46.5 mln Americans poor - census

[webfact]

46.5 mln Americans poor - census

The number of Americans in poverty rose slightly last year to 46.5 million, according to US Census data, despite a stock market recovery.

That edged up from 46.2 million Americans in 2011, meaning the national poverty rate remains unchanged at 15%.
It is the sixth year in a row that the rate failed to improve, despite the US being out of a recession since 2011.

The poverty threshold in 2012 was earning below $23,492 (£14,700) for a family of four.

Analysts point to changing employment patterns and tightening of the US safety net.

Many jobs added since the recession have been in the lower-paying services industry - including retail and restaurants.
Voice of Russia, BBC

Source: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_09_18/46-5-mln-Americans-poor-census-0319/

-- THE VOICE OF RUSSIA 2013-09-18

[pmarlin]

Actually they are better off they say a family who earns $30,00 a year. those under the provity level income get free food, housing, medical care, education assistance plus other govt handouts.

[Scott]

Posts discussing the source of the information have been deleted. Stay on topic.

[tw25rw]

What does a stock market recovery have to do with it?

[webfact]

American poverty figure edges up to 46.5 million

The number of Americans in poverty rose slightly last year to 46.5 million, according to US Census data, despite a stock market recovery.

The figure edged up from 46.2 million in 2011, meaning the national poverty rate remains unchanged at 15%.

It is the sixth year in a row that the rate failed to improve, despite the US being out of recession since 2009.

The poverty threshold last year was income below $23,492 (£14,700) for a family of four.

Some analysts blame the lingering poverty on changing employment patterns and tightening of the social safety net.

Many jobs added since the recession have been in the lower-paying services industry, including retail and restaurants.

Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24139251


-- BBC 2013-09-18

[webfact]

U.S. poverty rises despite economic recovery
WASHINGTON

(Reuters) - The number of U.S. residents living in poverty edged up to 46.5 million last year, the latest sign that an economic recovery marked by a stock market boom has not trickled down to ordinary Americans.

The figures from the Census Bureau on Tuesday highlighted the lingering scars from the 2007-2009 recession and added fresh fuel to debates over government austerity and widening income inequality. It could also renew calls to raise the minimum wage.

Although the number of people in poverty went up from 46.2 million in 2011, the national poverty rate was unchanged at 15 percent, the annual report said. The poverty threshold in 2012 was an income of $23,492 for a family of four.

"Today's data underscore that it is time for Congress to pivot from a focus on austerity to an agenda emphasizing jobs and shared economic growth," said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/17/us-usa-economy-poverty-idUSBRE98G0PN20130917

-- REUTERS 2013-09-18

[rotary]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working. They also need to cut out the credit cards as people just get in trouble with them, stop banks from loaning money on houses at or near a 100% of the purchase price, and stop giving money to other countries as the US cannot even take care of its self very well with the extremely large debt they have run up. I guess these are opinions but all true in my mind. With just about no manufacturing jobs left in the USA it beats me how they think they can survive long term in the real world.

[hawker9000]

Actually they are better off they say a family who earns $30,00 a year. those under the provity level income get free food, housing, medical care, education assistance plus other govt handouts.

Exactly!! Why seek work or self-improvement when Uncle Sugar will pay you more to do nothing all day? Have another kid - guaranteed raise! (Just ask octomom.) One of those who pride yourself on your self-sufficiency and ability to provide for yourself & family? The DOA wants YOU! (to talk you into signing up for foodstamps anyway) Welfare-dependent families now in their 3rd generation. ...the proud result of our "War On Poverty". (a very peculiar sort of war whose success is measured by the number of prisoners taken and dollars spent)

[connda]

U.S. poverty rises despite economic recovery

WASHINGTON

(Reuters) - The number of U.S. residents living in poverty edged up to 46.5 million last year, the latest sign that an economic recovery marked by a stock market boom has not trickled down to ordinary Americans.

The figures from the Census Bureau on Tuesday highlighted the lingering scars from the 2007-2009 recession and added fresh fuel to debates over government austerity and widening income inequality. It could also renew calls to raise the minimum wage.

Although the number of people in poverty went up from 46.2 million in 2011, the national poverty rate was unchanged at 15 percent, the annual report said. The poverty threshold in 2012 was an income of $23,492 for a family of four.

"Today's data underscore that it is time for Congress to pivot from a focus on austerity to an agenda emphasizing jobs and shared economic growth," said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/17/us-usa-economy-poverty-idUSBRE98G0PN20130917

-- REUTERS 2013-09-18

Economic Recovery?

Lies!

Damn Lies!

Government Statistics!

[AlphMichaels]

What does a stock market recovery have to do with it?

Not much actually..., save the fact the market has produced more and more High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) in the last 3-4 years so the gap continues to grow and the middle class continues to shrink.

Check out Forbes most recent Richest Americans report. Most of the same faces but a HIGH percentage of them capitalized on a down market. The age old model...., buy low - sell high. Well, Zuckerberg just got lucky when FB rebounded.

Very do-able if you got the cash to "buy low" first.

[ToddWeston]

What does a stock market recovery have to do with it?

As the stock market improves the wealthy can afford more gardeners

[AlphMichaels]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working. They also need to cut out the credit cards as people just get in trouble with them, stop banks from loaning money on houses at or near a 100% of the purchase price, and stop giving money to other countries as the US cannot even take care of its self very well with the extremely large debt they have run up. I guess these are opinions but all true in my mind. With just about no manufacturing jobs left in the USA it beats me how they think they can survive long term in the real world.

Name one US bank that has drafted a mortgage loan at or near 100% of the home's value in the last 4 years to anyone. Credit card issues are down substantially. If you can't show a credit score of 720 or higher (in US), you get rejected. Manufacturing has moved to Asia. It's been happening for 30+ years Not even South America can compete now. But many US manufacturers are doing quite well...., they just took it "offshore".

[Rimmer]

Off topic reported post removed

[SOTIRIOS]

.........nonetheless......they haven't adopted a 'rip off all tourists and foreigners in every way you can' attitude.....nor....'double pricing'.......

[metisdead]

A post containing profanity has been removed as well an an off topic inflammatory post.

[sirchai]

And McDonald's and other fast food restaurant workers went on strike to make $15/hour.

Minimum wage's still seven bucks. Spend $ 40 billion less for the military and give the Wall street guys less money. And "create" a functioning social system for those who can't afford medical treatment.

And and and......-

[phitsanulokjohn]

Just goes to show not all farangs are rich as some Thai girls seem to think.

[Joe Mamma]

Is the figure for legal residents or the illegals too?

[metisdead]

A trolling post has been removed.

[HAL9000]

How many Thai families would be grateful to have $23,492 per year?

[Ulysses G.]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working.

That is only for families with children. Other than a small amount of food stamps, it is almost impossible for single unemployed people to get welfare, no matter how much they need it.

[sgtsabai]

I'll repeat, some of our members need to understand that food stamps and welfare are not give aways. America is poor and getting poorer. There are no real jobs, just part time and flipping burgers for starvation wages. The majority of recipients are white, not black. I'm not trolling, off topic and there never was and is no profanity in the following article for your edification so don't censor me again.

Mon Sep 16, 2013 at 10:04 AM PDT

If 80% of us are in or near poverty then THERE IS NO MIDDLE CLASS.

by MinistryOfTruth

You can't tell me there is a middle if 4/5ths of us are almost poor.

How can their be a middle when 80% of Americans are poor or will be poor at some point in the future.

If we are all poor or near poor then poor is the new middle.

There is a "working class" and the wealthy, that is it. The middle class is DEAD. And everyone, specifically Democrats, need to stop pretending otherwise.

In High School Econ 101 we were taught that there are poor people and working poor people. Working poor people have jobs but are still poor. If we are to cling to the notion of a mythical middle than we must admit that working poor IS the new middle class, and that means there IS no middle class because you are still fracking (censored) poor.

So we can lie to ourselves and pretend that there is a middle class in America, but there isn't. If you are working and still struggling you are not middle class, you are working poor, and by clinging to a dead phrase like "middle" we dismiss and excuse all of those poor people who used to be middle class but got left behind by decades of stagnant wages, rising costs of living and the vast disparity between the growth of the wealth of the super rich compared to everybody else. If you are in debt up to your eyeballs you are not middle class, some one owns you through your debt. If you work and still are constantly broke you are not middle class and you are being kept poor on purpose because how else can they get you to go into debt in the first place?

So STOP trying to explain what the middle class is. It doesn't exist anymore. We live in a three income society, the laughable McDonald's/Visa budget even admits as much, you need TWO incomes just to be able to afford freezing to death during the winter because you have no money for heat or those sicknesses humans get from time to time, and even if you are married or share housing with someone neither of you can afford to lose work for a month or BAM back into poverty you go, so let's stop pretending there is a middle anymore.

If 80% of us are going to be in poverty or near it in our lifetimes then there is no middle class, there are poor people and rich people.

Whenever we talk about the middle class we are speaking of a thing that no longer exists. Not when 4/5ths of us are scrapping near poverty. Republicans only speak of the poor in disdain but Democrats treat the word "Poor' as if it were some four lettered swear not to be uttered in public, but the reality is simple, there is no middle class, it died a decade ago and was buried when Wall Street crashed the economy 4 years ago.

When we talk about raising the minimum wage we must remember that people who oppose raising the minimum wage are AGAINST trickle down, they are admitting it doesn't work because they will not allow it to do so. I say $10 an hour is NOT enough, how about double the current minimum wage for all workers including workers who earn tips and peg the growth of the minimum wage to the growth rate of Fortune 500 total executive compensation.

By pretending that poverty does not exist and lumping everyone in a mythical middle we are deluding ourselves from the real crisis facing America, because a nation where 80% of the people are at or near poverty is a nation that is one bad month away from total disaster.

And here are Republicans fighting to help starve Americans by denying them food assistance to supplement their suppressed wages. Let me ask those conservatives this, what happens when you drive people into poverty with low wages and starve them by rescinding food assistance? What alternative do you give those people? Tax cuts? More guns? But what about those Democrats who are afraid to seem too friendly to the poor by defending the working class instead of this mythical specter of the Ghost of Middle Class past?

Income inequality is not a problem, it is THE problem. We are all going broke and falling into poverty BECAUSE the wealthiest among us have decided that starving us and suppressing our wages is better for their profit line. At the beginning of the collapse Senator John McCain said "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."

If 4/5ths of us are going to be poor in our lifetime I would suggest that the fundamentals of our economy are fracked (censored) up and bullpoop (censored).

And someone should, you know, do something about that.

If 80% of us are poor then the middle is poor.

Taxes are not the problem. Government spending too much is NOT the problem. Are wages are too fracking (censored) low. That is the problem. Ignoring it won't make it go away. Part of the reason Bill DiBlasio won in NYC was due to the fact that he is telling the truth, the rich are richer than ever at a time when being poor is becoming the new middle BECAUSE the rich have invented a plutonomy for themselves at the expense of the rest of us. The sooner we deal with that the better, but first we must admit there is a problem. Coddling the rich is strangling the rest of us. Pretending otherwise is bullpoop (censored).

95% of the wealth is going to the wealthiest 1%. That isn't an economy, it's a casino with rigged slot machines. When the rich get 96% where will that other 1% of profit come from? When will the rich be happy? When it is 99%? 100%? Two years ago pundits bemoaned the fact that Occupy Wall Street had no official demands. I would like to ask the same of Wall Street and the super rich. What are your demands? How much profit does Wall Street need before they start paying decent wages again? How much profit does Wall Street need before we can raise the minimum wage?

And how bad does it have to get before the pitchforks and torches come out?

I say we are already there.

Rant off

[Scott]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working.

That is only for families with children. Other than a small amount of food stamps, it is almost impossible for single unemployed people to get welfare, no matter how much they need it.

In many states, welfare benefits are only for a single parent with children. If it is a two parent family, then often welfare is not available. States can opt for certain program which will see their dollars matched by the federal government. Single unemployed people would generally only qualify for General Assistance and very, very few counties pay General Assistance which is almost entirely funded by local tax revenues (with a few exceptions).

There are also problems with residency requirements. That was the problem with single mothers living in their car with their kids. They did not qualify for welfare because they didn't have an address and therefore could not establish residency for benefits.

[alfalfa19]

23,492 dollars for a family of 4? What a joke. It is hard for one person to live on that. The actual figure for poverty stricken people is much much higher, I am sure. Remember, taxes are still taken out of that money: payroll tax, ss tax, gasoline tax, state tax, sales tax, etc etc etc.

[Benmart]

.........nonetheless......they haven't adopted a 'rip off all tourists and foreigners in every way you can' attitude.....nor....'double pricing'.......

I can't comment on "All tourists and foreigners" since I've not met them "All", nor personally observed attitude nor double pricing of "All". Perhaps I have missed a research report by some university or advocacy group that can support this hypothesis concerning the elusive "All and every way" factor.

[jsflynn603]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working. They also need to cut out the credit cards as people just get in trouble with them, stop banks from loaning money on houses at or near a 100% of the purchase price, and stop giving money to other countries as the US cannot even take care of its self very well with the extremely large debt they have run up. I guess these are opinions but all true in my mind. With just about no manufacturing jobs left in the USA it beats me how they think they can survive long term in the real world.

Name one US bank that has drafted a mortgage loan at or near 100% of the home's value in the last 4 years to anyone. Credit card issues are down substantially. If you can't show a credit score of 720 or higher (in US), you get rejected. Manufacturing has moved to Asia. It's been happening for 30+ years Not even South America can compete now. But many US manufacturers are doing quite well...., they just took it "offshore".

Here's one, well, not 100% but you said "near" this one allows the purchaser to put down 1%, thus it's 99%.

http://www.nhhfa.org/rental-housing-choice-vouchers-ownership.cfm

It really is strange in America these days and to me reminiscent of the Great Depression (1928-1931).

It's certainly not the same, but in some ways it is.

No bread/soup kitchen lines but we have 48 million on food stamps--A line with each person standing two feet apart would reach 4,550 miles. But nobody sees the throngs line up for food. If recipients of food stamps, welfare, fuel assistance, medicaid (medical for the poor), housing assistance, etc. were forced to line up each week to collect now that would be something to see. But it's all hidden.

"Since January 2009 the country has added a net total of 270,000 full-time jobs, but it has added 1.9 million part-time jobs, according to the House Ways and Means Committee." Washington Post

Unemployment figures are not so bad but when we look at the % of people who could be employed the numbers take an a Great Depression aspect. Remember, when an American runs out of unemployment benefits he/she is no longer counted as unemployed. Remember too, that when a person goes from a job that earned $40,000/year to a part time job that earns $12,000--that person too is no longer unemployed.

Education costs have risen so far beyond other costs that Americans are approaching one trillion dollars in debt for education loans. Why have education costs risen so much? I'm not sure, professors are not being paid more so I suspect it's bigger/better buildings/campus.

Yet all is not totally bleak. American earnings have stagnated so much that in real purchasing power American's earnings have dropped since the mid sixties. Chinese earnings however have risen and risen and risen. And already in some sectors America is once again becoming a manufacturing center--and with the various forms of gas coming on line (coal bed methane, tightly held gas, horizontal drilling, etc.) I predict that in ten years America will once again become a manufacturer, that is--unless our politicians and the banksters don't derail everything.

[Time Traveller]

They need to fix the welfare system so it pays less than not working. They also need to cut out the credit cards as people just get in trouble with them, stop banks from loaning money on houses at or near a 100% of the purchase price, and stop giving money to other countries as the US cannot even take care of its self very well with the extremely large debt they have run up. I guess these are opinions but all true in my mind. With just about no manufacturing jobs left in the USA it beats me how they think they can survive long term in the real world.

Ever been to USA? Yeah like everyone can easily go off welfare and walk into a $30000 per year job. Most of those on welfare would be lucky to get a full time job paying min. wage, which is about $16000 per year. Now the fact that most employers offering min wage don't hire workers for more than 30 hrs per week (so they don't have to provide benefits like health insurance to their workers) then you realize that welfare has nothing to do with the poverty level. There just simply is not enough jobs.

[NeverSure]

I am dumbstruck by what I consider to be an overreaction. Yes there are an unfortunate few who have nowhere to turn.

But I'm doing very well and so are my friends and neighbors. We're talking about just 14% and many of them do qualify for assistance. If they are physically or mentally disabled, they can be single and get a lot of assistance.

Subtract from the 14% those families that get a lot of assistance, those disabled who get a lot of assistance, and what percentage is left?

Now subtract the 5% which is perennially poor due to lifestyle, choices, and laziness. Now subtract the "homeless" who choose it due to alcoholism and drug addiction. They wander from charity shelter to charity shelter such as Salvation Army, Union Gospel Mission, and local ones. Churches and other charities often offer a free lunch to anyone who walks in.

Also, what life planning did they do? There is a demand for skilled people. It's hard to find a good plumber or electrician or computer programmer or website developer. The health care industry is sometimes begging for qualified help.

So the uneducated people who have no drive and who made no plans are suffering from the lack of effort. What do people expect? Show up for a job interview with no trade skills and no education and maybe no job experience and expect to be elevated into some mystical high life?

Some people bought into the American dream of debt-driven big houses, cars, credit cards, etc. and when the market crashed they were bankrupt. Some jobs require good credit to be hired. Many do.

Now how about the people with criminal histories? They are extremely lucky if they can find a good job. Employers check credit and criminal backgrounds.

Now how about these immature young people who show up for a job interview covered with tattoos and with a bunch of jewelry hanging off their faces? Do they serious expect to be taken seriously for serious position? All of that is up to them, but it won't get them far in a corporate job interview. In the lingo of the middle aged hiring manager, "They look like they just fell face first into their father's fishing tackle box."

I want to take that 14% and subtract from it all of the people who make choices to self-destruct, or who choose to live off the welfare system, or who are getting assistance due to a disability.

I wonder what the true number would be?

[HerbalEd]

Actually they are better off they say a family who earns $30,00 a year. those under the provity level income get free food, housing, medical care, education assistance plus other govt handouts.

While your point may be true to a lesser extent in some cases, your are groosly exaggerating otherwise. I don't know of anyone getting "free" housing beyond homeless shelters. Education assistance? All elementary and high schools are free, although there are obviously other costs.

[NeverSure]

I forgot to add. Many people are not only lazy and users, but they have burned all of their bridges due to their own choices. Their family and friends won't take them in or help them "one more time."

Dang it, I can't count on both hands the number of people I could turn to if I was down and out, and they could turn to me. We've all been hard working and would help each other.

So if someone has nowhere to turn, it may be his fault.