Housing The HUD budget for housing programs has received increases each of the last two years. However, the nation is still far from where it needs to be. An unfortunate byproduct of the good economy is a housing crisis, particularly in the rental area. There is not a single place in the country where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford to pay fair market rent. Severe housing problems are a reality across the country.
Prescription medications are the fastest-rising part of the nation's health care expenditures.
Rising health care costs now outdistance what wages and family income can reasonably accomodate. Approximately 43 million people in this country have no health insurance, and that figure is projected to increase significantly by 2005. Medicare, which provides health care coverage to 39 million seniors, and Medicaid, which covers almost 41 million people who have disabilities or are poor, represent the only stable health care coverage programs in the nation. We live in a world marked by great social, economic and political imbalances. Many impoverished nations are so burdened by debt to outside entities that they cannot even afford to pay the interest on that debt, much less fund the basic human needs programs in their countries.