U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty By Tony Pugh McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen. A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year. The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas. The plight of the severely poor is a distressing sidebar to an unusual economic expansion. Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years. These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty - the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades. But since 2000, the number of severely poor has grown "more than any other segment of the population," according to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. "That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began," said Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who co-authored the study. "We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty." The growth spurt, which leveled off in 2005, in part reflects how hard it is for low-skilled workers to earn their way out of poverty in an unstable job market that favors skilled and educated workers. It also suggests that social programs aren't as effective as they once were at catching those who fall into economic despair. About one in three severely poor people are under age 17, and nearly two out of three are female. Female-headed families with children account for a large share of the severely poor. Nearly two out of three people (10.3 million) in severe poverty are white, but blacks (4.3 million) and Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) make up disproportionate shares. Blacks are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while Hispanics are roughly twice as likely. Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, has a higher concentration of severely poor people - 10.8 percent in 2005 - than any of the 50 states, topping even hurricane-ravaged Mississippi and Louisiana, with 9.3 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. Nearly six of 10 poor District residents are in extreme poverty. 'I DON'T ASK FOR NOTHING' A few miles from the Capitol Building, 60-year-old John Treece pondered his life in deep poverty as he left a local food pantry with two bags of free groceries. Plagued by arthritis, back problems and myriad ailments from years of manual labor, Treece has been unable to work full time for 15 years. He's tried unsuccessfully to get benefits from the Social Security Administration, which he said disputes his injuries and work history. In 2006, an extremely poor individual earned less than $5,244 a year, according to federal poverty guidelines. Treece said he earned about that much in 2006 doing odd jobs. Wearing shoes with holes, a tattered plaid jacket and a battered baseball cap, Treece lives hand-to-mouth in a $450-a-month room in a nondescript boarding house in a high-crime neighborhood. Thanks to food stamps, the food pantry and help from relatives, Treece said he never goes hungry. But toothpaste, soap, toilet paper and other items that require cash are tougher to come by. "Sometimes it makes you want to do the wrong thing, you know," Treece said, referring to crime. "But I ain't a kid no more. I can't do no time. At this point, I ain't got a lotta years left." Treece remains positive and humble despite his circumstances. "I don't ask for nothing," he said. "I just thank the Lord for this day and ask that tomorrow be just as blessed." Like Treece, many who did physical labor during their peak earning years have watched their job prospects dim as their bodies gave out. David Jones, the president of the Community Service Society of New York City, an advocacy group for the poor, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee last month that he was shocked to discover how pervasive the problem was. "You have this whole cohort of, particularly African-Americans of limited skills, men, who can't participate in the workforce because they don't have skills to do anything but heavy labor," he said. 'A PERMANENT UNDERCLASS' Severe poverty is worst near the Mexican border and in some areas of the South, where 6.5 million severely poor residents are struggling to find work as manufacturing jobs in the textile, apparel and furniture-making industries disappear. The Midwestern Rust Belt and areas of the Northeast also have been hard hit as economic restructuring and foreign competition have forced numerous plant closings. At the same time, low-skilled immigrants with impoverished family members are increasingly drawn to the South and Midwest to work in the meatpacking, food processing and agricultural industries. These and other factors such as increased fluctuations in family incomes and illegal immigration have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty - the highest rate in at least 32 years. "What appears to be taking place is that, over the long term, you have a significant permanent underclass that is not being impacted by anti-poverty policies," said Michael Tanner, the director of Health and Welfare Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, disagreed. "It doesn't look like a growing permanent underclass," said Sherman, whose organization has chronicled the growth of deep poverty. "What you see in the data are more and more single moms with children who lose their jobs and who aren't being caught by a safety net anymore." About 1.1 million such families account for roughly 2.1 million deeply poor children, Sherman said. After fleeing an abusive marriage in 2002, 42-year-old Marjorie Sant moved with her three children from Arkansas to a seedy boarding house in Raleigh, N.C., where the four shared one bedroom. For most of 2005, they lived off food stamps and the $300 a month in Social Security Disability Income for her son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Teachers offered clothes to Sant's children. Saturdays meant lunch at the Salvation Army. "To depend on other people to feed and clothe your kids is horrible," Sant said. "I found myself in a hole and didn't know how to get out." In the summer of 2005, social workers warned that she'd lose her children if her home situation didn't change. Sant then brought her two youngest children to a temporary housing program at the Raleigh Rescue Mission while her oldest son moved to California to live with an adult daughter from a previous marriage. So for 10 months, Sant learned basic office skills. She now lives in a rented house, works two jobs and earns about $20,400 a year. Sant is proud of where she is, but she knows that "if something went wrong, I could well be back to where I was." 'I'M GETTING NOWHERE FAST' As more poor Americans sink into severe poverty, more individuals and families living within $8,000 above or below the poverty line also have seen their incomes decline. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University attributes this to what he calls a "sinkhole effect" on income. "Just as a sinkhole causes everything above it to collapse downward, families and individuals in the middle and upper classes appear to be migrating to lower-income tiers that bring them closer to the poverty threshold," Woolf wrote in the study. Before Hurricane Katrina, Rene Winn of Biloxi, Miss., earned $28,000 a year as an administrator for the Boys and Girls Club. But for 11 months in 2006, she couldn't find steady work and wouldn't take a fast-food job. As her opportunities dwindled, Winn's frustration grew. "Some days I feel like the world is mine and I can create my own destiny," she said. "Other days I feel a desperate feeling. Like I gotta' hurry up. Like my career is at a stop. Like I'm getting nowhere fast. And that's not me because I've always been a positive person." After relocating to New Jersey for 10 months after the storm, Winn returned to Biloxi in September because of medical and emotional problems with her son. She and her two youngest children moved into her sister's home along with her mother, who has Alzheimer's. With her sister, brother-in-law and their two children, eight people now share a three-bedroom home. Winn said she recently took a job as a technician at the state health department. The hourly job pays $16,120 a year. That's enough to bring her out of severe poverty and just $122 shy of the $16,242 needed for a single mother with two children to escape poverty altogether under current federal guidelines. Winn eventually wants to transfer to a higher-paying job, but she's thankful for her current position. "I'm very independent and used to taking care of my own, so I don't like the fact that I have to depend on the state. I want to be able to do it myself." The Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that, in a given month, only 10 percent of severely poor Americans received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in 2003 - the latest year available - and that only 36 percent received food stamps. Many could have exhausted their eligibility for welfare or decided that the new program requirements were too onerous. But the low participation rates are troubling because the worst byproducts of poverty, such as higher crime and violence rates and poor health, nutrition and educational outcomes, are worse for those in deep poverty. Over the last two decades, America has had the highest or near-highest poverty rates for children, individual adults and families among 31 developed countries, according to the Luxembourg Income Study, a 23-year project that compares poverty and income data from 31 industrial nations. "It's shameful," said Timothy Smeeding, the former director of the study and the current head of the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University. "We've been the worst performer every year since we've been doing this study." With the exception of Mexico and Russia, the U.S. devotes the smallest portion of its gross domestic product to federal anti-poverty programs, and those programs are among the least effective at reducing poverty, the study found. Again, only Russia and Mexico do worse jobs. One in three Americans will experience a full year of extreme poverty at some point in his or her adult life, according to long-term research by Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. An estimated 58 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 75 will spend at least a year in poverty, Rank said. Two of three will use a public assistance program between ages 20 and 65, and 40 percent will do so for five years or more. These estimates apply only to non-immigrants. If illegal immigrants were factored in, the numbers would be worse, Rank said. "It would appear that for most Americans the question is no longer if, but rather when, they will experience poverty. In short, poverty has become a routine and unfortunate part of the American life course," Rank wrote in a recent study. "Whether these patterns will continue throughout the first decade of 2000 and beyond is difficult to say ... but there is little reason to think that this trend will reverse itself any time soon." 'SOMETHING REAL AND TROUBLING' Most researchers and economists say federal poverty estimates are a poor tool to gauge the complexity of poverty. The numbers don't factor in assistance from government anti-poverty programs, such as food stamps, housing subsidies and the Earned Income Tax Credit, all of which increase incomes and help pull people out of poverty. But federal poverty measures also exclude work-related expenses and necessities such as day care, transportation, housing and health care costs, which eat up large portions of disposable income, particularly for low-income families. Alternative poverty measures that account for these shortcomings typically inflate or deflate official poverty statistics. But many of those alternative measures show the same kind of long-term trends as the official poverty data. Robert Rector, a senior researcher with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, questioned the growth of severe poverty, saying that census data become less accurate farther down the income ladder. He said many poor people, particularly single mothers with boyfriends, underreport their income by not including cash gifts and loans. Rector said he's seen no data that suggest increasing deprivation among the very poor. Arloc Sherman of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues that the growing number of severely poor is an indisputable fact. "When we check against more complete government survey data and administrative records from the benefit programs themselves, they confirm that this trend is real," Sherman said. He added that even among the poor, severely poor people have a much tougher time paying their bills. "That's another sign to me that we're seeing something real and troubling," Sherman said. McClatchy correspondent Barbara Barrett contributed to this report. BY THE NUMBERS States with the most people in severe poverty: California - 1.9 million Texas - 1.6 million New York - 1.2 million Florida - 943,670 Illinois - 681,786 Ohio - 657,415 Pennsylvania - 618,229 Michigan - 576,428 Georgia - 562,014 North Carolina - 523,511 Source: U.S. Census Bureau http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwas...90.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp ____________________ So, what is the Bush Administration doing to reverse this trend, which has increased rapidly during their years in office? Why, eliminate the ability of people to find out about it, of course... There. I feel better already. Now, which HDTV should I buy to watch the latest exploits of Britney?
I agree with the notion that nations should be judged by how they care for the least fortunate among them.
its really because of the death tax. if we eliminate the death tax these people will be able to pull themselves up from their boot straps.
That economic model has proven not to work. There is no entrepreneurship, no creativity, no productivity enhancements -- basically no carrot for motivation. But keep telling yourself that it's a noble cause. It isn't. None of you have a clue when it comes to economics or finance, that is well established.
Yet among major countries after the United States, the leaders in purchasing power parody are countries with the strongest social services - Norway, Denmark, etc. Perhaps the problem is that your argument assumes the most extreme form of state capitalism as was found in the Soviet Union, not the more effective modern countries that balance capitalism and rational and humane social programs? There are plenty of entrepreneurs in Denmark and Norway, in case you don't know. The fact that they don't cull the herd at every chance hasn't made them weak. The most pure form of capitalism would allow things like trusts and monopolies, 20 hour work days in sweatshops, no safety standards and firing and replacing workers for injuries on the job. Do you think restrictions on such behaviors should be abolished? BTW, it is also very well understood that there are things that capitalism copes very poorly with. The most well known theoretical scenario is known as The Problem of the Commons. Another, more practical example would be The Orphan Drug Act. Should we just let people die because they don't have the good sense to get a disease that is profitable to fix? Do you want police and emergency services to operate under free market conditions? There is an article on market failure that includes all sorts of definitions of that condition that are well accepted by economists from many different schools of thought. These are all failures of capitalism to solve every problem.
Utter nonsense, but given the source I’m sure that goes without saying. The obvious truth is that a good social safety net, good minimum standards in other words, gives people a chance to be all that they can be, to be productive citizens rather than being trapped in poverty and hampered by illness and a lack of education. From a strictly monetary point of view, not providing minimum standards and education is a waste of human resources, and it breeds crime and counter culture subcultures that work against a productive society and other social problems as well. Sometimes you have to invest some money in your assets up front for them to be productive later on. This is a basic business principle that any high school kid can understand. Helping the less fortunate is also a moral imperative for a Christian society, but I’m sure that that point is lost on TG.
I bet Canada is pretty happy to let US to pay for most of the defense budget, you know like keeping the shipping lanes open and safe so the commerce can happen.
Look at Canada, a socialist economy can work, it's a matter having the right policies in place. "None of you have a clue when it comes to economics or finance" LOL, that's funny....is your name Steven Levitt?
So if the US wasn't manning the shipping lanes, what do you think would happen? Pirates would come back and capture ships? China would attack the shipping lanes?
Be careful what you joke about. It could come true. Of course, it isn't the United States who protects the sea alone, and even if it were, the Coast Guard accounts for like 1/1,000,000 of the total defense budget.
Welfare state growing despite overhauls By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer 35 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. ADVERTISEMENT The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees. The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago. Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into low-paying jobs without benefits and few opportunities to advance. "If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo," said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women's studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York. "If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success." Proponents of the changes in welfare say programs that once discouraged work now offer support to people in low-paying jobs. They point to expanded eligibility rules for food stamps and Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, that enable people to keep getting benefits even after they start working. "I don't have any problems with those programs growing, and indeed, they were intended to grow," said Ron Haskins, a former adviser to President Bush on welfare policy. "We've taken the step of getting way more people into the labor force and they have taken a huge step toward self-sufficiency. What is the other choice?" he asked. In the early 1990s, critics contended the welfare system encouraged unemployment and promoted single-parent families. Welfare recipients, mostly single mothers, could lose benefits if they earned too much money or if they lived with the father of their children. Major changes in welfare were enacted in 1996, requiring most recipients to work but allowing them to continue some benefits after they started jobs. The law imposed a five-year limit on cash payments for most people in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. Some states have shorter time limits. Nia Foster fits the pattern of dependence on government programs. She stopped getting cash welfare payments in the late 1990s and has moved from one clerical job to another. None provided medical benefits. The 32-year-old mother of two from Cincinnati said she supports her family with help from food stamps and Medicaid. Foster said she did not get any job training when she left welfare. She earned her high-school equivalency last year at a community college. "If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don't care," Foster said. "I don't think they really care what you do once the benefits are gone." Foster now works in a tax office, a seasonal job that will end after April 15. She hopes to enroll at the University of Cincinnati this spring and would like to study accounting. She is waiting to find out if she qualifies for enough financial aid to cover tuition. "I like data processing, something where it's a bunch of invoices and you have to key them in," Foster said. "I want to be an accountant so bad." Shannon Stanfield took a different, less-traveled path from welfare, thanks to a generous program that offered her a chance to get a college education. Stanfield, 36, was cleaning houses to support her two young children four years ago when she learned about a program for welfare recipients at nearby Hamilton College, a private liberal arts school in Clinton, N.Y. "At the time I was living in a pretty run-down apartment," said Stanfield, who was getting welfare payments, Medicaid and food stamps. "It wasn't healthy." The program, called the Access Project, accepts about 25 welfare-eligible parents a year. Hamilton waives tuition for first-year students and the program supplements financial aid in later years. Students get a host of social and career services, including help finding internships and jobs and financial assistance in times of crisis. About 140 former welfare recipients have completed the program and none still relies on government programs for the poor, said Adair, the Hamilton professor who started the Access Project in 2001. Stanfield, who still gets Medicaid and food stamps, plans to graduate in May with a bachelor's degree in theater. She wants to be a teacher. "I slowly built up my confidence through education," Stanfield said. "I can't honestly tell you how much it has changed my life." Programs such as the Access Project are not cheap, which is one reason they are rare. Tuition and fees run about $35,000 a year at Hamilton, and the program's annual budget is between $250,000 and $500,000, Adair said. In 2005, about 5.1 million people received monthly welfare payments from TANF and similar state programs, a 60 percent drop from a decade before. But other government programs grew, offsetting the declines. About 44 million people — nearly one in six in the country — relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996. Also, the number of people getting government aid continues to increase, according to more recent enrollment figures from individual programs. Medicaid rolls alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up in part by rising health care costs and fewer employers offering benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year. Cash welfare recipients, by comparison, peaked at 14.2 million people in 1994. There is much debate over whether those leaving welfare for work should be offered more opportunities for training and education, so they do not have to settle for low-paying jobs that keep them dependent on government programs. "We said get a job, any job," said Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees welfare issues. "And now we expect them to be making it on these minimum-wage jobs." McDermott, D-Wash., said stricter work requirements enacted last year, when Congress renewed the welfare overhaul law, will make it even more difficult for welfare recipients to get sufficient training to land good-paying jobs. But people who support the welfare changes say former recipients often fare better economically if they start working, even in low-paying jobs, before entering education programs. "What many people on TANF need first is the confidence that they can succeed in the workplace and to develop the habits of work," said Wade Horn, the Bush administration's point man on welfare overhaul. "Also, many TANF recipients didn't have a lot of success in the classroom," Horn said. "If you want to improve the confidence of a TANF recipient, putting them in the classroom, where they failed in the past, that is not likely to increase their confidence." Horn noted that employment among poor single mothers is up and child poverty rates are down since the welfare changes in 1996, though the numbers have worsened since the start of the decade. Horn, however, said he would like to see local welfare agencies provide more education and training to people who have already moved from welfare to work. "I think more attention has to be paid to helping those families move up the income scale, increasing their independence of other government welfare programs," Horn said. "The true goal of welfare to work programs should be self-sufficiency." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070226/ap_on_re_us/welfare_state
It's not just the coast guards, a large reason the world wide shipping lanes are the way they are is because US has the maritime power to be projected anywhere in the world. Being the world's only super power, there are responsibilities, maintain order on the sea and keeping shipping lanes open and safe is but one of them. Even though US should be shouldering these responsibilities, it does allow countries like Canada to keep a small defense force while enjoy the safety net provided by US.
Are you kidding me? Canada has a fraction of the US population, it has massive amount of natural resources, it maintains a small defense force while having more land than US. When I went to school in Canada, I have seen families of three generations living on welfare, that is not the system US should be copying.
Lol! That was funny. deepblue: I’m not sure how your post relates to the question at hand. In your next post you say you went to school in Canada and saw families that were on welfare. Where did you go to school, btw? Nobody is saying that no one in Canada is on welfare, but in places like Canada and western Europe I don’t think you’ll find the same kind of severe poverty being discussed here. Everyone in Canada has health care insurance, for example, no matter how poor they are. There are certainly areas where we can do better, and these do relate to some funding issue but a big chunk of them relate to understanding mental illness and addiction issues better and coming up with better ways to help more people overcome these problems and become reintegrated into mainstream society.
The problem with those European states you have mentioned and others that have strong social service programs is that many of the same ones have very strict labour laws as well. All this has caused the GDP of these states to languish behind the US starting from the mid 90's. Only now the EU states are realizing that the true way to increase GDP is to lessen the social services and ease on the labour laws in preference to business. Denmark has faired better than other members of Europe in that their labour laws favor business in that employers can fire employees as they wish. This is not the case in many other Euro locales. In Denmark the government gives generous benefits packages that amount 70% of income for 4 years. The government also funds retraining and education and pressure laid off workers to take reasonable job offers otherwise their benefits will be cut. Denmark training/retraining programs take up to 3% of its GDP, as opposed to less than 1% seen in the US. Only now has Europe regained an somewhat equal footing in economic power since loosening these job security laws.
