Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: Census Data Reveals Little Progress for Poor
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
AUGUST 29, 2007
8:46 AM
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CONTACT: Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
John Gehring
Phone: (202) 429-9683
E-Mail: jgehring@catholicsinalliance.org
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Census Data Reveals Little Progress for Poor
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WASHINGTON - August 29 - While U.S. Census Bureau data on income, poverty and health care released today show some minor improvements, Catholic leaders note that millions of Americans still lack health insurance and are unable to pull themselves out of poverty.
According to the government's conservative figures, 36.5 million Americans live in poverty, a figure that has not statistically changed in the last year. The 12.8 million children in poverty and the 20.2 million adults in poverty have also remained the same. Despite the success of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) 611,000 more children lack health insurance this year. As America's wealthy prosper, Catholic social justice leaders worry that lost in these statistics are the real struggles of people unable to afford adequate housing, medicine or health care.
"The fact is that low and middle-income families have not shared in the prosperity that the extremely wealthy have enjoyed," said Kathleen Maas Weigert, the Executive Director of the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service at Georgetown University and a Catholics in Alliance advisor. "While we applaud the fact that economic numbers have improved, they have not improved enough for the poor and vulnerable among us. Catholic Social Teaching is clear that poverty is a moral scandal that threatens the dignity of the human person. As a society and as individuals, we all need to work towards eliminating it."
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good calls on all public officials and policy makers to make a renewed commitment to ensure that the poor and middle-class have the same opportunities as wealthy Americans.
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (www.catholicsinalliance.org) is a non-partisan non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the fullness of the Catholic social tradition in the public square. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good works to promote the necessary conditions for a culture of life - a culture that reverences the dignity of the human person over greed, materialism, and the politics of division.
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