FAMILIES LEFT BEHIND IN GOOD TIMES

Sure, the stock market keeps soaring, but the gap is also growing
between the very rich and most everyone else, according to some recent
reports.

**"The State of Working America 1998-99" This source book from the Economic
Policy Institute provides comprehensive data on family incomes, taxes,
wages, jobs, unemployment, wealth and poverty
(http://www.epinet.org/books/swa.html). Their bottom line? Both income and
wealth gaps are rising as typical family wages are eroding, family poverty
rates are persisting despite lower unemployment, and benefits from the
stock market boom are concentrated only among the wealthiest households.

Despite the long economic recovery, "living standards of most working
families still have not recovered from the recession of the early
1990's" the report says. Except for those in the wealthiest income brackets,
parents must either work longer hours (about six weeks longer on average) to
catch up to where they were in 1989, or cope with diminishing resources.

**Which Communities are Struggling?
While America's large cities appear to be rebounding and many Americans
are experiencing unprecedented prosperity, an April 1999 report from the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says that rural areas, small
towns, mid-size cities and graying suburbs are struggling the most
(http://www.hud.gov/pressrel/pr99-76.html).

"Now Is The Time: Places Left Behind in the New Economy," says that much
of the income lost in these areas is caused by the globalization of the
U.S. economy.

Visit our Web Site for Free Copies of Our Community Quality of Life Reports!

http://www.utoronto.ca/qol

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   Canalising a river
   Grafting a fruit tree
   Educating a person
   Transforming a state
   These are instances of fruitful criticism
   And at the same time instances of art.
       -Bertolt Brecht
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Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Associate Director,
Masters of Health Science Program in Health Promotion
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 101
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice:    (416) 978-7567
fax: (416) 978-2087
e-mail:   [log in to unmask]