PHA-Exchange> US Economy Leaving Record Numbers in Severe Poverty

[Claudio]

From: "Erika Arteaga" <erikarteagacruzm at hotmail.com>
> Published on Friday, February 23, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers

> US Economy Leaving Record Numbers in Severe Poverty
> by Tony Pugh     (excerpts)
>
> 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.
> 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.
>
> 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