More Americans in deep poverty

[papau]

REPOSTED FROM THE POVERTY FORUM: More Americans in deep poverty http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x1479
which was reposted in General Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x306658


http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16760690.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation


U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty

By Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty (43% of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty - the highest rate in at least 32 years). A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year (federal poverty guidelines for 2006 set the individual level at less than $5,244 a year).

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.

The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.<snip>


http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2308649.ece


The number of Americans living in severe poverty has expanded dramatically under the Bush administration, with nearly 16 million people now living on an individual income of less than $5,000 (£2,500) a year or a family income of less than $10,000, according to an analysis of 2005 official census data.

The analysis, by the McClatchy group of newspapers, showed that the number of people living in extreme poverty had grown by 26 per cent since 2000. Poverty as a whole has worsened, too, but the number of severe poor is growing 56 per cent faster than the overall segment of the population characterized as poor - about 37 million people in all according to the census data. That represents more than 10 per cent of the US population, which recently surpassed the 300 million mark.

The widening of the income gap between haves and have-nots is nothing new in America - it has been going on steadily since the late 1970s. What is new, though, is the rapid increase in numbers at the bottom of the socio-economic pile. The numbers of severely poor have increased faster than any other segment of the population.<snip>

The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed steadily in the last three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.<snip>

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INTERESTING POINTS FROM THE STUDY AND THE DISCUSSION in various locations:

"That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began," said Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who co-authored the study. "We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty....Just as a sinkhole causes everything above it to collapse downward, families and individuals in the middle and upper classes appear to be migrating to lower-income tiers that bring them closer to the poverty threshold."

BUSH/GOP REACTION VIA HERITAGE FOUNDATION ROBERT RECTOR ROBERT RECTOR questioned the growth of severe poverty, saying that census data become less accurate farther down the income ladder (SINCE THE POOR LIE?) with poor people, particularly single mothers with boyfriends, underreport their income by not including cash gifts and loans, and saying he had seen no data that suggest increasing deprivation among the very poor" (HE IS just noting that federal poverty estimates both do not factor in assistance from government anti-poverty programs, such as food stamps, housing subsidies and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and do not adjust for work-related expenses and necessities such as day care, transportation, housing and health care costs, so as to get to disposable income - but many alternative poverty measures that account for these show the same kind of long-term trends as the official poverty data)

FROM THE LIBERAL CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES ARLOC SHERMAN: "It doesn't look like a growing permanent underclass," said Sherman, whose organization has chronicled the growth of deep poverty. "What you see in the data are more and more single moms with children who lose their jobs and who aren't being caught by a safety net anymore." About 1.1 million such families account for roughly 2.1 million deeply poor children, Sherman said.

THE CENSUS BUREAU'S SURVEY OF INCOME AND PROGRAM PARTICIPATION reports that in any given month, only 10 percent of severely poor Americans received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in 2003 - the latest year available - and that only 36 percent received food stamps (due to having exhausted their eligibility for welfare or decided that the new program requirements were too onerous).

among 31 developed countries, over the last few years, according to the Luxembourg Income Study, America has had the highest or near-highest poverty rates for children, individual adults and families. With the exception of Mexico and Russia, the U.S. devotes the smallest portion of its gross domestic product to federal anti-poverty programs, and those programs are among the least effective at reducing poverty

since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," per a study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people are "deep poverty" - the highest rate since at least 1975.

one in three severely poor people are under age 17

two out of three are female - female-headed families with children account for a large share of the severely poor.

two of three people in severe poverty are white (10.3 million)

6.9 million are non-Hispanic whites

Severely poor blacks (4.3 million) are more than three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while extremely poor Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) are more than twice as likely.

concentration of severely poor people: highest at 10.8% in Washington, D.C. (with 60% in extreme proverty), 9.3% in Mississippi, 8.3% in , Louisiana, with 9.3 percent and 8.3 percent.

1 in 3 Americans (illegal immigrants are not counted) will experience a full year of extreme poverty at some point in his or her adult life - 58% between ages of 20 and 75 will spend at least a year in poverty, 2 in 3 will use a public assistance program between ages 20 and 65, and 40 % will do so for five years or more. according to long-term research by Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

[raccoon]

1. K&R. nt

[question everything]

2. But, hey, our economy is booming

vacation flights are over booked, new, fancy cars clog our roads, multi million dollar houses are outside the bubble..

:puke:

And this is why it is so important to vote for the Democratic candidate, no matter how unpalatable s/he is. Yes, our "leaders" love riches as much as their fellow Republicans. But the only way we can have a chance for Congress to at least address, this issue, to make sure that every worker gets paid sick days

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=230x1477

is to keep sending democrats to Congress and to the White House, even if they hold some positions with which we disagree.

K&R