Interesting Information from AP

The Associated Press, the biggest cable press agency in the United States, has just published results of a survey that North American academics carried out into what has been happening with the economy of the citizens of this country. They carried out the study exclusively for this news agency; the information that they provide about the economy — the differences between the rich and poor and the loss of well-paid industrial jobs — is extremely interesting.

The investigation found that four out of every five North American adults are struggling with possible unemployment, falling into poverty and will almost certainly have to depend on social programs at some time in their lives. Strange, isn’t it? And what about that famous American dream that has been talked about so much? It’s sad, really sad, that these people have had to face such an awful reality.

Since I have known this country, I have always heard wonders about it. The stories were always the same: In the United States, everything is possible; he who struggles gets there, and he who gets there triumphs, they used to say. Since I was a boy, back in Cuba, I used to hear marvelous stories of how it was possible to achieve anything here. I had always heard it said that this was the land of opportunities where, with the sweat of your brow, you could have all kinds of material comforts, like houses, cars, yachts and anything you could imagine. Apparently, if we read everything this study found in detail, the famous American dream is more of a nightmare.

The truth is that vast amounts of material things can be acquired in the United States. This society is very well-designed to make citizens’ lives easy when it comes to acquiring goods. As consumption here is a life philosophy, it can almost be said that this is what people live for in this country. From the cradle to the grave, consumption is an integral part of society. It’s no wonder that it is known to the rest of the planet as the queen of consumer societies.

If you go to a supermarket in this country, you run the risk of suffering from an anxiety attack when you see so many varieties of the same product. A shelf can become an imaginary battlefield for you. In this society, the problem gets worse and reaches a crisis point when you cannot afford the products you are offered: in other words, when “we have that, but not for you,” when some can acquire things and others cannot.

According to what the AP has published, the globalization of the country’s economy, the ever-growing gap between the rich and poor and the loss of well-paid jobs are to blame for this situation where some can consume and others cannot. A short time ago, those at a disadvantage were African-Americans and Latin-Americans. Now, the strange thing is that the so-called white North Americans are going through the same economic insecurity as the rest of the population.

Seventy-nine percent of the groups that live here suffer economic insecurity, according to this AP survey. Fifteen percent of the inhabitants of this country, more than 46 million people, live in poverty. More than 19 million white North Americans are living below the poverty line.

According to what has come to light in this study, since the year 2000, the number of poor, white workers has been increasing at a higher rate than workers of other races.

What is striking is that the percentage of black children living in poor neighborhoods has decreased rather than increased and that there are more black people living in neighborhoods mostly inhabited by white people. It seems that wealth rather than racial difference is, little by little but more and more, an indicator of social difference in North American society.

What the AP has just published is of great importance to understanding the changes that are already taking place within this society. Consumption will continue to be its goal, but it seems that racial discrimination is gradually losing importance to economic discrimination.