Poverty In The United States
Poverty is a state of privation or lack of the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% (46.2 million) in 2010, up from 14.3% (approximately 43.6 million) in 2009 and to its highest level since 1993. In 2008, 13.2% (39.8 million) Americans lived in relative poverty. In 2000, the poverty rate for individuals was 12.2% and for families was 9.3%.
The government's definition of poverty is based on total income received. For example, the poverty level for 2012 was set at $23,050 (total yearly income) for a family of four. Most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75.
The most common measure of poverty in the United States is the "poverty threshold" set by the U.S. government. This measure recognizes poverty as a lack of those goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society. The official threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.
Relative poverty describes how income relates to the median income, and does not imply that the person is lacking anything. In general the United States has some of the highest relative poverty rates among industrialized countries. According to a 2008 report released by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, on average, rates of poverty are persistently higher in rural and inner city parts of the country as compared to suburban areas. The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is increasing to record levels with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national War on Poverty.
Read more about Poverty In The United States: Poverty and Demographics, Food Security, Factors in Poverty, Concerns Regarding Accuracy, Fighting Poverty
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“To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
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—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
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—Bible: New Testament, Mark 12:44.
Jesus watching the widow contribute her two mites.
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—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)