America Medians of the Millennium
Uploaded by sls465 on Apr 18, 2007
America: Medians of the Millennium
Every ten years America is questioned, recorded, and given a basic overview of how well the country is flourishing financially and economically. The Census Bureau goes through strenuous hours of work and study to provide statistics and comparisons informing citizens of our progress and downfalls of the past century. In an essay by Andrew Hacker, a renowned professor at Queens College, he describes the 1990 census report by creating fictional family of characters called the Medians. The Medians, in his essay represent the average household of America as the census report of 1990 portrayed them. Hacker presents the average income, job insecurity and basic way of life in which he ends with predicting a slow change for the worse by the next report in the year 2000. With the economy slowly dipping into a possible recession I can see the prediction made by Hacker eventually becoming a reality.
If constructed, how would the median family of the new millennium live and what would their future have in store for them? Through research of the latest 2000 report, Hacker would be rather surprised that there has not been a drastic decline financially and socially. On that note, nor has there been a drastic incline either. Of course not everything is as it was in the early 90’s but for the most part the median family are still treading the same water, just on the edge of a possible troubling future.
In an article from the Wall Street Journal, Patrick Barta delivers the results and his views on the 2000 report. The article is titled American Poverty Fell To Lowest Level Since ‘73. Barta begins his article with the fact that the poverty level has reached the lowest point since 1973. He talks about how 31.1 million Americans now live in poverty which is down an amazing 1.1 million from the early 1990’s (Barta). Barta doesn’t go into allot of detail of his views, but along with Hacker he sees the potential for trouble in the future. The reason for this pecimistic outlook is simple. One major factor would be the high-tech boom that opened jobs and sent dot-comer’s incomes through the roof is now slowly folding if not already fizzled into nothing. Unemployment is on the rise and layoffs continue. ...