21 Shocking Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America

zero hedge ^ | 11/3/15 | tyler durden

[Nachum]

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

What you are about to see is more evidence that the growth of poverty in the United States is wildly out of control.  It turns out that there is a tremendous amount of suffering in “the wealthiest nation on the planet”, and it is getting worse with each passing year.  During this election season, politicians of all stripes are running around telling all of us how great we are, but is that really true? 

As you will see below, poverty is reaching unprecedented levels in this country, and the middle class is steadily dying.  There aren’t enough good jobs to go around, dependence on the government has never been greater, and it is our children that are being hit the hardest.  If we have this many people living on the edge of despair now, while times are “good”, what are things going to look like when our economy really starts falling apart?  The following are 21 facts about the explosive growth of poverty in America that will blow your mind…

#1 The U.S. Census Bureau says that nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.

 

#2 Other numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau are also very disturbing.  For example, in 2007 about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps.  Today, that number is one out of every five.

 

#3 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day.  That number has doubled since 1996.

 

#4 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.

 

#5 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.

 

#6 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.

 

#7 Police in New York City have identified 80 separate homeless encampments in the city, and the homeless crisis there has gotten so bad that it is being described as an “epidemic”.

#8 If you can believe it, more than half of all students in our public schools are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.

 

#9 According to a Census Bureau report that was released a while back, 65 percent of all children in the U.S. are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

 

#10 According to a report that was published by UNICEF, almost one-third of all children in this country “live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income”.

 

#11 When it comes to child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 “wealthy nations” that UNICEF looked at.

 

#12 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.

 

#13 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.

 

#14 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are being raised by a single parent are living in poverty.

 

#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

 

#16 There are simply not enough good jobs to go around anymore.  It may be hard to believe, but 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

 

#17 There are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”.  When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

 

#18 Owning a home has traditionally been a signal that you belong to the middle class.  That is why it is so alarming that the rate of homeownership in the United States has been falling for eight years in a row.

 

#19 According to a recent Pew survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.

 

#20 At this point, 25 percent of all Americans have a negative net worth.  That means that the value of what they owe is greater than the value of everything that they own.

 

#21 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.

If we truly are “the greatest nation on the planet”, then why can’t we even take care of our own people?

Why are there tens of millions of us living in poverty?

Perhaps we really aren’t so great after all.

It would be one thing if economic conditions were getting better and poverty was in decline.  At least then we could be talking about the improvement we were making.  But despite the fact that we are stealing more than a hundred million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day, poverty just continues to grow like an aggressive form of cancer.

So what is wrong?

Why can’t we get this thing fixed?

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[dragnet2]

By the way, those suggesting America is still somehow great because people are not starving in the streets yet, they have foreign made $280 TV’s and a cell phones, is not fooling most of America who’ve been decimated by DC’s well connected disciples of deceit.

[dragnet2]

middle America need move into affordable homes and stop buying stupid

Yeah, America is broke because they all moved into sprawling ocean front mansions with cement ponds...They need to get out of their mansions and Mercedes and let the wealthy conga-line of Mideastern and Muslims have them!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I thought no one talked about this stuff unless a Republican was in office? ;)

(Very sobering facts, though...)

[Jim Noble]

The steady deterioration in the lives of the white lower middle and working classes where I live is shocking.

Anybody who thinks the “economy” is improving needs to get out more.

[Jim Noble]

Where a product is made is irrelevant to the discussion

Where a product is made is the very heart of the matter.

[Sir Napsalot]

You have bug-eyed Krugman, btw who won a Nobel prize for something, on the NYT op-ed page claiming 'growth' under Dems (i.e. Obama's seven years) is so much better than when GOP was in charge.

And you find a frighteningly large number of people echoed his pov. I just randomly picked one from the comment section- Tim Kane from Measa, AZ wrote

"If current trends hold course, In 2016 the average voter will walk into the voting booth with this information -

# of private sector jobs created by President -

Obama: 8-10 million

Bush Jr: 0 (Zero, zilch, nada: actually negative 500k)

Clinton: 20+ million

Bush Sr: 1.5 million

Reagan: Ancient History

So, yeah, if you are Republican, then you want to, have to, need to lie on economics, and few lie unflinchingly better than Fiorina.

(end of excerpt) Which had close to 700 upvotes

[driftless2]

The U.S. is still the leading manufacturing country in the world. But if the jobs aren't there (due to automation), people must look elsewhere. I would bet the great pct. of the "poor" are mostly minorities. They are the people who have the most trouble adapting to a high-tech economy. They have stood still or gone backwards.

I have one son-in-law who came from a lower middle class family. He got into computers and has turned down numerous jobs in that field for better ones. People can adapt. They have to.

[central_va]

Where a product is made is irrelevant to the discussion

Clearly someone who has that mindset is a stateless economic libertarian and cares nothing for the security and prosperity of this nation. There is nothing conservative about that mindset.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

#8 If you can believe it, more than half of all students in our public schools are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.

That is a 'dirty little secret' which has nothing to do with poverty! District administrators work to sign up as many children as they can (including kids from well to do families). Doing so increases the flow of cash to their district, which is never questioned by the Federal government. Every kid signed up is considered eligible for the program.

School lunch subsidies are treated as a 'cash cow' and the Federal assistance is diverted to other needs.

Regards,
GtG

[Jim Noble]

But if the jobs aren't there (due to automation), people must look elsewhere

There is no elsewhere. Five percent (or less) of US factory workers over 40 can do other work.

I would bet the great pct. of the "poor" are mostly minorities.

I wouldn't know. I live in a 99.8% white town in a 98% white county in a 94% white state. Things around here are pretty bad.

I have one son-in-law who came from a lower middle class family. He got into computers and has turned down numerous jobs in that field for better ones

Good for him. Congratulations. What percentage of the white population over age 40 is going to "get into computers"?

People can adapt. They have to

Yes, they can. That's why meth and heroin are surging. Perhaps that's not what you meant, though.

[driftless2]

The meth labs are surging around here, western Wisconsin, as well. And the area unemployment rate is about 4% or less.

[clearcarbon]

"#4 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out."

"Soylent Green is in short supply, so remember - Tuesday is Soylent Green day."

[Glad2bnuts]

Take the TAX BURDEN FROM OFF OUR BACKS, regulate industry and corporations as in a manner to bust the monopolies. Tax imports, get rid of the private bank known as the Federal Reserve. Get on a solid footing with Constitutional money, no debt except in extreme need. Tax all financial and stock transactions, this will get rid of the profit from the speculation. Really, when I was making $100K a year, I was not bringing in much more than I do at $30K. The reason, taxes....taxes and more taxes.

[virgil]

This is why middle class 45-54 year olds are using drugs and killing themselves.

That age group got hammered in the this last downturn. A lot them lost their jobs.

[LucyT]

21 Shocking Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America

. . . . Check out article.

Thread Drift:

From one of the links w the article:

Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. ... third only to heart disease and cancer ... claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day ... but also called attention to the fact that - these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Conservatism is a three-legged stool:

Faith.

National Security.

Economy.

Here’s one for your wife.

Only three elections survived a bad economy:

Two were re-elections by FDR. And one was a re-election won by Obama.

In all three cases, the only incumbent who ever led anything close to a recovery was FDR’s third term, and that was because the rest of the world’s factories were decimated. Obama has failed to decimate the rest of the world’s factories, so here we are.