(And, of course, this has nothing to do with illegals lowering American wages - nonononono!)
By one dismal measure, America is joining the likes of Third
World countries.
The number of U.S. residents
who are struggling to survive on just $2 a day has more than doubled since
1996, placing 1.5 million households and 3 million children in this desperate
economic situation. That's according to "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost
Nothing in America," a book from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that
will be released on Sept. 1.
The measure of poverty
isn't arbitrary -- it's the threshold the World Bank uses to measure global
poverty in the developed world. While it may be the norm to see families in
developing countries such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia struggle to survive on
such meager income, the growing ranks of America's ultrapoor may be shocking,
given that the U.S. is considered one of the most developed capitalist
countries in the world.
