US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_POVERTY_IN_AMERICA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-23-03-48-27

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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 level since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.

[Art_from_Ark]

1. I could see this coming from a mile away

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. We are approacjing the "Final Stage"

When all the cities declare Chapter 9, and they have to negotiate ALL the public workers pensions away... that's when the entire police force will figure out they have been protecting the wrong side. But it will be too late, their pensions will be gone.

Income disparity will increase to the point where will will see 25% of the people in the country homeless. Unemployment just went back up to 10% in NYC.

[eShirl]

3. Yup. This is no accident.

[HiPointDem]

4. kr

[dmosh42]

5. No surprise here, as a 'dumb' country maybe wants the billionaires to help us out!

This is where I started, after coming out of the Navy after four in years, in 1964. LBJ pushed for the 'Great Society' to fight the high levels of poverty at that time. And, even with the country bogged down in Vietnam, the unions were battling for decent wages, and with wealth being distributed more evenly, the country was on a rising trend in economic conditions. Then when we got to Reagan, the people thought the Repukes had it right about how the "special" interests were not getting a fair shake. We have become the biggest ass-kissing society in the world now, not willing to fight for what we had!

[Igel]

6. Poverty rates are getting close to the pre-GS #s.

It's a couple of years old.

Except that the numbers mask a lot of changes. GS kicked in with the poverty rate plummeting; it was already down to 15% and kept going down. (A lot of the '60s big pushes were like that: The problem had been bad, was getting a lot better, but people remembered how bad it was and didn't notice or wanted to accelerate the improvements).

There are a lot of things in those numbers, some cyclical and some secular.

The biggest short-term factor is employment. You can track recessions in the poverty rate.

The biggest factor long-term is family structure changes. If we had the same proportion of two-parent families we had in 1965 you'd see a much smaller poverty rate. Changes in family structure give an upward tilt to the entire graph after about 1970. One-parent families tend to be much more sensitive to employment patterns and amplify the effects of a recession. They're less resilient. This drowned out the effects of late '80s prosperity, and made the mild early '90s recession look at lot like the much harsher late '70s/early '80s recession.

If fertility was constant across socio-economic statuses, you'd see a much smaller poverty rate. As it is now, single-parent households are more likely to have more kids than upper-middle class households. That means a smaller wealthy population so most population growth is among those more likely to be poor. That gives a slight upward tilt to the graph after about 1980.

Other things also matter. The uneven increase in wages and health care has an effect. Baby booms matter. Even the incidence of part-time and summer jobs matters.

What's stunning is that this graph is after taking into account most transfer payments. In 1970 structural unemployment was considered to be something like 6%. 4.5% unemployment 35 years later should have lowered the poverty rate by a lot--but the rate was the same. Much higher transfer payments and much lower unemployment were completely defeated by the combined effect of family structure, wage stagnation, and differential fertility rates.

[closeupready]

7. So tighten up the government definition of "poverty".

Problem solved.

Sort of like issuing statements about "food insecurity" in America, rather than "hunger".

[Fumesucker]

8. Mission Accomplished.