Back in the day (meaning before the election took place earlier this year) I came across these 2 articles, one from The Onion and the second from a slightly less humorous TIME article.

Why does any of this concern/interest me?

I’m one of the Struggling Lower-Class/Poor/Living in Poverty statistics.  But at least I have a sense of humor about it.  Fighting it (as I mentioned in a past Blog) doesn’t make me a joy to hang around with, I even annoy myself.

Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote

October 30, 2008

WASHINGTON—As election day nears, millions of the nation’s poorest voters have reportedly yet to settle on the most profound and enduring way to completely fuck themselves over when they head to the polls this year.

“On the one hand, I’m pretty sure Barack Obama will undermine my best interests by maintaining the same centrist, pro-corporate policies of previous Democratic administrations,” said Jim Estey, 34, a recently laid-off assembly-line worker. “Conversely, I agree with McCain and Palin on abortion, which might just balance out the fact that they’ll further marginalize people like me by supporting deregulation and slashing social programs. So it’s pretty much a toss-up at this point.”

Though such behavior appears to directly undermine their own well-being, lower-income voters have historically supported candidates determined to screw them six ways to Sunday, including Bill Clinton, who incarcerated them in record numbers and cut the welfare benefits many depended on for day-to-day sustenance, and George W. Bush, who widened the gap between them and the rich and sent thousands of them to die in Iraq. This year’s election is reportedly unique in that the nation’s poor must not only weigh how deeply and painfully their chosen candidate will penetrate their rectums, but must also consider unforeseen outside circumstances—such as economic collapse and terrorism—that might allow the next president to bend them over and brutally rape them in ways they never thought possible.

The latest polls indicate that a majority of lower-class citizens might choose not to vote at all Nov. 4, preferring instead to leave the details of how they get fucked to the moneyed classes.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/struggling_lower_class

Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008

As the roster of corporations and financial institutions in line for government bailouts seems to grow, some public-policy advocates in Washington are calling on policymakers to focus more efforts on the nation’s poorest. The ranks of the destitute are growing quietly but alarmingly as much of the world focuses on troubles surrounding Wall Street. “Recent data show poverty is already rising quite substantially,” says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “There is a strong potential for more hardship and destitution than we have seen in this country in a number of decades.”

Greenstein’s center released a new study on Monday projecting a sharp rise in the number of people living below the poverty line, which is roughly $21,200 annually for a family of four, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. An estimated 36.5 million Americans currently live below the poverty line, but those numbers will probably increase by as many as 10.3 million if current projections for the depth and duration of the recession hold true. According to the center’s analysis, the number of poor children will grow by as many as 3.3 million. And the number of children in deep poverty, those in families living on less than half the wages of the official poverty line, will climb by as many as 2 million. (See pictures from John Edwards’ tour of poverty-stricken America.)

Signs of the recession’s impact on America’s impoverished are increasingly apparent, Greenstein says, pointing to a dramatic rise in food-stamp caseloads in recent months. The number of people using food stamps has risen 9.6%, or roughly 2.6 million people, from August 2007 to August 2008, the last period for which data are available. Food banks around the country are reporting longer lines even as donations are falling.

By historical comparison, the expected rise in the number of impoverished in this recession is relatively normal. During the recession years of the 1980s, the number of people in poverty rose by 9.2 million, an increase of more than a third. The recession of the 1990s was not quite as deep but still increased the number of people in poverty by 6.5 million. But those falling into poverty now face harder prospects and need more government help, Greenstein says, because many social safety nets have been cut away since past economic downturns. (See pictures of the recession of 1958.)

A number of policy changes at both state and federal levels have left basic cash-assistance programs scarce, the center’s study argues. State general-assistance programs were largely eliminated across the country in the late 1980s and early ’90s, except for programs benefiting the disabled. On the federal level, only about 40% of families eligible for cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program actually receive it. That is about half the percentage of families eligible for the program’s predecessor (the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program) that received benefits during the recessions of earlier decades.

President-elect Barack Obama voiced new concern over the economy on Monday when announcing picks for his White House economic team, saying a new economic-stimulus package was needed right away in addition to the ongoing efforts to pump more than $700 billion in federal rescue funds into ailing businesses like Citigroup. There was no indication how any of that round of spending will reach the growing numbers of the nation’s neediest.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1861843,00.html