An Economy That Cannot Provide for the People Poverty Broadly
Impacting U.S. Workers The Census Bureau recently released a new
measure of poverty, meant to more accurately reflect the actual
impoverishment facing workers. The overall result confirms what
many working families already experience, which is that poverty
is far more widespread. The new measure made clear that almost
half of all Americans are living in poverty, 146.4 million, or
48 percent of the U.S. population. That is up by 4 million from
2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed measure.
Thirty-two states saw an increase in both absolute numbers and
the percentage of people living in poverty and none had a
decline. One in three people, 100 million, are below the
official poverty line or close to it. About 51 million of those
have household income – meaning in many cases from two jobs –
less than 50 percent above the poverty line. For these families,
which have been ignored by earlier statistics, 28 percent work
full-time, year round.