Off the Editor’s Desk – 10-16-2013
A couple of weeks ago, Paula and I attended her 50th year class reunion. Included in a booklet about class members was a couple of pages on what happened in 1963.
Well, we all should remember the death of President John Kennedy on November 22. But do you remember who won the World Series? LA Dodgers over the Yankees in four games.
Lawrence of Arabia was the best picture. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” by Tony Bennett was the Record of the Year. Jacquelyn Mayer of Ohio was Miss America. 200,000 people marched on Washington DC at the Civil Right rally in which Martin Luther King delivery his “I have a Dream” speech. In June of 1963 British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns in the wake of an affair with Christine Keeler, a teenage showgirl who was also involved with the Soviet naval attaché.
On June 3 Pope John XXIII dies and is succeeded June 21 by Cardinal Montini, who becomes Paul VI. In 1963 there are 15,000 US military advisors in South Vietnam.
The population of the United States in 1963 was 189 million. Today it is 314 million. In 1963 the United States had a $310 billion debt, today it is almost $17 trillion.
During that fifty-year span our population has almost doubled, but our debt is 55 times greater.
As the nation’s debt grows, those who are living in poverty have also increased. For those 314 million people, the census reports that 46.2 million are impoverished, as median income drops.
Only ten percent of the residents in Colfax have income levels below the poverty level in a 2009 study. Elk Mound mirrors Colfax with a percentage of 10.1%. This iswell below the state average of 16.4 percent and that of neighboring Boyceville that has a rate of 26.1 percent.
Only 2.8 percent of Elk Mound’s residents have income below fifty percent of the poverty level while Colfax is at 3.2 percent and the state average is 5.3 percent.
The poverty rate among high school graduates not in families in Colfax was 11.5 percent and for those who did not graduate was above the state average at 36.5 percent. In Elk Mound that rate was at 14.9 with no results for the people who did not graduate.
In Glenwood City, information from 2009 indicated that 23.2 percent of the residents have incomes below the poverty level compared to the state average at 16.4 percent. 5.9 percent of the residents in Glenwood City have incomes below fifty percent of poverty level with the state average being 5.3 percent. Of the poor families in Glenwood City, 82 percent are female with no husband present, 12 percent are male with no wife present and the other six percent are married couples.
In Glenwood City the poverty rate among high school graduates not in families is at 22.6 percent against the state average of 16.1. For people who did not graduate from high school it is at 24.1 percent, with the state average being at 31.9. Breakdown of poor residents in Glenwood City not in families indicated that 60 percent did not work and 36 percent worked part time and the rest worked full time.
At Boyceville the income levels of those below the poverty rate is even higher than Glenwood City. The rate is 26.1 percent with 8.9 percent with income below 50% of the poverty level. Sixty-three percent of the poor families in Boyceville are female with no husband present, 13 percent are male with no wife present and 21 percent are married couples. The poverty rate for high school graduates not in families in Boyceville is 21 percent and is at 22.2 percent for people who did not graduate from high school. Breakdown of poor residents in Boyceville not in families indicated 67 percent did not work, 16 percent worked part time and a like percentage work fulltime.
— Carlton