The government’s Census statistics about poverty in America are lies.

This spring and summer there was a bit of a employment boost due to our once a decade counting of the nation. For many it came at just the right time as the benefits available from unemployment are fairly minimal and the census paid the enumerators (the folks doing the actual door-to-door work) $16.95 an hour. A couple of months on the census also was long enough that many of these folks will be able to file new claims and restart the clock on benefits.

This is all to the good, that is until State unemployment rules kick in. You see, many states don’t look at your last job to calculate what you will receive in benefits. Places like Colorado look at the last year of wages to determine your benefits. One formula takes the highest wages from two consecutive quarters and divides that by 26 then multiplies it by .6. This gives a benefit of 60% of wages, capped at $445. Or they look at the whole year, divide by 52 then divide that by 2 to get the weekly benefit.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

This is not a bad method, when the economy does not have millions of people who have been unemployed for more than six months and many of that group being unemployed for a year or longer. For those who had been out of work for a year or more, the census job while good money and an important boost also has put them out of the running for a good benefits check.

Discussion of the Jobs reports trying to minimize the numbers

Fact-checking Michele Bachmann and commenting on Michael Steele’s fall from power

One of the things which have always gotten up my nose is the way that Conservatives will call undocumented immigrants “illegal immigrants”. It is a little bit of framing that just rubs me the wrong way. The problem is it is hard to dispute. Being and working in the United States without a visa or a green card is illegal. There is no getting around that. The thing is it is a really low level crime. It is not even a felony. Still it is a crime so if you want to be pejorative about it, you can call people in that situation illegal immigrants.

Well the time to turn the tables on these folks may very well be at hand. Today is the day that your census information is supposed to be filled out and returned (or at least have it postmarked) by. There has been a rather insane and self-defeating push from the Conservatives urging that any of their true believers either not fill out the census or give strange information.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is reporting today that Kirk Lyons, an Neo-Confederate lawyer, is urging people in the South to check the “other” box and write in “Southern Confederate American”. From the SPLC’s website:

Lyons insisted that “Confederate Southern American” is an appropriate designation because the South seceded to form an independent nation for four years during the Civil War — or, as he puts it, the “War of Northern Aggression.” “If there can be Cajun Americans, if there can be Serbian Americans, there can be Confederate Southern Americans,” Lyons said. Proclaiming their national origin as Confederate Southern Americans would send the message that they “will not sit in the back of the bus anymore.” He added that the Confederate community constitutes “the largest single minority group in the United States today.”

George Takei and his husband, Brad Altman, urge co-habiting partnered LGBT Americans to fill out their US Census form in ways that highlight their marital (or non-marital) relationship. Our government can count us, but only if we tell them on the Census form.

Turns out L.A. is home to the country’s largest population of HTCs. Liberty Hill is tracking stories about creative community-efforts to count HTCs in Los Angeles.

A brief discussion of the need for fundamental political reform as a pretext for meaningful change

CBS discovered what I discovered yesterday