Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Monday, July 23, 2012

US Poverty on Track to Rise to Highest Since 1960s

The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest since 1965.

More

1 comment:

lmclain said...

The rich are living the high life, vacationing in Hawaii, buying their third, fourth, or fifth mansion in Aspen, sending their kids to Harvard and buying their sixteen year old daughter a BMW for her birthday. The middle class watches the price of everything (except their home value) go up 5-30% a year, send THEIR kids to Afghanistan (and hope they come back and in one piece), and sink further into poverty as they contemplate moving to China and taking a job with the new GE plants obama's job czar has planned over there....buy ammo and stock up on food (the food riots won't leave much on the shelves....). Don't say you weren't warned.