The number of people living in poverty in Milwaukee's suburbs climbed 15,088 between 2000 and 2008, according to data released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.
In all, 47,088 people in Milwaukee's suburbs lived below the poverty level, almost $22,000 annual income for a family of four.
By comparison, 132,189 people, or 23.4%, lived in poverty in the city of Milwaukee, an increase of 8,525 people since 2000, when the rate was 21.3%.
Well, now, how in the world can that be? The talk radio hosts and their echo chamber has been telling us for years what a tax hell the City of Milwaukee is and how bad a mayor Tom Barrett is. The same squawkers tell us our only hope is Scott Walker, who knows all about how to create jobs (even though he did such a poor job they took the job development program away from him).
So how did this happen? One has to read all they way to the very bottom to find out:
"The suburbanization of poverty has been happening since the 1990s, but it has been increasing very rapidly this decade," Garr said. "In 2005, we found that the suburban poor population is greater than the urban poor population."
She said urban poverty continues to be a national problem, but the rise of suburban poverty poses great challenges, too.
"More and more poor are living outside of our central cities. They may not have accesses to services that are available to the poor in cities, like transportation."
Once again proving that we can't cut ourselves to economic health, and that the talk radio people don't know what they're talking about. Obviously, neither does Walker.
Remember this when they talk about how "it's all about the jobs."
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I am so confused.
ReplyDeleteCan't I just blame George Bush or are you going to hold that argument off for the city of Milwaukee poverty numbers?
...the city of Milwaukee poverty numbers
ReplyDeleteAre you referring to the numbers which are improving since Barrett took over the job service programming?
Perhaps it's all in the way that you compare incomparable numbers in order to continue your defense of Mayor Tom Barrett, the union buster. Three problems present themselves:
ReplyDeleteFirst, If you want a performance comparison, compare a similarly sized large city to Milwaukee, and compare a similarly sized urban county to Milwaukee County. The City of Milwaukee has by far the largest social and economic impact on the County, comprising more than 2/3rds of it's population. As the city goes, so will the rest of the county... and the city is going down the drain with massive service cuts, loss of union jobs, furloughs and worse.
Second, this group found that, nationwide, suburban poverty had risen 25% (that was nationwide, not just in Milwaukee County), likely due to the massive nation-wide recession that we are in, and the extremely high unemployment numbers (over 10% now, far above the 7% we were promised) It's not a local phenomenon, it's a national one.
Third, I see you criticizing Milwaukee County when the study actually praises Milwaukee County for it's above average performance. Quoting from the same article you did:
""Milwaukee has kind of bucked the trend for the Midwest in terms of the drastic rise of suburban and urban poverty," said Emily Garr, co-author of the study. "Places like Detroit and Cleveland and Grand Rapids have seen significant increases in suburban poverty rates across the decade from 2000 to 2008. Meanwhile, Milwaukee has a suburban poverty rate in 2008 of 4.9%."
Locally, in those areas of Milwaukee County outside the city, the poverty rate jumped from 4.8% in 2000 to 6.5% in 2008. Overall, suburban Milwaukee County was home to 23,821 impoverished people in 2008, an increase of more than 7,000 during the decade.""
So, according to this study, in the areas outside of Mayor Tom "the union buster"'s control... things are doing pretty well.
The only real question is why do you continue to defend Tom Barrett?
The job service program? Did you mean the Private Industry Council that Mayor Tom Barrett gave chairmanship of to one of his prominent financial supporters, Dan Bader? The one he took from the Milwaukee County with the help of Jim Doyle, another prominent recipient of Bader donations, and then ousted a local black businessman to replace him with a white suburban one, namely Bader?
ReplyDeleteMilwaukee Magazine called out this pay for play reward by saying:
“Bader donated considerable money to the Greater Milwaukee Committee, which helped land him the GMC board president position, which had traditionally gone to corporate executives, not nonprofit leaders. Now, after donating money to the city for its job training initiatives, he’s getting another board position that also seems like a reward.”
Again, why are you defending Mayor Tom Barrett and his unscrupulous operations in Milwaukee? Are you on his payroll?
Belling, Sykes and Wagner all support Mayor Tom Barrett. They don't like all of his policies and feel Walker would be a far superior Governor but overall they favor Mayor Barrett. Especially over his two mayoral opponents who were clueless hacks.
ReplyDelete@TFG,
ReplyDeleteYour first comment only shows that the county would be much worse off if Barrett's leadership hadn't led the city into improvement.
It's ironic that you keep complaining about Barrett doing furloughs, service cuts and loss of union jobs when it is Scott Walker that has done much, much worse things (four to six times the furloughs, cutting county employees by 20% with another 500-700 lay offs coming, and having such poor control of his services that the state has to take them over) and then Walker actually brags about it.
If you weren't so darn desperate in your baseless attacks on Barrett, you would realize how foolish you are looking.
The PIC was taken away from the county because of poor performance. To further show what disregard Walker has for the unemployed minorities, he also cut any efforts that Board made to restore these services.
ReplyDeleteTerryN,
ReplyDeleteFunny, but I don't get the impression of support when they are constantly criticizing him, even if they have to make their claims up to do so.
You should check your census numbers, the poverty numbers increase and match the influx of hispanics
ReplyDeleteI would thank you kindly to keep your racist, bigoted views to yourself. You only prove yourself to be an idiot twice over.
ReplyDelete""It's ironic that you keep complaining about Barrett doing furloughs, service cuts and loss of union jobs when it is Scott Walker that has done much, much worse things""
ReplyDeleteSo then why do you keep defending Mayor Barrett and trying to ignore his union busting mentality by diverting attention to Walker? Are you pro-union or anti-union? You can't stand in support of the massive city cuts to union jobs and then say you are against it when it comes to the county.
Pro-union or anti-union... which is it capper? Seems to me that you are just a company man trying to help Barrett by hiding his union busting activities. I hope your own union is aware of the way you are publicly undermining fellow members of the AFL-CIO. If they are not, they should be. You are a disgraceful union member, hiding behind the "no more cuts" signs that you don't believe in and actively work against. Are you on the Barrett payroll in some way?
What does this have to do with Walker?
ReplyDeleteClearly blaming the problems of the city on the county has something to do with Walker. Also, they hypocrisy of supporting policies in one governmental entity and then howling against them in another has not only to with Walker, but also with the veracity and gravitas of the poster of the criticism.
ReplyDeleteHow can you ignore what Tom is doing to the city of Milwaukee and then expect any thoughtful person to believe you when you point the finger at someone else to avoid blaming your own man?
Aaron-
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see you are coming to acknowledge that Walker was county executive in name only, but in reality was nothing more than an empty suit.
There might be hope for you yet.
Family Guy,
ReplyDeleteDo you really type that with a straight face? No one can be that hypocritical and expect to be taken seriously. Well, maybe Walker.
BTW, Family Guy, you never did say how you felt about the fact that the Wisconsin AFL-CIO has already endorsed Barrett for governor.
ReplyDeleteKind of shows that you are not of the union, and probably not even from the city or maybe not even from the state.
BTW, Family Guy, you never did say how you felt about the fact that the Wisconsin AFL-CIO has already endorsed Barrett for governor.
ReplyDeleteKind of shows that you are not of the union, and probably not even from the city or maybe not even from the state.
Based on what I've heard over the years on Milwaukee talk radio Barrett's has been regarded as a good person and Mayor. His mostly lefty policies have been always rightly condemned.
ReplyDeleteCondemned for what? Working, where as Walker's has failed?
ReplyDeleteFrom out of state? Dude, why would I waste my time commenting on some local two-bit hate blog that almost no one reads if I were from out of state? Get a grip capper.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have no intention of giving a hate filled lunatic any personal information beyond what I just said, suffice it to say that the reason I am commenting here is that I have seen what a huge hypocrite you are on the union issues. You throw your union brothers in the city under the bus so that you can write hate filled diatribes against Scott Walker. Having discovered that he is your bus, I can now see that you are just a disgruntled worker venting over his lack of control over his work environment.
I will continue to comment when you compare the mismanagement of the dying city of Milwaukee to anything totally unrelated in your ongoing attempt to defend Mayor Barrett from rightful criticism.
I'm guessing that the AFL-CIO will support whomever runs as a Democrat in Wisconsin... they always have. It's a meaningless gesture. AFL-CIO member unions also have legal battles against Mayor Tom, even as the national offers him lip service. If David Clark were on the ticket, they would endorse him too. We'll see how much real support he gets. I know several locals that intend to provide him with no succor, unlike yourself.
You go ahead and continue to stab your fellow union members in the back in your attempt to attack Walker. I'm quite sure karma will wind up biting you in the ass eventually.
You are the hypocrite that obviously has no understanding of unions, their history or how they work. Unions will support whoever will be the best for their purposes and for jobs, which is usually Dems. But the unions have supported Republicans before, including, unfortunately, Alberta Darling.
ReplyDeleteBut tell me, how many firefighter jobs have been cut? And please provide supportive data, i.e. newspaper story, etc. Scott Walker has bragged about cutting thousands of union jobs. Did Barrett cut that many? I doubt it. In fact, my searches haven't shown any firefighters cut, but a cut in overtime.
Meanwhile, Walker has cut thousands of jobs and have had budgets blown up from the subsequent overtime costs.
Now, why are whining and acting the fool over no cuts and money saving moves, but appear to be just fine with thousands cut and higher costs? Not very responsible attitude to have.