POVERTY NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT

For the fourth consecutive year the poverty rate rose, from 12.5% in 2003 to 12.7% in 2004. The number of people in poverty increased also, by 1.1 million, to 37.0 million in 2004.

37 million people in poverty? In the US? Yep.

"How much can a person make and be "in poverty"?" you might ask.

According to the US Census Bureau, the 2005 Poverty Threshold, without going thru charts and tables, this is how it breaks down:

One Person - less than $10,000/yr; Two Persons - Less than $13K; Three People - Less than $16K; Four People - $20K; etc. etc.


Technorati Tags: , , ,

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think some of this data is skewed by the hundreds of thousands who come into the country illegally each year. Before any of you bleeding hearts put your blinders on in a hissy fit, I'm not making a judgment on whether folks should be allowed to immigrate (legally or illegally), etc. I'm just pointing out that I'm sure it's a good bet that the vast majority of folks who enter the country illegally are subsisting below the poverty line. I see this in the parents of some of our kids. They don't speak English and many didn't finish high school in their native lands. As a result, their kids live in poverty here (albeit better off than they would have been from whence their parents came). However, their kids do speak English and do graduate from high school and then move on and up. As per today's LA Times, the unemployment rate is about 4%, meaning that 96% of folks can find work! And so that means that this second generation will likely find better paying jobs and may even go on to college. My point is that current immigration is fueling a growth in poverty. It will likely take a generation for these families to rise out of poverty and so the numbers will not reflect the upswing that is happening with the children until several years down the line.
12/23/2006 6:02 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE LIES PEOPLE TELL US (AND THE ONES WE TELL OURSELVES)

"I don’t understand these fundraisers, …they waste all this money…why don't they just give the money to …the sick people?" "…you know what? They don’t! They throw a party so rich people like me can spend $10,000 on a table and then they give it to the sick people!" ...that’s how it’s done ! Joan Cusack to Jennifer Aniston in "Friends with Money" Alright, let's get this over with folks: Fundraisers are a Lie! Yes that's right you heard me. A few months back, I attended a luncheon to raise funds for a school for the deaf. Yes, it was luncheon and a fashion show and a fundraiser all in one. First there was the obligatory silent auction, then (during lunch) the not-so-silent auction, and then after lunch when the plates were taken away, we were asked if we would like to purchase the Orchid Centerpieces! Hadn't they got enough from us? Let me think-No! Easy as it is to lampoon a fundraiser, that is not where I am going today. One of the ladies w
Read more

BIRTH OF A BLOG: GUERILLA MARKETING, EFFECTIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY & GOOD CONTENT WIN THE DAY

Birth of a Blog: Guerilla Marketing, Effective Use of Technology and Good Content Win the Day by pam ashlund A funny thing happened when I started using Technorati. All I wanted was a quick way to see who ( if ANYONE ) was linking to my blog. First, I had to sign up with one of these services and I picked Technorati because it was the first one I came across. Second, I then found out that I was right from the beginning, no one was linking to my site. Third, I decided to try my hand at a bit of self-marketing, which went as follows: Get my brother-in-law to link to my site Set up another dummy blog and link to myself Arm wrestle another friend to link to my site None of that had much of an impact (of course) so I moved on to some actual strategy: Add tags to my blog configuration on Technorati Add tags to my posts (this was painful and manual although I later found a script for it) Test the results - found I showed up in search engines a LITTLE bit more frequently Still no links (tap,
Read more

GRAFITTI OR SOCIAL CHANGE?

Image
art institutions are a severely limited arena of reception for ideas about public issues --Robbie Conal If I can't take my coffee break, Gone is the sense of enterprise ...something within me dies. -- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying I was born with a "Question Authority" bumper sticker metaphorically stuck on the back of my car. I grew up with that expression (and what it represents) as my moral imperative. But I've been worried lately. I've been worried because it doesn't seem to be turning out the way I thought it would. Seems a QA attitude is not necessarily conducive to civil society. It all depends on who's the authority I suppose. I seem to have the easiest time applying it to government and politics. But at what point do the concepts of "questioning" and the notion of "participating" intersect? Becoming a manager was a pivotal point in my life. A place where I had to make the transition from "hating t
Read more