Edward Schumacher-Matos writes about the Latino Vote in The Washington Post today:
“Latinos make up more than 15 percent of the population, and they were 7.4 percent of 2008 voters. But more important politically is their especially large role in heavily populated states such as California, Texas and Florida and swing ones such as Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.
“In California, the races between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina for the Senate and Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman for governor are essentially tied among non-Latino voters, according to a poll by the Los Angeles Times, Latino Decisions and the University of Southern California. Democrats Boxer and Brown, however, were leading overall, and the difference was almost entirely due to Hispanics. They make up 19 percent of California's electorate.
“But Brown's race is tight, reflecting what the Democrats do wrong. Brown has invested almost nothing in Latino media, while Whitman, who has a Latino running mate, pumps out the Spanish-language TV ads.
“Of course, she has to. The Spanish media have been beating her up over how she callously fired her longtime maid, an unauthorized immigrant, as Whitman prepared to run for office.
“The number of Latino undecideds in that race is so high and the Latino support for Brown so shallow -- 15 points lower than Democratic affiliation -- that the Whitman ads might be enough to keep many Latinos from voting for either of them. She would benefit.”
The discrepancies in foreclosure paperwork that were reported earlier this week are also causing problems on the home sales front. According to The New York Times:
“Like many buyers across the country, Ms. Ducksworth was about to complete the purchase of a foreclosed house when it suddenly went off the market. Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage holding company that buys loans from commercial lenders, is pulling back sales of homes that might have been foreclosed in bad faith.
“‘I gave up my rental thinking I would have a house,’ said Ms. Ducksworth, a 28-year-old catering assistant. ‘Now I’m sharing a room with my son. What the hell is up with that?’
“With home sales this past summer at the lowest level in more than a decade, real estate is ill-prepared to suffer another blow. But as a scandal unfolds over mortgage lenders’ shoddy preparation of foreclosure documents, the fallout is beginning to hammer the housing market, especially in states like Florida where distressed properties are abundant.”
Women are closing the income gap, according to a new Census data that gets a write-up from The Washington Post:
“The number of women with six-figure incomes is rising at a much faster pace than it is for men.
“Nationwide, about one in 18 women working full time earned $100,000 or more in 2009, a jump of 14 percent over two years, according to new census figures. In contrast, one in seven men made that much, up just 4 percent.
“The legions of higher-income women have grown even faster in the Washington region, further burnishing its reputation as a land of opportunity for ambitious professional women.
“In the metropolitan region, one in six women earned more than $100,000 last year, the second highest ratio in the nation behind No. 1 San Jose. But Washington women had the highest median pay among all full-time working women, almost $54,000 compared with the national median of nearly $37,000.”
USA Today has a write-up on the jobless rate for September:
“The U.S. unemployment rate stayed at 9.6% for another month in September. The economy lost 95,000 jobs last month as Census layoffs continued, but the private sector gained 64,000 jobs.
“Economists don't foresee a broad employment recovery any time soon, but it's not all bad news. For example, it was announced this week that, for the fourth time in five weeks, fewer people applied for jobless benefits, and the number of open jobs rose in August for the second month in a row, to 3.2 million.
“Before the report was released, a Bloomberg analysis predicted this month's numbers, the last until after the midterm elections, could solidify voters' ambivalence toward Democrats. The jobless rate has barely fallen from the 26-year high of 10.1 percent reached last October.”
Obesity may be playing a big role in the increase of U.S. adults hobbled by arthritis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Los Angeles Times has the story:
“A surprising jump in the number of Americans hobbled by arthritis may be due to obesity, health experts said Thursday.
“About 22 percent of U.S. adults have been told by a doctor that they have arthritis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. The statistic comes from national telephone polling of tens of thousands of adults in 2007 through 2009.
“That translates to nearly 50 million people with the joint disease. It's also roughly the same percentage with arthritis as reported in a 2003-2005 study.
“But there was a significant jump in adults who said their joint pain or other arthritis symptoms limited their usual activities, to 9.4 percent from 8.3 percent. That means more than 21 million adults have trouble climbing stairs, dressing, gardening or doing other things, up from less than 19 million only a few years before, the CDC researchers estimated.”