(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Not really, but in another cheap political stunt, he is freezing white house salaries. Way to pay attention to the big picture, clown shoes.
Federal Poverty Guidelines as defined by total annual income across different family sizes.
The blue symbols show the federal poverty guidelines as defined in 2008. The red symbols show twice the poverty levels, poverty guidelines X 2.
With each additional person in the household, the poverty level is adjusted upward just $3600.00 per person at the federally defined guideline, and by $7200.00 per person at twice the federally define guideline.
Why did I add 2 X poverty levels? Because 30% of Americans are already in or are approaching poverty.
If one were to expand the definition of poverty to merely ‘poor’ (yet still very poor), then a eye-popping 30% of the nation lives no higher than twice the poverty base line.
Brookings: In 2008, 91.6 million people-more than 30 percent of the nation’s population-fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. More individuals lived in families with incomes between 100 and 200 percent of poverty line (52.5 million) than below the poverty line (39.1 million) in 2008. Between 2000 and 2008, large suburbs saw the fastest growing low-income populations across community types and the greatest uptick in the share of the population living under 200 percent of poverty.
Here’s where it gets even more ridiculous — If you break down the data to individual areas, then there’s at least ten U.S. cities with poverty rates of around 30%. Moreover, Brookings latest research highlights how poverty has been getting worse especially fast in the suburbs, thus the U.S. is faced with the challenges of suburban poverty like never before…
I also plotted how those income levels translate annually on a per person basis across family sizes:
Annual allocation per person at poverty level (and twice poverty level) across family sizes.
So, at the federally defined guideline, a family of four makes just over $5000.00 per person. This doubles to just over $10,000.00 per person if you expand the definition to include 30% of the country. Pathetic.
I can’t wait to see what the 2009 data look like. Or 2010, for that matter.
Here’s three clues, Mr President, concerning our ballooning deficits:
1. Bloated National Security State & Wars of Aggression.
2. Health care
3. Bank bailouts.
All we get are political stunts and clown shoes.
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The Automatic Earth.
ever.
announce freeze on tax payments in bid to resuscitate economy.
Wha? Hunh? Oh, sorry, I must have dozed… I had the most lifelike dream.
be the HUD income guidelines. They are much, much higher than poverty and yet, people still qualify for federal assistance for housing. In a few more months, most of the US will qualify for federal assistance. Here is Ann Arbor, MI where median family income is $85,200
STATE:MICHIGAN —-I N C O M E L I M I T S——————
PROGRAM 1 PERSON 2 PERSON 3 PERSON 4 PERSON 5 PERSON 6 PERSON 7 PERSON 8 PERSON
Ann Arbor, MI MSA
FY 2009 MFI: 85200
30% OF MEDIAN 17900 20450 23000 25550 27600 29650 31700 33750
VERY LOW INCOME 29800 34100 38350 42600 46000 49400 52800 56250
LOW-INCOME 44800 51200 57600 64000 69100 74250 79350 84500
they can’t do it politically while the boomers are still going, but the health care reform thing is the first step towards privatizing all of that. After the boomers start kicking off, they’ll get rid of SS (more reform–maybe force everyone to buy into the stockmarket, on threat of jail? That’d work. ) and medicare (just gone) .
…. are you a secret saboteur for Mac or Microsoft or something ?
ROFLMAO !
The oil based oligarchy knows that making the system different, so everyone is able to afford to pay for health care, would be a radical change for our society. And that is why they fight it. Being careful, of course, to keep their underlings well covered with health insurance themselves.
levels of money for poverty levels. $10,000 for one person? Are you kidding? I don’t know how you could live on $20,000 for one person in this area/state (presumably double the poverty level) much less 10K.
I wouldn’t say I’m poor .. but I make somewhere around four times the “poverty level” and I find life a bit of a squeeze when there are unforeseen things.
And 30% of the country is less than twice the poverty level? They need to double or triple these numbers for the present day to approximate what it actually means to be poor.
Something that accurately divides people who have enough to reasonable get by from those who don’t?
No, no, you’ve got them all wrong. They exist to convince poor conservatives that they’re not really poor. And that they have a social class somewhere below them that they can rip on and feel better than. Also, it allows poor conservatives to applaud Republican measures that negatively impact the poor.
That’s what this is about. Nobody who knows what they’re talking about thinks you can reaonably get by on $10,000, or that you can be financially independent with that.
http://www.federaljack.com/?p=…