Texas Passes Louisiana in People in Poverty Rankings

HopeTracker| The 17.3 percent of people living in poverty in Texas, up 11 percent from last year, just haven’t gotten Tom Delay’s message. The biggest state symbol of American self-reliance, thinking big and — on occasion, big talk — ranks 6th in the nation in its numbers of poor people.

Texas’ child poverty rate was 25.6 percent last year, up from 23.1 percent a year earlier, edging out Louisiana. via Dallas Morning News

Anne was stunned like many other CNN Candy Croley’s “State of the Union” viewers, when Texas Republican and former Speaker of the House Tom Delay said that people are unemployed because they want to be.

Specifically Delay said: via Huffington Post

“You know,there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Host Candy Crowley: “Congressman, that’s a hard sell, isn’t it?”

Delay: “it’s the truth.”

Admittedly, when we think of Katrina-ravaged Louisiana, a state with constant challenges to improve the lives of citizens living there, we never think of Texans as being worse off. Well, at least some Texas are worse off.