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Poverty Rates: Ours and theirs
Ours: 12.7%. 4 consecutive years of increases based on the most recent reports at the US CEnsus Bureau as of August 2005. Theirs: 8%. 15 years ago it was 51%. Ours, obviously, is the US. Obviously? 12.7% of our citizens live below the poverty line? That's 1 in every 8 people you see on the street. Below the poverty line. Theirs, not so obviously, is Vietnam. Yes, that same Vietnam. What's not obvious, but shocking, is Vietnam's poverty rate is 50% lower than ours. 50% fewer of their citizens live below the poverty line than ours. How's that happen? How's that happen in an economy rated as doing just wonderful because the markets are at all-time highs? How's that happen in a 3rd world economy? How are they able to bring so many of their citizens into the benefits of a growing economy while so many of our citizens are being lost to the benefits of an economy where the markets rate it as just doing oh so fine? I don't know. But I know it's not a good sign for the long term. I'm not online searching for poverty rates among developing countries. But I skimmed through today's issue of Fortune mag. There's an extended peice on Vietnams' economy and there at the bottom of one of the pages was the factoid that it's reduced its poverty rate from 51% to 8% in only 15 years. Bam. Wake up.