Third time's a charm?

Kentucky ranks at the top of world-class lists in just three areas.

We got world-class horses.

We got world-class bourbon. (By federal law, if it ain't made in Kentucky, it ain't bourbon.)

And we got world-class poverty.

And not just any old world-class poverty. World-class presidential-candidate-attractin' poverty.

Robert Kennedy found us first, back in the '60s (although Eleanor Roosevelt knew about us in the '30s.)

Bill Clinton came a-callin' in the '90s, not being above stealing a good Kennedy idea.

And today it's John Edwards.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a strong Edwards supporter. If Elizabeth Edwards were a religion, I'd have to convert from Pastafarianism.

But Appalachia is the Iraq of the War on Poverty. Sure, the intentions are good, but the policy is weak, the strategy non-existent and the tactics akin to emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

Not to mention the utter bloody-mindedness of the natives, who are less than appreciative of the economic, environmental and social devastation wrought by the various "foreign occupiers," including the timber industry, the coal industry, the pharmaceutical industry (Oxycontin) and bottom-feeding "employers" like telemarketers and chicken-processing plants.

Life in Eastern Kentucky, even for the poorest, is certainly far better than in was in 1962, when Harry Caudill published his passionate expose Night Comes to the Cumberlands. But it still lags far behind the rest of the nation, as the Herald-Leader explains.

The Herald's poll has 59% agreeing that Edwards' visit is a publicity ploy. I agree, but I don't think it's publicity for himself. I think it's publicity for the issue of deep-seated poverty, which hasn't registered on the national radar for more than a quarter-century, since Ronald Reagan taught us that only rich people really matter.

John Edwards isn't making speeches on this Poverty Tour - he's listening to people's stories, hoping to publicize the crisis and maybe gain some insight. So that's a step forward.

And I believe that John Edwards sincerely, genuinely, passionately wants to end poverty in this nation and will do his damndest to succeed.

If a visit to Eastern Kentucky doesn't dash his hopes on the cold, stony ground of Appalachian reality, then he's got a level of progressive determination this nation hasn't seen since FDR.

Who actually DID reduce poverty in Eastern Kentucky.

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Extreme Poverty at 35 Year High

McClatchy newspapers today reported that extreme poverty in the United States has reached a 32-year high. In every area measured, the poor have lost ground rapidly since 2000.



In fact, the McClatchy analysis found that the number of extremely poor grew by 26% between 2000 and 2005, outpacing the growth of the overall population of people living in poverty by a whopping 56%.

The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased significantly since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation’s 37 million poor people into deep poverty — the highest rate since at least 1975.

The share of Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily in the last three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown “more than any other segment of the population,” according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began,” said Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who co-wrote the study. “We’re not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we’re seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty.”

Remind me again - weren't the Bush tax cuts supposed to ameliorate these problems, because a rising tide lifts all boats? Instead, the poor have gotten poorer and the rich have gotten richer, and indeed the twain shant meet.

There's more: "Extreme Poverty at 35 Year High" >>