Census data contradicts SLO County letter writer’s gloomy portrait
Poor Ralph Bush — on Sept. 12, his letter “The doom and gloom is real,” painted a dystopian view of the country referring to “actual statistics” which he does not cite.
The next day, the Census Bureau released statistics revealing that U.S. families had experienced a growth in median household income of 5.2 percent, the highest on record and a poverty rate that had fallen by 1.3 percent, the largest single drop since 1968.
The one statistic that Mr. Bush does cite is that 68 percent of the people polled think the country is headed in the wrong direction. What he does not mention is that President Barack Obama’s approval rating stands at 58 percent. That would seem to indicate that most of the dissatisfied people do not blame Obama for wrong direction.
Where to place the blame?
Certainly Congress and the Supreme Court bear some of the responsibility and recently both of those branches of government have been dominated by the party of the presidential candidate who Mr. Bush thinks can fix all the problems.
Max Riedlsperger, San Luis Obispo
This story was originally published October 2, 2016 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Census data contradicts SLO County letter writer’s gloomy portrait."