David Cay Johnston,
Thank you for your email this morning which appeared in my in box at 4:38 a.m. If only you’d responded so quickly to my first inquiry. (To answer your question, I sent my email as per the instructions attached to your article at the New York Times — on December 27, 2007. Your editors thanked me, in an email, and stated that they’d be passing my email along to you the following day, at 8:00 a.m.)
In any event, had you contacted me earlier, I would have asked you the same question I ask now, and the question most readers have figured out is the real question at hand: How can you stand behind your “analysis” that 60 million Americans live on less than $7 a day when the statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau state that there are 37 million people (not families) in poverty in the U.S.? Where did these 23 million other, wildly impoverished people come from?
Your long-winded response sounds like a lot more smoke and mirrors. It’s a simple question and I’d love to hear a simple answer.
I repeat my simple question: How do 37 million people suddenly become 60 million people? How does $9,645 a year suddenly become $2,555 a year?
I was surprised to see you take a pot shot at Engram. You and I both know exactly who he is, and what his qualifications are. You and I have both had lengthy conversations with Engram long before this article went to print. Just because someone asks to remain anonymous doesn’t mean they aren’t accredited.
Annie Jacobsen
