One In Seven American Lives In Poverty
1 in 7 Americans lives in poverty
Globally, extreme poverty fell, says a UN report which updated progress to be made for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Although it was reported earlier this year that due to progress in China, Southeast Asia and East Asia, the percentage of people in developing countries living on less than $ 1.25 per day fell from 45% in 1990 to 27% in 2005 and will reach 15% in 2015, the number of American living in poverty has reached 14.3%, 1 in 7 Americans, that is.
The number of Americans living in poverty increased to 14.3%, the percentage of those able to work and poor reaching its highest level in the last 45 years, says a report from the American Institute of Census – Census Bureau, quoted by the Washington Post.
U.S. poverty chart according to the Census Bureau
According to the Census Bureau statistics, 43.6 million people, that’s one in seven Americans lived in poverty last year. An increase from 2008, when 39.8 million Americans were poor and when the poverty rate was 13.2%.
Also, the number of Americans who have no health insurance increased from 46.3 million to 50.7 million, being the main cause being the fact that people lost their jobs during the economic recession. Moreover, the U.S. Congress adopted this year a review of the health insurance law, in order for health coverage to be available to a larger number of citizens.
The statistics published on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau cover the first of Barack Obama’s presidential year, when unemployment reached 10% in the months after the financial collapse.
The average income per household was in 2009, of $ 49,777.
Maria Chavez, a women unemployed for 18 months living in the U.S., was spotted digging through garbage bins, trying to find food. Maria Chavez: ”It’s sad. I cry sometimes because I don’t want to come here to find food.” Maria, before losing her job as a maid and before her husband, a construction worker, was forced to apply for unemployment support, reports: “I was feeling great, I said, Oh, my God, I have money to pay my bills, I can buy my food…”
The most poverty affected cities in the U.S. are Detroit, Las Vegas and Los Angles. For an interactive map of the poverty rate by state, please click here.
Michael Stoll, economist at the South California University (UCLA) for CBS: “It will be very difficult because the jobs they once had that paid middle income wages are likely to disappear. It’s going to take a long, hard road for those jobs to come back.”
Despite the trillion of dollars spent by the Obama administration for the resurrection of the economy, the unemployment rates increased to 9.6% in August 2010.
Although the Obama administration spent $1 trillion to fight it, the poverty rate is increasing
And these numbers could be just in theory, because in reality the unemployment rate could be double than that released by U.S. officials. The IMF confirms this possibility: “The labor Markets are deplorable”, given that more and more people are left without jobs and remain unemployed for long periods of time. And still, the American business-man Warren Buffet declared yesterday that, in his opinion, the economy will not slide into another recession.
Along with a rise in the number of people living in poverty, the census reported a decrease in the number of people who are living just above poverty level, suggesting that many of those just slightly above poverty slipped over the edge in the previous year.
Food banks and shelters around the country say they are seeing former donors asking for help.
