By GREGORY N. HEIRES
The Great Recession, though officially over three years ago, continues to whack American families.
Median household income fell 1.5 percent last year, dropping to $50,054 according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report on income and poverty, released Wednesday. Adjusted for inflation, median household income has been on a downward spiral for 13 years.
In 2010, one in six people—15 percent of the population—lived in poverty. Poverty is at its highest level in 13 years.
Millions of more people would be impoverished if it weren’t for government safety net programs.
Food stamps have kept 3.9 million people out of poverty in 2011, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The earned income tax credit program has saved 5.7 million, including 3.1 million children.
Meanwhile, the country faces persistence unemployment, which remains stuck at 8 percent,
The grim economic reality has forced people to adopt survival tactics and coping mechanism.
In 2011, 22.3 million Americans lived in “shared” households, up from 19.7 million at the beginning of the Great Recession in 2007.
“The overriding message of the poverty data released today is that the poverty rate remains much too high, demonstrating the continuing impact of the Great Recession and the tepid and tenuous economic recovery.” said Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany, N.Y., where the poverty reached 16 percent in 2010 and 2011.
The high poverty the pressing need to both strengthen the social safety net and to stimulate the economy Mauro said. “There is plenty that the federal and state governments can do—including modernizing the unemployment insurance system, avoiding the senseless cuts in fold stamp funding now being proposed in Congress, and reversing the state and local government layoffs and service cuts that are placing a significant drag on the private sector recovery.”
www.thenewcrossroads.com Posted September 13, 2012
