Land of the Free

12% of homes on Native American reservations don't have access to safe water - White House report http://t.co/zSLyUcz

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Poverty in the US

(...) There is also a racial element. Smiley and West, who are black, avoided calling their mission a “black and brown poverty tour” because most of the poor in the U.S. are white. In Ohio earlier this month, they dined with a group of veterans, mostly white, who can’t find jobs. One was on the verge of eviction. But in Chicago, Detroit and Washington, the duo drew throngs of people, many of them black and Latino, who are anxious about the economy. About one-quarter of blacks and Latinos are impoverished, more than double the percentage of whites. Between 2005 and 2009, Latino households’ median wealth plunged more than 66%, compared to 53% among black households and 16% among whites. Even as the unemployment rate for whites declined, it continued to rise for blacks, hovering around 16%. Algernon Austin, an Economic Policy Institute sociologist, predicts the unemployment rate among blacks will not fall below 10% before 2015.(...)

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/17/poverty-debate-raises-tension-between-obama-and-black-leaders/#ixzz1VJdVvLvS