Posted on 08/30/2006 8:13:52 PM PDT by FairOpinion
The U.S. Census Bureau says poverty in the United States last year remained unchanged after four consecutive years of increases. The agency's 2005 report also found incomes in the United States rose slightly last year, for the first time since 1999.
The Census Bureau's David Johnson says there was no significant change in the U.S. poverty rate in 2005 from the previous year. "The period following the latest recession was a period of falling income and rising poverty rates. However, after four years of consecutive increases, the poverty rate stabilized at 12.6 percent in 2005, and 37 million people."
According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. median household income was up slightly in 2005 from the year before, to $46,300. The Census Bureau's median figure reflects the point at which half of the more than 71,700 households surveyed make more and half make less.
In its survey for 2005, the Census Bureau used different figures to determine poverty, based on the size of the family. For example, the annual poverty threshold for a family of four was $19,971. For individuals, the figure was $9,973.
The report recognizes four ethnic groups - white, black, Hispanic and Asian households. In 2005, black households had the lowest median income, while Asian households had the highest median income.
It also shows that the northeastern United States has the highest household income, followed by the west and the midwest. Households in the U.S. south had the lowest median incomes.
Another figure that remained unchanged last year was the ratio of female to male earnings. The report says that for every dollar a man made in a full-time job, a woman made 77 cents.
The statistics presented Tuesday come exactly one year after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast. Johnson said they do not completely capture the effects of that storm or Hurricane Rita on overall U.S. poverty figures. "So, it covers the entire calendar period, so those poverty rates only have four months after the hurricanes," he said.
He added that he expects next year's data to provide deeper insights.
The Brookings Institution's Gary Burtless said the figures represent some good news, in that the poverty rate in the United States did not increase. But he took issue with American income distribution, saying people at the very top of the income scale saw significantly higher gains in real income than those at the bottom. "There's just this long-term very skewed distribution of the benefits that have been derived from rising incomes in the United States. As long as that continues, we're going to get many income reports like this one, in which there's very, very, very slow progress in reducing American poverty," he said.
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2005 report for income and poverty is available on its website, www.census.gov.
Using the same income figure everywhere in the country to declare that anyone below that income is "in poverty" is highly misleading, because the cost of living has huge variations -- the income that would be "poverty" in Los Angeles would be sufficient to live quite comfortable in a small MidWest town.
Waiting for the obligatory "Bush's fault" post...
$4 TRILLION in transfer payments from the producers to the freeloaders since Johnsons Great Society, and the poverty level remains UNCHANGED.
AND to put "poverty" in context, read this:
Understanding Poverty in America
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.1
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.
Apparently nobody told Ms. Pelosi, as she is crying just the opposite.
The upper class 100 years ago couldn't have imagined what folks in "poverty" would have access to today.
Yeah, but just think of how much better things would have been if we'd transfered $5 or $6 trillion.
absolutely true!
I have also wondered who exactly gets to be the guy who says what poverty is? and what is the price of it?
for instance 20,000 a year is not enough to put shelter over the heads of a family of 4, food in their mouths, heat in the winter and clothes on their backs.
throw in doctors visits, medicine, a wreck of a car to get to work, the gas to put in it and government required insurance. I'm surely over 20k right there.
by anyones standards these are essential to life. especially in this country.
From where I sit, in the last 2 years, I have seen many people lose their jobs. Unable to find another one, so are accepting work that is under half what they were paid before and are no longer able to pay for these basics.
I don't see ANYTHING positive about our economy right now at all!
And why does a family of four, presumable two adults and 2 children live in poverty in the first place?
===
I have run across a "family of four" where both husband and wife were going to college, they had two children, the government was picking up the tab for them to live in a 3 bedroom house, they had two cars, and they were considered "poor" by the way the census looks at "INCOME".
Well, to be honest, I think Johnsons Great Society was purposely designed to destroy the Balck Family, which it did.
We had transfered less than $1 billion and the job was done.
Now, nobody knows how to turn the machine off.
Eliminating poverty was one of my favorite lectures to wide-eyed freshmen. I'd start off by saying I could eliminate poverty overnight. (Way back then, a family of 4 faced a poverty figure of $9600.) The freshmen would perk up a bit in anticipation of the explanation.
My solution: Line up everybody who makes less than $9600 and shoot them! The freshmen eyes widen to pie-plates as the shock set in. I followed with the question: "Now...how does the person who is making $9601 feel (other than lucky)?" In a short period of time, that person starts complaining that they are "poor" and they want help.
The moral to my students was that, unless you have a perfectly equal distribution of income, someone feels poor. I would go on to say that a perfectly equal distribution of income means pure communism and that has never worked, even on an experimental level (e.g., New Harmony, Owenism, etc.) I would close with the statement that it's not the poor who drive this economic engine and giving benefits to the poor while beating up on the rich is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Finally, I'd ask them what a poor person has done for you? Then ask what has a rich person done for you? Given that, who should be viewed as the good guy?
Most freshmen are naive idiots who carry some ill-directed sense of goodness that implies beating up on people who have money and giving it to those who don't. My mission was (and still is) to change that perception.
Sadly, you are right. Now it's a right of passage for pandering politicians to up the ante.
As I thought about it, I realize I should have said, no one WANTS to turn it off.
Excellent way to make the point. :)
We just had our third best month ever this last July and things have been steady "good" for the last year and a half.
My own side business had it's best second quarter ever since we began in 1998 and yes things have slowed so far this quarter, I believe in no small part due to all the doom and gloom economics in the drive-by-media.
It seems that they are on a "this economy is so bad" kick again because of the upcoming elections...in stark contrast to the GDP/Economy thread I was reading here on FR earlier today.
I don't think I ever had that "bright eyed idealism". My favorite story when I was a kid was The Little Red Hen which had the moral "if you don't work you don't eat". In my sophomore year in college I made a point of sitting in the front row of my first economics class and reading Buckley's "Up From Liberalism" (which the prof didn't notice).
Once again I will ask the questions I always ask whenever poverty stats are quoted. Does the money (and other benefits) transfered from the upper and middle classes to the poor count when calculating poverty? If someone is making $100,000 and has $40,000 taxed away, then his income should only be counted as $60,000. On the other hand, if someone earns $15,000 and gets an extra $10,000 in welfare, WIC, food stamps, section 8 housing, earned income tax credits and Medicaid, is his income $15,000 or $25,000?
If you only count earned pretax income, poverty taxes and benefits may have may have the opposite of the desired effect - it makes the productive work harder to keep their after tax income level and allows the poor to work even less and thus fall further into poverty.
true. But I also think that there are people out there who work damned hard. And a percentage of what they earn goes to their bosses. Profit. even after overhead. The working man does do the actual dirty work that makes the rich man richer. And this is fine....as long as what the working man makes is enough to feed himself and his family.
Unbelievably there are alot of people out there who for one reason or another couldn't go to college. Had to jump right into the work force and were more than willing to start at the bottom and work their butts off to get ahead.
They don't "want" to get medicaid, free lunches at school, or any of the other social programs they are eligible for. They simply have to use them because they are not paid enough to live.
Most just want to get paid what they earn instead of trying to compete with the third world. Alot of them don't want to whine about being poor but would like to world to know that civilization will always need contruction workers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, excavators , garbage men etc.... they do the dirty work that is necessary. I'd like to see an intillectual go a couple of years without one of these people at their beck and call and see how well they live. These people are more necessary to civilization than professors, actors, singers, writers, etc... It would be nice if they were paid like they are.
Of course, you already know the answer! :>)
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