*  Unless  otherwise  indicated,  information  in  this  fact  sheet  is  from  the  Souls  of  Poor  Folk:  Preliminary  Report,  December  2017.    **  Additional  sources  used  include:  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/north-­‐carolinas-­‐voter-­‐id-­‐law-­‐supreme-­‐court-­‐cert/526713/;  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/the-­‐battle-­‐for-­‐north-­‐carolina/501257/  ***Additional  sources  used  include:  https://www.chn.org/wp-­‐content/uploads/2017/09/First-­‐Look-­‐2016-­‐Data-­‐Updated-­‐SPM-­‐numbers-­‐2-­‐1.pdf;  https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/p60-­‐261.pdf;  https://census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/P60-­‐259.pdf;  http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/data/child-­‐poverty-­‐in-­‐america-­‐2016.pdf;  http://www.epi.org/blog/2016-­‐acs-­‐shows-­‐stubbornly-­‐high-­‐native-­‐american-­‐poverty-­‐and-­‐different-­‐degrees-­‐of-­‐economic-­‐well-­‐being-­‐for-­‐asian-­‐ethnic-­‐groups/;  https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/PR    

Souls  of  Poor  Folk:  Auditing  America  50  Years  After  the  Poor  People’s  Campaign  Challenged  Systemic  Racism,  Poverty,  War  Economy/Militarism  and  Our  National  Morality  

 Fact  Sheet*  January  2018  

 Systemic  Racism**  • There  are  fewer  voting  rights  in  place  today  for  people  of  color  than  50  years  ago  when  the  Civil  Rights  

Act  was  passed.  Since  2010,  23  states  have  passed  racist  voter  suppression  laws,  including  laws  that  making  it  hard  to  register,  reducing  early  voting  days  and  hours,  and  more  restrictive  voter  ID  laws.  Racist  gerrymandering  and  redistricting  have  also  proven  highly  effective  as  an  attack  on  voting  rights.  In  2016,  there  were  868  fewer  polling  places  for  the  Presidential  election.  In  North  Carolina,  HB  589  was  struck  down  for  having  targeting  the  rights  of  “African  Americans  with  almost  surgical  precision.”    

• As  of  July  2017,  25  states  have  passed  laws  that  preempt  cities  from  passing  their  own  local  minimum  wage  laws.  Most  of  these  have  been  in  response  to  local  city  councils  passing  or  wanting  to  pass  minimum  wage  increases.    

• Since  1976,  the  criminalization  of  poverty  has  raised  federal  spending  on  prisons  tenfold  to  $7.5  billion  a  year  and  led  to  increased  policing  to  fill  them.  The  number  of  state  and  federal  inmates  grew  from  188,000  in  1968  to  nearly  5  million  in  2015.  Racial  profiling,  biased  sentencing,  and  policing  practices  have  expanded  the  share  of  inmates  who  are  people  of  color  from  less  than  half  in  1978  to  66%  in  2015.    

• Federal  spending  on  immigration,  deportations  and  the  border  has  gone  from  $2  billion  in  1976  to  $17  billion  in  2015,  with  10  times  as  many  deportations  (333,000  deportees  in  2015).      

Poverty***  • As  of  2016,  there  are  40.6  million  people  living  below  the  federal  poverty  line,  which  is  an  income-­‐

based  measure  that  is  limited  to  $11,880  for  a  single  person,  $16,020  for  a  household  of  two,  and  $24,300  for  a  household  of  four.  This  means  there  has  been  a  60%  rise  in  poverty  since  1968.    

• There  are  95  million  people  (29.6%  of  population)  who  are  either  poor  or  low-­‐income  (living  under  twice  the  federal  poverty  line).  This  number  rises  to  140  million  people  (43.5%  of  population)  when  using  the  Supplemental  Poverty  Measure,  which  takes  into  account  critical  out-­‐of-­‐pocket  expenses  for  food,  clothing,  housing,  utilities,  work  expenses,  child  care  and  federal  subsidies.    

• Looking  at  the  40.6  million  people  who  fall  below  the  poverty  line:  16  million  are  women  and  13.2  million  are  children;  in  other  words,  nearly  three-­‐quarters  of  people  living  below  the  poverty  line  are  women  and  children.    

• Poverty  is  still  disproportionately  impacting  people  of  color.  The  poverty  rate  for  White  people  is  8.8  %  (17.3  million),  22%  for  African-­‐Americans  (9.2  million),  19.4%  for  Latinos  (11.1  million)  and  26.2  %  for  Native  Americans  (700,000).  Of  the  3.3  million  people  who  live  in  the  Puerto  Rico,  1.4  million  are  poor  (43.5%).  African-­‐American  children  have  the  highest  poverty  rate  (30.9%  or  3  million),  followed  by  Latino  (4.89  million  or  26.6  %)  and  white  children  (4  million  or  10.8%  percent).    

 

     

 ***  Additional  sources  for  this  section  include:  http://www.epi.org/publication/black-­‐white-­‐wage-­‐gaps-­‐expand-­‐with-­‐rising-­‐wage-­‐inequality/;  http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends/foreclosuretrends;  https://www.theguardian.com/us-­‐news/2017/dec/05/america-­‐homeless-­‐population-­‐2017-­‐official-­‐count-­‐crisis  

Jobs,  Income,  Wealth  and  Health****    • The  U.S.  economy  has  grown  more  than  18  times  in  the  past  50  years.  From  1973-­‐2013,  productivity  

went  up  74.4  %,  but  hourly  compensation  only  went  up  9.2%.    • From  2005-­‐2015,  all  job  growth  was  in  low-­‐wage,  temporary,  part-­‐time  or  other  non-­‐permanent,  casual  

employment.    • From  1968-­‐2017,  the  top  1  percent’s  share  of  the  economy  has  nearly  doubled.  In  2017,  3  individuals  

had  a  combined  wealth  of  $248.5  billion,  the  same  amount  of  wealth  as  the  bottom  50%  of  U.S.  households  or  160  million  people.    

• Meanwhile,  the  bottom  38%  of  American  households  have  0  net  worth.    • Over  the  past  30  years,  rents  have  gone  up  faster  than  income  in  nearly  every  urban  area  in  the  country.  

At  the  same  time,  the  median  cost  of  a  home  has  ballooned  from  $23,500  in  1968  to  $318,700  in  2017.    In  December  2017,  there  were  more  than  60,000  new  foreclosure  filings,  bringing  the  total  of  properties  in  foreclosure  to  572,344.    

• A  2009  study  looked  at  more  than  60  million  people  across  30  wealthy  countries  and  found  that  high  levels  of  income  inequality  translate  to  higher  risks  of  premature  death.  Their  research  suggested  than  1.5  million  deaths  could  be  avoided  by  reducing  income  inequality.        

War  Economy  and  Militarism  • At  height  of  the  Vietnam  War,  military  spending  was  $354  billion,  today  it  is  nearly  twice  that  at  $635  

billion.    53  cents  out  of  every  discretionary  dollar  of  our  taxes  goes  directly  to  the  military.  City  police  departments  are  getting  military  weapons  and  equipment  left  over  from  the  Pentagon’s  wars.  If  we  add  up  those  costs  of  this  militarized  budget  –  which  includes  pending  on  the  Department  of  Defense,  Department  of  Veterans  Affairs,  Department  of  Homeland  Security,  U.S.  Border  and  Immigration  Enforcement  and  Federal  Prison  Spending,  including  for  the  FBI  -­‐  we  get  up  to  66  cents  out  of  every  federal  dollar  being  spent  on  a  militarized,  policed  and  criminalized  society.    

• The  same  money  could  provide  healthcare  for  at  least  178  million  low  income  people,  or  it  could  create  more  than  11  million  good,  green,  union  jobs,  or  it  could  get  more  than  71  million  poor  kids  into  Head  Start  or  outfit  442  million  households  with  solar  electricity.    

• The  cumulative  costs  of  the  U.S.  wars  in  Iraq,  Syria,  Afghanistan  and  Pakistan,  and  post  9/11  Veterans  Care  and  Homeland  Security  from  2001-­‐2018  are  estimated  at  $5.6  trillion.    

• In  2013  about  23,000  active  duty  military  troops  were  receiving  food  stamps.  In  2015,  24%  of  children  in  schools  run  by  the  Department  of  Defense  inside  the  U.S.  qualified  for  free  meals,  and  another  21%  qualified  for  reduced-­‐price  meals.  

 Ecological  Devastation  • The  number  of  natural  disasters  between  2000  and  2009  was  3  times  higher  than  in  the  1980s.    • Pollution  caused  an  estimated  9  million  premature  deaths  in  2015  worldwide.  This  is  3  times  as  

many  deaths  as  from  AIDS,  tuberculosis  and  malaria  combined  and  15  times  more  than  from  wars  and  other  forms  of  violence.  Water  pollution  alone  kills  1.8  million  a  year  around  the  world.    

• The  U.S.  is  the  largest  producer  of  oil  and  natural  gas  in  the  world.  Between  2010-­‐2015,  there  were  more  than  3300  incidents  of  crude  oil  and  liquefied  natural  gas  leaks  or  ruptures  on  U.S.  pipelines.    

• At  least  4  million  families  with  children  are  being  exposed  to  high  levels  of  lead  from  drinking  water  and  other  sources.  The  risks  fall  heaviest  on  low-­‐income,  African-­‐American,  and  Latino  children.  

• A  2015  EPA  analysis  found  that  the  population  within  three  miles  of  highly  contaminated  “Superfund”  sites  was  45.7%  non-­‐white.  This  is  significantly  higher  than  their  36.7%  share  of  the  U.S.  population,  even  though  the  most  impacted  population  is  still  majority  white.    

• There  are  in  the  U.S.  13.8  million  low-­‐income  households  that  cannot  afford  water.  This  number  could  triple  if  water  prices  continue  to  rise.