Poverty hits record number of Americans-A RECORD 46 million Americans were living in poverty last year, pushing the US poverty rate to its highest level since 1993, according to a government report on unemployment.The US Census Bureau said the poverty rate rose for a third consecutive year to hit 15.1 percent.The number in poverty was the largest since the government first began publishing estimates in 1959.
The report comes as the economic straits of ordinary Americans are at the forefront of next year's election campaign.President Barack Obama is suffering low approval ratings on the economy, and evidence of rising poverty could give popular momentum to the US$450 billion job-creation program he unveiled last week.
The US now has the highest poverty rate among developed countries, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.The poverty line for a US family of four, two adults and two children, is defined as an income US$22,113 a year.
In a sign of decline for middle-income Americans, the figures showed continued decline in the number of Americans with employer-provided health insurance, while the ranks of the un-insured hovered just below 50 million in a population of just over 300 million.Underlying the census data was a rate of economic growth too meager to compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs during last year as the recession officially ended but the jobless rate rose from 9.3 percent to 9.6 percent.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said: "The deterioration in the labor market caused incomes to drop, poverty to rise and people to lose their health insurance."One of the immediately obvious issues this brings up is that there is no relief in sight."
The numbers would have been worse, analysts said, but for government assistance programs, including extended unemployment compensation, stimulus spending and health reforms, which reduced the number of uninsured young adults.In Obama's hometown of Chicago, Salvation Army Major David Harvey knows well the effects of grinding poverty on the city's south side, where he attended a food giveaway on Tuesday.
"There are more families falling into poverty," he said. "That is multi-plied on the south side of Chicago where there are pockets with 20 percent, or more, unemployment.
"There are people crying for jobs. They move out of state to get jobs because employers are leaving because of the tax increases here."Blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 54 percent of those in poverty, whites 9.9 percent and Asians 12.1 percent.
The report comes as the economic straits of ordinary Americans are at the forefront of next year's election campaign.President Barack Obama is suffering low approval ratings on the economy, and evidence of rising poverty could give popular momentum to the US$450 billion job-creation program he unveiled last week.
The US now has the highest poverty rate among developed countries, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.The poverty line for a US family of four, two adults and two children, is defined as an income US$22,113 a year.
In a sign of decline for middle-income Americans, the figures showed continued decline in the number of Americans with employer-provided health insurance, while the ranks of the un-insured hovered just below 50 million in a population of just over 300 million.Underlying the census data was a rate of economic growth too meager to compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs during last year as the recession officially ended but the jobless rate rose from 9.3 percent to 9.6 percent.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said: "The deterioration in the labor market caused incomes to drop, poverty to rise and people to lose their health insurance."One of the immediately obvious issues this brings up is that there is no relief in sight."
The numbers would have been worse, analysts said, but for government assistance programs, including extended unemployment compensation, stimulus spending and health reforms, which reduced the number of uninsured young adults.In Obama's hometown of Chicago, Salvation Army Major David Harvey knows well the effects of grinding poverty on the city's south side, where he attended a food giveaway on Tuesday.
"There are more families falling into poverty," he said. "That is multi-plied on the south side of Chicago where there are pockets with 20 percent, or more, unemployment.
"There are people crying for jobs. They move out of state to get jobs because employers are leaving because of the tax increases here."Blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 54 percent of those in poverty, whites 9.9 percent and Asians 12.1 percent.
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