Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
U.S. Poverty Rate, at 15 Percent, Is the Highest Since 1993
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, The New York Times
Published: September 13, 2011
46.2 million people now live in poverty in the United States, the highest number in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been tracking it, said Trudi Renwick, chief of the Poverty Statistic Branch at the Census Bureau.
That figure represented 15.1 percent of the population, up from 14.3 percent in 2009, and 11.7 percent at the beginning of the decade in 2001. The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,113.
And in new signs of economic distress among the middle class, median household incomes adjusted for inflation declined by 2.3 percent in 2010 from the previous year to $49,400. That was 7 percent less than the peak of $53,252 in 1999.
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Things are grim and slow or no growth will be in the offing for the next decade at least. There doesn’t seem to be any way out of it, particularly, since rational alternatives are neglected by the very fact they are rational.