This is not okay: Vital Statistics Impact of public policy, 2011: without government assistance, poverty would have been twice as high—nearly 30 percent of population. Impact of public policy, 1964–1973: poverty rate fell by 43 percent. Families receiving cash assistance, 1996 (pre-welfare reform): sixty-eight for every 100 families living in poverty. Families receiving cash assistance, 2010: twenty-seven for every 100 families living in poverty. Average SNAP benefit, individual: $4.45 per day. Federal minimum wage: $7.25 ($2.13 for tipped workers) Federal minimum wage if indexed to inflation since 1968: $10.59. Federal minimum wage if it kept pace with productivity gains: $18.72. Poverty-level wages, 2011: 28 percent of workers. Hourly wage needed to lift a family of four above poverty line, 2011: $11.06. US poverty (less than $17,916 for a family of three): 46.2 million people, 15.1 percent. (US Census Bureau 2012) People who would have been in poverty if not for Social Security, 2011: 67.6 million Children in poverty: 16.4 million, 23 percent of all children, including 39 percent of African-American children, 37 percent of American Indian children, 34 percent of Hispanic children and 14 percent of both Asian and Pacific Islander and non-Hispanic White children. Deep poverty (below half the poverty line, less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, one in fifteen Americans, including more than 15 million women and children. Up from 12.6 million in 2000, an increase of 59 percent. African-American poverty rate: 27.6 percent. White poverty rate: 9.8 percent.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 22:52:35 +0000