[Note: This blog post does not reflect the opinions of my employer.]
By now you’ve probably heard that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said in an interview with CNN that he was “not concerned about the very poor.” In fact, his full statement was:
“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America – the 90, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.”
While opposition pundits, TV personalities, and candidates have pounced on this opportunity to attack Romney as an elitist who doesn’t care about the poor, it’s more important to provide constructive and factual evaluations of the former governor’s statements.
For one, Romney’s assumption that “90, 95 percent of Americans” are neither very rich nor very poor is inaccurate. In fact, according to the U.S. Census, the nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent – or 46.2 million people -- up from 14.3 percent in 2009. The epidemic of poverty in America is far reaching and affects a larger percentage of Americans than the small margin Romney indicated in his statement to CNN. With increased unemployment and a still-difficult economy, more and more American families are becoming the “very poor.”
