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(Hopefully,
you've been paying attention.)
In your
opinion, which of the following choices best depicts where things stand in
today's America (choose "A," "B," or "C"):
A. "All Areas of the Country Show
Growth, Fed Reports" (Associated
Press)
The U.S.
economy started the year off well with busier factories, higher retail sales,
more jobs and growth in home sales.
The Federal
Reserve said Wednesday that all 12 of its banking districts reported some
level of growth in January and the first half of February.
The Fed's
report "was surprisingly more upbeat than we've seen lately," said
Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. "The employment
picture is certainly brighter."
Overall
economic activity increased at a "modest to moderate" pace, the Fed
noted. That roughly matches the Fed's assessment of the economy in the final
weeks of 2011. And it is slightly better than the "slow to
moderate" growth cited for October and mid-November.
The pickup in
growth reported by each Fed region corresponds with stronger hiring and
declining unemployment over the past three months.
The latest
Beige Book, as the Fed report is formally known, sketched a picture of an
economy improving in most major sectors.
B. "Growing Number Of Americans Can't
Afford Food, Study Finds" (Huffington
Post)
More Americans
said they struggled to buy food in
2011 than in any year since the financial crisis, according to a recent
report from the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit research group.
About 18.6 percent of people -- almost one out of every five -- told Gallup
pollsters that they couldn't always afford to feed everyone in their family
in 2011.
One might
assume that number got smaller wrapped up with the national unemployment rate
falling for several consecutive months. In actuality, the reverse proved
true: the number of people who said they couldn't afford food just kept
rising and rising.
The findings
from FRAC highlight what many people already know: The economic recovery, in
theory now more than two years old, has done little to keep millions of
Americans out of poverty and deprivation. Incomes for many haven't kept pace
with the cost of living, and for a large swath of the country, things today
are as bad as ever, or worse.
Forty-six
million people lived below the poverty line as of 2010, a record
number, according to the Census Bureau, and one that's not even as high as some other
estimates would have it. Take a further step back and the
situation appears even more dire. About 45 percent
of people in the U.S. have reported not being able to cover their basic
living expenses, including food, shelter and transportation,
according to the group Wider Opportunities for Women.
How'd you do?
(Image: source and
source)
Michael J. Panzner
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