1. On a national level, the U.S. does an extremely poor job of using its economic gains for the benefit of its inhabitants.  The U.S. has the highest national income in the world as measured by GDP.  Yet, in comparison with other high-income countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. has some of the worst health and social indicators.  Despite this surplus of economic benefits, there is a lack of care for those with the greatest need.  Due to our economic surplus, the following facts raise serious questions about our understandings of economics and point to a lack of Sabbath-economic thinking.

• The wealth inequality across our country is vast.  The U.S. has the widest income disparities of any comparable OECD country.  The richest 10% of the population earns 16 times more than the poorest 10%.
• More than 20% of American children live in poverty.  This rate is far higher than other OECD countries with comparable income levels.
• The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate than any other comparable country, and more than twice as many African American infants die compared to white infants.
• Women in the U.S. have the highest risk of dying in childbirth of any high-income OECD country.
• 15% of the population (47 million people) had no health insurance coverage in 2007.  Out of all the OECD countries, only 2 had a larger proportion of people without health insurance.  The number of individuals without health insurance has risen in the current economic recession, as many lost job-based health coverage when they were laid off.  A recent study has shown that lack of health insurance is associated with 45,000 deaths each year.

 

2. Between 2001 and 2008, the share of North Carolinians in poverty increased, median income decreased, and the number without health insurance increased.  In 2009, North Carolina experienced record high unemployment and saw the number of individuals participating in the food and nutrition program increase by more than 25%.

 

3. The wealth inequality in North Carolina is worse than the national numbers.  In 2008, the richest 5% of North Carolina households earned 25.6 times more than the poorest 20%.

 

4. The Living Income Standard (LIS), developed by the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, is a market-based approach for estimating how much income a working family with children needs to pay for basic expenses.  It provides a more nuanced assessment than otherwise is available of how much it truly costs to make ends meet in North Carolina.  The 2008 LIS found that the typical North Carolina family with children must earn $41,184 annually – an amount equal to 201% of the federal poverty level – to afford the actual costs of essential expenses.  Yet 37% of the families included in the study fell below that level.  Women, African Americans, Hispanics, and immigrants were disproportionately likely to live in families below the LIS, despite the fact that 60% of the adults in those families worked full-time.

 

 

SOURCES

1. Center for Economic and Social Rights, “Fact Sheet No. 11: United States of America,” 2010, http://cesr.org/article.php?id=862.

2. North Carolina Justice Center, “Snapshot on the State of the Economy in NC: 2008 and 2009,” http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=node/431.

3. Ibid.

4. North Carolina Justice Center, “Living Income Standard, 2008,” by John Quinterno, with Meg Gray Wiehe and Jack Schofield, http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=node/243.