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"In tonight&amp;apos;s State of the Union speech, we&amp;apos;re likely to hear a lot about the nation&amp;apos;s continuing recovery from the Great Recession, and about President Obama&amp;apos;s determination to run an executive end-run around obstructionist Republicans in order to kick the economy into a higher gear.\r\nBut as the nation pauses for this annual moment of reflection on our fiscal and social health, too many leading indicators get short shrift. Here are 27 statistics &amp;#x2013; on unemployment, inequality, the drug war, defense spending, climate change and more &amp;#x2013; that underscore the troubled reality of America in 2014:\r\n1. New income generated since 2009 that has gone to the top 1 percent: 95 percent\r\n2. Financial wealth controlled by the bottom 60 percent of all Americans: 2.3 percent\r\n3. Record combined wealth of the top 400 richest Americans: $2,000,000,000,000\r\n4. Real decline in median middle-class incomes since 1999: $5,000\r\n5. Percentage of Hispanic and African-American children living in poverty, respectively: 33.8 percent; 36.7 percent\r\n6. Amount that food stamps will be cut in 2014: $5 billion\r\n7. Federal minimum wage: $7.25\r\n8. What the minimum wage would be if it had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968: $21.72\r\n9. Number of U.S. workers laboring at or below minimum wage: 3.6 million &amp;#x2013; the near equivalent of the population of Los Angeles.\r\n10.Stealth taxpayer subsidy to the fast-food industry, paid out as safety-net benefits to McWorkers earning poverty wages: $7 billion\r\n11. Global carbon dioxide levels measured in parts per million: 397\r\n12. Maximum concentration of the greenhouse gas that scientists deem sustainable: 350\r\n13. Years since the turn of this century that have ranked among the warmest 15 on record: All 13\r\n14. Rank of 2013 on that list of the warmest years on record: Number Four\r\n15. U.S. defense spending as of 2012: $682 billion\r\n16. Dollar amount by which that surpassed our nearest plausible military rival, China: $516 billion\r\n17. Federal deficit last year: $680 billion\r\n18. Number of Americans disenfranchised from voting for felony convictions: 5.9 million\r\n19. Share of those disenfranchised voters who are African-American: 37 percent\r\n20. Number of Americans arrested annually for marijuana possession: 658,000\r\n21. Total incarcerated U.S. population: 2.3 million\r\n22. Total population on probation/parole: 4.8 million\r\n23. States that could be entirely filled by all of the Americans under correctional supervision: Nevada and Kentucky\r\n24. Official unemployment rate: 6.7 percent\r\n25. Alternate rate including Americans who&amp;apos;ve given up looking for work, or have only been able to secure part-time employment: 13.1 percent\r\n26. Number of jobs the United States is still down from 2008 employment peak: 1.69 million\r\n27. Number of Americans who were cut off from long-term unemployment benefits at the turn of the year: 1.3 million"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/27-shocking-numbers-that-reveal-the-true-state-of-the-union-20140128>