First off > "Poverty" rates fell this year. I use quotes because our government defines the poverty line as $20,444 for a family of four with two children. No misprint, folks. Frito, Jason, Johnny, imagine living off of $20K a year?!? So even with these insane standards, only 12.3% of our citizens live below that line. So only one out of every eight citizens of the richest nation in the world make an average of $9.83/hour, $4.91/hour if both parents are working. [figures assume a 40 hour work week]
The real kicker in the study? The number of un-insured Americans jumped from 15.3% to 15.8%. Not huge, but it represents about 2,000,000 additional citizens without health coverage. We're moving in the wrong direction.
Second > The U.S. is the most armed country in the world. Anyone shocked? Everyone feel nice and safe? Still lock your doors at night?!? Some fun facts:
- U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms
- About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States
- The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens
- Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people
WOW! I wonder why we have violence issues in this country....Someone write me and say its our Constitutional right, I dare you!
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