The gap between the rich and poor in the United States grew at the same pace as the economic growth. Statistics show that the richest 1 percent of the US citizens own 40 percent of the total property of the country, while 80 percent of US citizens own just 16 percent.
Since the 1990s, 40 percent of the increased wealth went into the pockets of the rich minority, while only 1 percent went to the poor majority.
From 1977 to 1999, the after-tax income of the richest 20 percent of American families increased by 43 percent, while that of the poorest 20 percent decreased 9 percent, allowing for inflation. The actual income of those living on the lowest salaries was even less than 30 years ago.
An article in the February 21, 2000 issue of US News and World Report pointed out that the average income of the richest 5 percent of families in 1979 was 10 times of that of the poorest 20 percent of families. In 1999, the income gap had been enlarged to 19 times, ranking first among the developed countries, and setting a record since the Bureau of Census of the United States began studying the situation in 1947.
The income of the executives of the largest US companies in 1992 was 100 times that of ordinary workers, and 475 times higher in 2000.
According to an assessment by the US journal Business Week in August 2000, the income of chief executive officers was 84 times that of employees in 1990, 140 times in 1995, and 416 times in 1999.
A survey shows that the real income of the one-fifth richest of the families in Silicon Valley has increased 29 percent since 1992, while the real income of the one-fifth poorest of the families in the valley decreased during most of the 1990s, and the current income for the poorest has bounced back to the same level in 1992, with the employees at the lowest rank now earning 10 percent less than a decade age.
A great number of Americans suffer from poverty and hunger. According to the statistics of the US government, over 32 million citizens, or 12.7 percent of the total population of the country, live under the poverty line. The incidence of poverty is higher than in the 1970s, and higher than in most other industrialized countries.
An investigation by the US Department of Agriculture in March 2000 showed that 9.7 percent of American families did not have enough food, and at least 10 percent of families in 18 states and Washington D.C. often suffered from hunger and malnutrition.
In 1998, 37 million American families did not have enough food. In the state of New Mexico, 15.1 percent of the families were under threat of hunger.
The number of homeless Americans has continued to increase. A study in the mid-1990s showed that 12 million US citizens were or had been at some time homeless. According to a survey of 26 large cities conducted by the Conference of Mayors, the urgent demand for housing increased in two-thirds of the cities in 1999 over previous years.
A report in The New York Times of July 9, 2000, said that housing in New York was in the shortest supply of recent decades. More than 130,000 families in the city were waiting for public housing at that time, and homeless shelters sometimes had to receive 5,000 families and 7,000 individuals for a night.
Serious infringements upon worker's rights have been reported. Compared with other developed countries, the working hours of laborers in the United States are the longest, while their social security benefits and rights are the worst. According to a report in US News and World Report in March 2000, the average working time of US citizens was 1,957 hours annually, longer than in other developed countries.
In Manhattan, about 75 percent of the people with high-level education aged between 25 and 32 years old work more than 40 hours a week. In 1977, only 55 percent of the people worked the same amount of time.
A newly published book in the United States said that some female cashiers and workers on production lines have to wear protective undergarments because they are not allowed to take time to go to the toilet.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions submitted a report to the World Trade Organization in July of 1999, saying that the rights to organize and strike were not guaranteed in US labor laws.
When employers decide to break up or prevent the establishment of trade unions, laborers have no legal redress. Only 13 percent of US workers have joined trade unions.
More than 7 million of the 14 million functionaries in the state and local governments have no right to collective negotiation, not to mention the right to strike.
Millions of workers, including farm laborers, domestic workers, and low-level supervisors, were explicitly excluded from protection under the law guaranteeing the right of workers to organize.
In the 1950s, hundreds of workers were retaliated by employers for exercising their right for association. By the 1990s, the number climbed to 20,000.
Worker's rights and social security cannot be guaranteed for U. S. workers. A study by the US Department of Energy in 2000 showed that the incidence of cancer among workers in nuclear weapons production was much higher than workers in other industries due to exposure to harmful radiation and chemical substances.
Since the end of World War II, 22 forms of cancer have been diagnosed among the 600,000 workers in 14 nuclear plants in California, Washington and other states; this incidence rate was several times that found in ordinary factories.
The US government treads lightly on this issue until it was exposed by media in recent years. Under public pressure, the US government had to acknowledge the mistake.
About 30 million US citizens had no social security eight years ago, and the figure has increased to 46 million currently. The British newspaper Financial Times reported on October 25, 2000, that 12.3 percent of US citizens had no medical insurance 20 years ago, and the rate has increased to 15.8 percent now, or one out of every six Americans.
The education situation in the United States is surprisingly poor. According to a report in USA Today on November 29, 2000, illiteracy is still a serious problem in such a highly developed country.
One in five high school graduates cannot read his or her diploma; 85 percent of unwed mothers are illiterate; 70 percent of Americans arrested are illiterate; 21 million Americans cannot read.
According to a child protection foundation, 71 percent of fourth graders are not at the education level they ought to be. College tuition has grown faster than the increase of middle class families' income. The dropout rate among college students has risen to 37 percent.
Statistics from the US Census Bureau show that the income of middle class families increased only 10 percent from 1989 to 1999, while the college tuition increased 51 percent during the same period. The average college tuition in 1999 was 8,086 US dollars, accounting for 62 percent of the income of low-income families.
The average tuition fee of private colleges was 21,339 US dollars in 1999, up 34 percent over 1989, accounting for 162 percent of the income of poor families, but only making up for four percent of the income of rich families. More than 30 million low-income families could not afford to send their children to community colleges.
IV. Gender Discrimination & Ill-treatment of Children
Gender discrimination is widespread in almost every aspect of US society. American women have not yet enjoyed equal constitutional rights compared to men. Women in the United States not only have weak voice in politics, but also are discriminated in terms of employment, job status and wages. The labor protection standards for women are below the international norms, and sexual violence, sexual harassment and domestic violence against women are also rampant in the United States.
Reuters reported on March 22, 2000, that as many as 1,100 women have joined a class action gender discrimination lawsuit, which was initiated by five women in 1978, against the US Information Agency and Voice of America on 48 charges involving job discrimination because of gender. Following an investigation, the court discovered that the human resource departments of the defendants had purposely overlooked female candidates through deceptive means such as revising test results and selecting beforehand. It was not until 2000 that the U. S. government was forced to accept an out-of-court settlement and paid 508 million U. S. dollars in compensation after 46 out of 48 charges were upheld by the court. The breadth and depth of gender discrimination in the US can be seen from this case, which involved the highest compensation for such a case since 1964.
A report released in November 2000 by an American institute studying policy on women showed that women are paid an average of 26 percent less than their male colleagues.
The number of female prisoners has been increasing markedly in the United States, and they often are the victims of various abuses. Since 1980, the number of prisoners in the United States has tripled, while that of the female prisoners has quadrupled. A report released by the US government in December 1999 showed that accusations against jail officers of sexual abuse and other negligent behavior are widespread and criminal prosecution of prison guards for abuse of power has been on the rise.
The following major cases have been reported since December 1999:
-- Eleven guards and one officer at a county jail were accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by 16 female inmates;
-- a jail guard in New Mexico was convicted of sexual assault;
-- a prison officer in New York was sentenced to three years imprisonment with probation for raping two female inmates;
-- a prison officer in Ohio was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for conviction of sexual assault of three female inmates;
-- Some female inmates at a prison in New York disclosed that a number of female inmates were raped and even some of them gave birth to babies in their cells.
The majority of the female prisoners who have been sexually assaulted cannot get access to adequate legal protection. The state of Michigan stipulates explicitly that prisoners are not protected by civil rights laws.
Quite a number of women and children have been smuggled to the United States who are subject to slavery and torture. According to a report released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in November 1999, as many as 50,000 women and children are smuggled from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe to the United States every year. They are often forced to become prostitutes or ill-treated workers and servants, the youngest of whom are aged nine. Despite as many as 100,000 women and children were smuggled to the country in recent two years, only 250 of whom are listed as the victims of relevant cases. The New York Times reported on April 2, 2000 that in 1999, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an investigation in 26 cities and found smuggled women in 250 brothels. An article carried on the " Insight" weekly in December 2000 revealed that the human trafficking and the sexual slave trade has become the third largest illegal trade in terms of business volume in the United States, following drugs and arms smuggling. An incomplete statistics showed that criminal rings in the United States earn 7 billion U. S. dollars from human trafficking annually.
Children in the United States live under worrying conditions, and they are often the major victims of violence and as many as 5, 000 children are shot fatally annually. The percentage of gunshot victims under age 14 is 21 times that of 25 other industrialized countries. Some 1.5 million children, or two percent of the country's total, have one or both parents in prison. The United States, one of five countries that have the death penalty for juveniles, has the highest number of juveniles sentenced to death in the world. Twenty-five states of the country give death penalty to juveniles, four of which set the lowest age for the death penalty at 17 years and the other 21 states set 16 years as the bottom line or have no age limit at all. Since 1990, 14 juvenile criminals have been executed in the United States, and in the first seven months of 2000, four juvenile criminals were put to death, more than the figure of other countries combined in the past seven years. By October 2000, 83 juvenile criminals, who were under 18 when their crimes were committed were waiting to be executed. The US Department of Justice released a report on February 27, 2000, indicating that from 1985 to 1997, the inmates under age 18 in adult prisons more than doubled from 3,400 to 7, 400; and 90 percent of juvenile criminals were high school dropouts. To date, more than 100,000 children are incarcerated in juvenile detention facilities and many of them are subject to brutal treatment.
Many children in the United States are threatened by poverty. According to an investigation conducted by the UNICEF, the poverty rate of children in the United States ranks second among the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 1998, the poverty rate of American children hit 18. 7 percent, 2.5 percent higher than that of 1979. To date, as many as 13 million children live in poverty, three million more than the figure of 1979.
Reuters reported on January 20, 2000, that children in 15.2 percent of the families in the US are starving, and that children aged below six years in 16.3 percent of households don't have enough food. About one million immigrant children who do not hold U. S. citizenship are not covered by the medical insurance system. More than one million children in the country live on the streets, 40 percent of whom are under 5, 20 percent suffer from hunger, 20 percent are not covered by the medical insurance system, 10 percent have seen murders, shootings, rapes and violence, and 25 percent have experienced domestic violence.
In the United States, at least 290,000 children are working in factories, mines and farms where working conditions are dangerous. Children working on farms often have to work 20 hours a day and run the risk of pesticide poisoning, injury and permanent disability. They account for 8 percent of the country's total child workers, while the job-related deaths among them make up 40 percent of the country's total occupational death toll. Among these child farm laborers, merely 55 percent have graduated from high school. It is estimated that there are one million cases of human rights violations against these child farm workers in the United States every year; yet the US Labor Department listed only 104 such cases in 1998.
V. Racial Discrimination Prevails, Minorities Ill-Treated
Racial discrimination in the US has a long history and is well known throughout the world; it stands as one of the most serious social problems in the United States.
A US report on implementation of the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination submitted to the United Nations in September 2000 admitted that racism exists as one of the most daunting challenges facing the US
The minorities in the United States have been called the "Third World of the First World."
Racial discrimination is evident everywhere in America. The Washington Post reported on February 3, 2000, that even in large U. S. cities, few residential areas are actually racially integrated.
In the 1990s, the actual earnings of high-income families increased by 15 percent on average; however, the rich-poor gap between whites and minorities remained unchanged.
A survey made by the US Federal Reserve in March 2000 indicated that in 1998 the average net wealth of a middle-income family of Latin Americans, African Americans, or other minorities stood at 16,400 US dollars, equal to just 17.28 percent of that of a white family. The percentage was basically unchanged compared with 1992's 17.23 percent.
In 1998, 72.2 percent of the white families owned their own homes while the proportions for African American and Latin American families were only 46.4 percent and 44.9 percent respectively.
Even worse, nearly two million aboriginals were living on streets of big cities in the United States and 40 percent of them went without food for up to three days at a time. They are the poorest people in the world's richest country.
The Christian Science Monitor reported in May 2000 that immigrant families account for over one-fifth of the US poverty- stricken population and one-fourth of the total number of poor children. Among the immigrants in the US, over nine million, or 43 percent of the total, do not have medical insurance. In contrast, 12 percent of white people do not have medical insurance, according to a research report released last year by the Journal of American Medical Association.
The report also indicated that 41 percent of white youths could receive higher education while the rate for young Latin Americans was only 22 percent.
The discrimination against minorities is deeply rooted in America. The unemployment rate among African Americans is double that of whites.
An investigation made in 1996 indicated that 90 percent of the chief executives or managers of US companies have never given any black people the same status and responsibilities.
Computer giant Microsoft had a staff of over 20,000 in the US in 1999; only 557 of them were African Americans. The number accounted for 2.6 percent of the company's total employees. The company has 5,155 mid-level administrative personnel and only 82 people, or 1.6 percent, are African Americans.
A report in USA Today in 2000 said that charges of sexual harassment on immigrated workers had witnessed a fast increase, up 10 times from 1986 to 1999. About 2,200 cases were reported in the 1980s, while the figure became 15,150 in the 1990s.
Racial discrimination has also emerged as a very serious problem in the courts. A total of 98 percent of the judges in the US are white while most of the people receiving prison terms or the death sentence are blacks or other minorities.
Twelve percent of the US population are African American; nearly half of the two million prison inmates in the US are black, and another 16 percent are Latin American.
Black men are eight times more likely to be in prison than white men, with an incarceration rate of 3,408 per 100,000 black males compared to the rate of 417 per 100,000 white males. In 11 states, the incarceration rate of African American men is from 12- 26 times greater than that of white men.
The US Department of Justice estimated that 9.4 percent of all black men at the age of 25-29 years were in prison in 1999, compared to one percent of white men in the same age group.
Also in 1999, the juveniles belonging to minority groups constituted one-third of the adolescent population in the United States, but they comprised two-thirds of the young people confined in local detention and state correctional systems. One of every three young black people were confined in juvenile facilities or out on bail.
An investigation funded by the Justice Department indicated that the number of young black inmates jailed on first offenses is six times higher than that of white youths. Among the violent crime cases, the number of incarcerated black youths is nine times higher than that of the white youths.
Fifteen percent of juveniles under 18 are black; while among the confined people of the same age group, 26 percent are African American.
Among youths held in adult prison facilities, 58 percent are black. The likelihood of conviction for black youths is much higher than that for whites.
In California, children of color are 6.2 times more likely than white youths to be charged with crimes, and seven times more likely to be sentenced to prison when they are tried as adults. The proportion of black men sent to state prisons on drug charges to the state's total population is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. The number of black youths sent to correctional facilities for drug offenses is 48 times higher than that for whites.
In at least 15 states, the number of African American men sent to prison on drug charges is 20 to 57 times more often than white men. In seven states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders are black men.
Although the majority of crack cocaine users are white, almost 90 percent of convicted federal drug offenders are black.
In the 200-plus years since the US was founded, a total of 18, 000 people have been sentenced to death; only 38 of them were white, accounting for 0.2 percent of the total. No white man has ever been sentenced to death for raping a black woman.
Between 1977 and 1998, African Americans comprised 10 to 12 percent of the total US population. However, out of the 5,709 people sentenced to death, 41 percent were black.
A report from the Department of Justice issued on September 12, 2000, acknowledged that in the past five years, lawyers proposed to sentence 183 offenders to death, 20 percent of them were whites, nearly half of them were blacks, around 30 percent were Latin Americans and the rest of were other minorities.
Of all death penalty sentences upheld by the US federal courts since 1995, the number of colored people accounts for 74 percent. The ratio of African American and white murder victims was almost the same; however, since 1997, 82 percent of the total number executed were African Americans who had murdered white people.
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