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AFFORDABLE HOUSING
About 1.6 billion people live in substandard housing and 100 million are homeless, according to the United Nations. Another billion people―32 percent of the global urban population―live in slums. If no serious action is taken, the number of slum dwellers worldwide will increase over the next 30 years to nearly 2 billion.
Between 750,000 – 1,000,000 children are homeless in America over the course of a year -- 25% of the homeless population.
ARMS BUILDUP/WAR
It is estimated that yearly, over 1 trillion dollars are spent on military expenditures worldwide (2% of World GDP) and the combined arms sales of the top 100 largest arms producing companies amounted to an estimated $315 billion in 2006.
The United States is the overall top supplier of weapons. The United States is also the top supplier of weapons to the developing world, accounting for around 36% of worldwide weapons sales, followed by Russia, United Kingdom, Germany and China.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Since 1973, 139 people who were condemned to death have been exonerated. The average number of years between sentencing and exoneration: 9.8
The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year -- beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state's executions.
Consistent with previous years, the 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that the South, despite committing 80% of the nation's executions, had the highest murder rate. The Northeast, which committed less than 1% of all executions, again had the lowest murder rate.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Since the early 1970s, the number of inmates in U.S. jails and penitentiaries has grown sevenfold, from 300,000 to 2.3 million, incarcerating a higher percentage of its own citizens than any other country on earth. Yet despite the vast amount of money spent during this period, the crime rate has remained essentially unchanged.
ENVIRONMENT/EARTH
The U.S. has 5% of the earth's population but uses about 35% of its resources.
GUN VIOLENCE
In 2006, there were 18 people murdered by a gun in Austria, 27 in Australia, 59 in England & Wales, 60 in Spain, 190 in Canada, 194 in Germany and 10,177 in America.
A gun in the home is 11 times more likely to be used in an attempted suicide, 7 times more likely in a homicide and 4 times more likely in an unintentional shooting than in self-defense.
HEALTHCARE
Around the world 1,200 children die every hour (28,800 a day) of preventable diseases.
The number and percentage of Americans without health insurance remained much greater in 2008 than 2001. Approximately 46.3 million people, representing 15.4% of the population, lacked health insurance in 2008, while 39.8 million people, representing 14.1% of the population, lacked health insurance in 2001. 9.2 million of these (o r1 in 8) are children.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking is the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world. The U.S. State Department estimates that 14,500 - 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. annually. The National Runaway Switchboard estimates that every year thousands of American children are lured into the trafficking industry.
HUNGER
Each year, 3 million children under the age of five die because they are undernourished. But many more children live with malnutrition than die from it. For infants and young children, the effects of chronic malnutrition in the early years of life are largely irreversible.
In America, a single parent with one child, working a full-time at a minimum wage job every week of the year, earns $15,080 ($7.25 x 40 hours x 52 weeks) before deductions or taxes—$240 above the federal "poverty threshold" of $14,840. The 2009 "threshold" for a family of three is $18,310 and for a family of four it's $ 21,834.
IMMIGRATION/REFUGEES
According to the United States Border Patrol, since 1998 approximately 4,500 people, mostly young poor Latin Americans, have died of thirst and hunger in the American desert looking for a better life or seeking to reunite with family members in the U.S.
POVERTY
According to the U.S. Census Bureau the number of American families in poverty is increasing. In 2008, 8.15 million U.S. families lived in poverty—, up from 7.62 million in 2007.
Despite having the highest national income among major economically advanced countries, the real child poverty rate in the United States ( 20.6%) is among the highest. Finland ( 4.2%), Sweden ( 4.0%), Austria ( 6.2%), and Denmark ( 2.7%), among others, have low child poverty rates.
RACISM
Over 17 million non-white Americans live below the poverty line in 2008. There are 10.9 million Hispanics in poverty, 9.3 million African Americans, and 1.5 million Asian Americans in poverty. As a percentage of the population, however, almost one in four African Americans lives in poverty, the highest percentage of any group.
Of those people who have been executed in the U.S. since 1973, 65% were of a minority group. When the defendant was white and the victim black, 15 people were executed but when the defendant was black and the victim white, 243 people were executed.
TORTURE
According to Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), the use of torture has been documented in the following countries: China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.
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