Poverty in America: The Subject Presidential Candidates Would Prefer to Ignore. This week in Johannesburg, South Africa a mother was trampled to death as thousands of young people surged, desperate to register for university, because there are no jobs and studying seems a way of waiting out the recession. No work makes people desperate. Just the week before a young friend in Boston who graduated last year with a management degree told me he was going back to college because he could not find work, so the hopes of young people there and here are similar.
Indeed this recession is making young people poorer than older folk, and as we age and the burden on economies increases from so many gray hairs, they will never experience the prosperity we, their parents, did. An hour before I read of the South African tragedy I listened to Tavis Smiley and Cornel West on NPR discussing poverty in America; one in two are now poor, 42 percent of American children don’t get adequate nutrition, 41 percent of African American youth can’t find work. And what about us? Dr. Poverty In America — by the numbers | The Lookout. Understanding Poverty in the United States: Poverty USA. Executive Summary Today, the Census Bureau released its annual poverty report, which declared that a record 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. The numbers were up sharply from the previous year’s total of 43.6 million. Although the current recession has increased the numbers of the poor, high levels of poverty predate the recession.
In most years for the past two decades, the Census Bureau has declared that at least 35 million Americans lived in poverty. However, understanding poverty in America requires looking behind these numbers at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor. For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one’s family. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports: 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. Poverty in America: Faces behind the figures. In this Sept. 16, 2011 photo, Kris Fallon holds her 4-month-old daughter Addison, in Palatine, Ill., as her 15-year-old son Gared Fallon looks on. AP At a food pantry in a Chicago suburb, a 38-year-old mother of two breaks into tears. She and her husband have been out of work for nearly two years.
Their house and car are gone. So is their foothold in the middle class and, at times, their self-esteem. "It's like there is no way out," says Kris Fallon. She is trapped like so many others, destitute in the midst of America's abundance. The numbers are daunting — but they also can seem abstract and numbing without names and faces. Associated Press reporters around the country went looking for the people behind the numbers. There's Tim Cordova, laid off from his job as a manager at a McDonald's in New Mexico, and now living with his wife at a homeless shelter after a stretch where they slept in their Ford Focus. Some were outraged by the statistics. Struggling on $18,000 a year. Poverty in America.
A mere glance at the facts about poverty in America, hailed to be one of the richest countries in the world, shows us that it is not untouched by the global menace - poverty. In fact, the onset of recession in December 2007 has deepened the poverty crisis in the US. Presented below are some eye-opening revelations about poverty in the US... A report published by the World Bank in August 2008, indicated that there has been no major global poverty reduction in the last couple of decades except in case of China, where poverty rate plummeted from 85% to 16% (approx.).
In fact, if China is not counted, poverty across the globe fell only by 10%, which is shocking. While it's a commonly established fact that African and Asian countries have been dealing with poverty since they became independent, the wealthiest and affluent nations, like America, also have faced poverty issues, although it may be lesser in intensity than other countries. Poverty in America - Statistics. Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart -- Home. Poverty in the United States. In November 2012 the U.S. Census Bureau said more than 16% of the population lived in poverty, including almost 20% of American children,[7] up from 14.3% (approximately 43.6 million) in 2009 and to its highest level since 1993. In 2008, 13.2% (39.8 million) Americans lived in poverty.[8] Starting in the 1980s, relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations.[9] California has a poverty rate of 23.5%, the highest of any state in the country.[10] In 2009 the number of people who were in poverty was approaching 1960s levels that led to the national War on Poverty.[11] In 2011 extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, was double 1996 levels at 1.5 million households, including 2.8 million children.[12] This would be roughly 1.2% of the US population in 2011, presuming a mean household size of 2.55 people.
Measures of poverty[edit] Two official measures of poverty[edit] Poverty In America: A Special Report. America is getting poorer. The U.S. government has just released a bunch of new statistics about poverty in America, and once again this year the news is not good. According to a special report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months, and that is the largest increase that we have ever seen since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.
Not only that, median household income has also fallen once again. Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. However, it is important to keep in mind that the government definition of poverty rises based on the rate of inflation. So why is poverty in America exploding? Let's take a closer look at poverty in America.... The Shrinking Number Of Jobs Unemployment is rampant and the number of good jobs continues to shrink. The Working Poor The Plight Of The Elderly. Rep. Steny Hoyer: Eliminating Childhood Poverty in America.
This post is part of a series on childhood poverty in the United States in partnership with Save the Children's U.S. Programs and Julianne Moore. To learn more go to savethechildren.org. As an early educator, my wife Judy devoted her career to helping provide children with the opportunities, care, and support they deserve.
Before she passed away in 1997, Judy had already impacted the lives of so many children in Prince George's County, Maryland, where she oversaw the county's early education programs. Judy recognized, as I do, that when we provide children with opportunities at an early age, it makes a tremendous difference throughout their lives. Supporting the health and education of the youngest Americans has never been more important. But keeping children out of poverty in America will take more than just local community efforts. That is what House Democrats' Make It In America plan is all about.
Poverty in America: A Crisis Ignored. Neither President Obama Nor GOP Making Poor an Issue getty images No Caring: Mitt Romney rubbed some the wrong way with his comment that he doesn’t ‘care much’ about the poor. But poverty is largely ignored by candidates on both sides of the aisle. By Leonard Fein Published February 05, 2012, issue of February 10, 2012. Poor Jews, the saying goes, are middle-class Jews without money. The unstated assumption is that the conventional cultural standards of the middle class are not displaced by a “culture of poverty” when Jews tumble down the class ladder. But it’s not the Jewish poor, however they came to poverty, that are here my concern.
President Obama, as attested by his State of the Union message, has also decided to duck the poverty issue, evidently mistakenly believing that a rising tide will lift all boats. Race: The unemployment rate for white Americans is 8%; for blacks, it is 16%. What? Right. And there’s Pembroke, Ill., a town of somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people.