46.2 Million Americans Living In Poverty, Highest Rate Since 1983

Today the Census Bureau released its report [pdf] on income, poverty and health insurance, and doggone it, would you believe these statistics are not specifically too good? According to the most recent census numbers from 2010, approximately 1 in 6 Americans are impoverished. That's 46.2 million people, up from 43.6 million in 2009—15.1 percent of the population were below the poverty line last year, the highest percentage since 1983. But hey, that was last year. We've still got more than three months left in 2011 to turn this thing around!

The downward spiral of the middle class also continues apace; median household income in the U.S. fell 2.3% in 2010 from a year ago, to $49,445. And the number of people lacking health insurance increased to 49.9 million last year, largely due to people getting laid off and losing their benefits. The Obama health care program won't start kicking in until 2014, so in the meantime anyone without health insurance who needs medical attention should go die politely, as the crowd roars.

The LA Times reports that "other factors understate the real level of poverty in the U.S. Many more young adults have stayed or moved back home because they can’t find jobs, and others have doubled up with friends and relatives." Also: The U.S. set the official poverty threshold in 2010 at an income level of $11,139 for one person and $22,314 for a family of four. Those levels are laughably low, so we're going to assume there are many millions more across America feeling bitterly impoverished right now.

Census Poverty Report

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By John Del Signore in News on September 13, 2011 12:15 PM

Comments [rss]

Openmind Publisher

thanks for article..

find other similar article about "Americans are living in poverty" at http://newsonlineupdate.com

m015094

This statistic about "poor" people in the US is complete bullshit. Here's a stat: of "poor" people in the US, "eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher."
http://www.heritage.org/Resear...

soothsayer

2009 numbers http://www.census.gov/did/www/...
bronx 28% of the population living in poverty.
bronx 40% of under 18yrs olds living in poverty.

manhattan 17% of population living in poverty
manhattan 25% of under 18yr olds living in poverty

queens 13% of the population living in poverty.
queens 17% of under 18yrs olds living in poverty.

brooklyn 22% of the population living in poverty.
brooklyn 31% of under 18yrs olds living in poverty.

staten island 11% all population
staten island 16% under 18

canofpeas

Imagine how high that figure would be if they hadn't fudged the numbers and counted everyone relevant to the report.

LICnative

If Bush "did it", is it fair to say that Obama is "doing" it now? Or is he still on the free pass lane?

diablofreak

careful... if you say that you're automatically a teabagger.

ishtar_79

The only people I can't stand more than a poor person who happens to be lazy is a smug asshole who is under no threat of ever having to miss a meal making judgements about poors.

Edit: Not that anyone here did that. This was kind of a random thought.

randomtransplant

"One if five kids below the poverty line, one population running out of time"

Its not every day that you grow up to a future worse than the distopian anthems of your youth.

2.3%?!

Pretty soon all the kids chasing big-money MTV dreams are going to wake up and realize wealth only matters if everyone agrees to play the game. And they'll remember for a long, long time after that. The Wealthy of the Twenties and Thirties, who remembered the 19th century, knew it. I'm not sure the people walking around with blinders on today do.

SPsGhost

Not surprising given we've lived through 8 years of outright kleptocracy under Bush, only to be followed by 3 years under a Reagan worshipping centrist who is obsessed more with "bipartisanship" and applying bandaids, rather than with making aggressive policy changes and prosecuting the politicians and oligarchs who've been raping the economy.

Nos Feratu

All true.

I'm a registered Republican, but I voted for Obama. I voted for Reagan in '84, the first year I was old enough to vote....not something I'm proud of now. You all are probably wondering why I did that. Compared to Carter, Reagan looked like the adult supervision the country needed....of course it all turned out to be bullshit. I did not vote for the Bushes, neither George I nor George The Idiot. After Reagan, I voted third party or I wrote in an obscenity, so I've only voted for two mainstream prez candidates in my entire life: Reagan and Obama. Of the two, Obama has been the bigger disappointment.

I'm not naive enough at my age to believe that Obama was actually going to throw any Wall St. criminals in jail, but at the very least I expected him to impose new laws, regulations and conditions on that gang of thieves in exchange for the bail-out cash. He did nothing. Obama has done nothing for the poor of any race. He's done nothing for the very old and the very young. He's done nothing for labor. He's done nothing for the traditional constituency of the Democrat party.

Why is this? Let Malcolm X explain it to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

S.D.

"I voted for Reagan in '84, the first year I was old enough to vote....not something I'm proud of now."
Ignoring the politics, you should be proud that you voted.
Too many don't.

Lisanne!

Come on now. Obama is the best Republican President we've had since Clinton.

whiteiris

Sure, has nothing to do with the 4 trillion spent by the incompetent, no experience, only President due to his skin color, Boob in the White House. Worst. President. In. History.

ktinnyc

Bush begins with a surplus and ends with a deficit. Surely even you can do the math.

Lisanne!

Why bother? Her name says it all.

Guest

Poor people in the US are still much more rich than poor people in other countries. It's all relative. Hell, just look at our homeless. They're fat and living high off the hog compared to the rest of the world.

And it's such a shame that some people "have doubled up with friends and relatives". Such a shame. It's nothing like when immigrants came to this country and lived with 14 of their relatives in a 2 bedroom apartment. Nothing like that at all. These kids today have it SO much worse.

Michael

If this guy really said what he wanted to say it would be more like:

"How about we take those lazy black people and put them back on the plantation."

S.D.

"Hell, just look at our homeless. They're fat and living high off the hog compared to the rest of the world."?
Little bit of an exaggeration, IMO.

Problem is: Income disparity is a big problem that must be addressed.

randomtransplant

"Poor people in the US are still much more rich than poor people in other countries."
Other first world countries, maybe. MAYBE. If you squint real real hard and insulate yourself from huge swaths of life, maybe our poor are better off than being poor in Poland, or Greece.

But I don't think you've ever had to wait until or 'monday' to stop being hungry, have you? So how the hell would you know?