Poverty Growing In Perry's "Texas Miracle"

 

Before they found out what a terrible debater he was (and not-ready-for-prime-time politician), the Republicans liked to brag about the "miracle economy" Rick Perry had achieved in Texas. Of course, that "miracle" was nothing but a fraud, done with a kind of smoke and mirrors politics that hid the real trouble the state was in.

I have posted in the past about how Perry presided over the state slipping into a massive $27 billion shortfall for this biennium -- a shortfall that the legislature, with the help of Perry, just kicked on down the road rather than fix. Part of the miracle proclaimed by Perry's fellow Republicans was job creation in the state. But what they didn't tell us about that job creation was that most of those jobs were minimum wage no-benefit jobs that couldn't support a family (or even a single person). They also didn't tell anyone that in spite of that job creation, the number of unemployed people in Texas has actually risen in the state.

Now we learn that poverty is growing in the Lone Star State, and far too many people are having trouble putting food on the family table. The Texas Tribune has published an excellent article regarding the growth of this. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas ranks 2nd in the nation in the number of households suffering from food insecurity -- the inability to access nutritious food.

In just the last four years, the number of people who are receiving food assistance from the government (food stamps) has grown by 1.4 million people. There are now 3.7 million people (about 15% of the population) receiving food stamps in the state, and 2.04 million of them are children. And that's only two-thirds of the people who can qualify for that assistance, meaning over 5 million people have an income low enough to qualify them for food stamps.

There are some who claim the number of people receiving food stamps is rising rapidly because the state has fixed the program and made it easier to apply for assistance. That's a load of crap! People don't apply for food stamps because it is easy, but because they aren't making enough to put food on the table for their family. The number of people on food stamps is growing because the Texas economy is not the "miracle" Republicans would have us believe -- it is a mess (where over half the states in the U.S. have a smaller unemployment rate and a much smaller rate of minimum wage jobs).

The Texas economy is finally being exposed for the disaster that it really is. That's a good thing, because maybe now the Republicans running the state will finally have to do something about it (besides cutting taxes for corporations).