Democrats almost certainly will argue that they shouldn’t be blamed. They’re likely to counter that the economic woes — and the poverty increase — began under President George W. Bush with the near-collapse of the financial industry in late 2008.

“Although that’s true, it’s far from certain that the Democratic explanation will sway voters who already are trending heavily toward the GOP in polls as worrisome economic news piles up,” the AP story said.

To that, one can only say: “Ouch!” “That hurts!”

The Americano / Agencies

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