Number Of Poor In U.S. Likely Increased By 1.5M Last Year

[tocqueville]

Source: HuffPo

WASHINGTON — The ranks of poor and uninsured Americans are likely increasing – with more than 38.8 million believed to be in poverty.

Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Department's undersecretary of economic affairs, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of next month's closely watched release of 2008 census data. Noting the figures are not yet final, Blank said the numbers likely will show a "statistically significant" increase in the poverty rate, to at least 12.7 percent. That would represent a jump of more than 1.5 million poor people compared with the previous year.

"There's no question that 2008 economically was a much worse year than 2007," she said Wednesday. "The question is how much and how bad."

The number of uninsured is also expected to increase notably due largely to rising unemployment and the erosion of private coverage paid for by employers and individuals, but Blank declined to say by how much. In 2007, the number of uninsured fell by more than 1 million mostly because government programs such as Medicaid for the poor picked up the slack.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/19/numbers-of-poor-could-inc_n_263443.html

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Generally the percentage for "relative poverty" is much higher than the quota for "strict poverty". The U.S concept is best comparable to "strict poverty". By European standards the official (relative) poverty rate in the United States would be significantly higher than it is by the U.S. measure. A research paper from the OECD calculates the relative poverty rate for the United States at 16% for 50% median of disposable income and nearly 24% for 60% of median disposable income<14> (OECD average: 11% for 50% median, 16% for 60% median).(wikipedia)

so by European standards there are 70 millions poor in the USA.

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