"Number of indigent increases for fourth consecutive year."

[Pirate Smile]

Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7 Percent

By JENNIFER C. KERR
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; 11:10 AM

WASHINGTON -- The nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

-snip-
The last decline in overall poverty was in 2000, when 31.1 million people lived under the threshold _ 11.3 percent of the population.

-snip-
"I guess what happened last year was kind of similar to what happened in the early 1990s where you had a recession that was officially over and then you had several years after that of rising poverty," Nelson said. "... These numbers do reflect changes between 2003 and 2004. They don't reflect any improvements in the economy in 2005."

-snip-
"The good news is that poverty is a lot lower than it was in 1993, but we went through a hell of an economic boom," Danziger said. "Nobody is predicting we're going to go through another economic boom like that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000613.html

[tom_paine]

1. Mission Accomplished!

[phusion]

2. OK..

I'm no economics expert, but it seems to me that you can't equate any "improvements in the economy," like GDP or economic output, with the poverty level.

This is a trend towards a huge disparity between rich and poor. It's a vaporization of the middle class.

[Pirate Smile]

4. What are they calling this now? I haven't heard the term "trickle down"

anymore which we know trickles no where.

In the midwest, income has declined. Inflation sure as hell hasn't -health care costs, gas, etc. "Regionally, income declined only in the Midwest, down 2.8 percent to $44,657. The South was the poorest region and the Northeast and the West had the highest median incomes."

[wli]

3. the neocons got their wish I suppose

We're all worse off for it.