Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
OccupyForum

Forum Post: High levels of poverty likely to increase.

Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 11, 2012, 7:17 p.m. EST by Demian (497) from San Francisco, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Study: Already High Level of Poverty Likely to Get Worse Ranks of American Poor Forecast to Grow Until at Least 2017: Study

Common Dreams staff report 2010 Census Bureau figures recently revealed that the US poverty level had skyrocketed and noted that the population of poor Americans had climbed to 46.2 million. A new study released today by Indiana University compounds that bad news by predicting that things are likely to get worse before they get better.

A soup kitchen in Detroit. The report said Michigan had one of the highest rates of poverty, with minorities among the hardest hit. Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters As reported by The Guardian:

The report warns that the numbers will continue to rise, because although the recession is technically over, its continued impact on cuts to welfare budgets and the quality of new, often poorly paid, jobs can be expected to force many more people in to poverty. It is also difficult for those already under water to get back up again.

"Poverty in America is remarkably widespread," concludes the study, At Risk: America's Poor During and After the Great Recession. "The number of people living in poverty is increasing and is expected to increase further, despite the recovery."

And the reason? According to John Graham, one of the authors of the report, it was surprising. As he told the Guardian:

"The unique feature of the great recession is not just the high rate of unemployment, but the long duration of unemployment that millions of Americans have experienced. [For] a lot of these long-term unemployed, the job that they had won't exist when they go back in to the labour market."

The deeper and more troubling cause, however is a man-made disaster: the politically driven budget-cutting austerity strategy that has followed the financial crash in 2007.

The Indiana University study says that the numbers of people falling into poverty is also likely to grow because of severe cuts to state and federal welfare budgets.

"The states by their constitutions all have to have a balanced budget each year. A lot of states are already in the process of cutting back their safety net programs at the same time that poverty is increasing," said Graham. "Their needs are going up but the programs are receiving less support. It's going to continue because the revenues of state governments are not increasing as rapidly as is needed and the federal government will be under a lot of pressure because of its large deficit to decrease funding given to the states."

And things are likely to get much worse if unemployment benefits are not extended. This represents another political battle that played out in Washington at the end of 2011 and will return as Congress picks up a future extension later this month. According to Reuters:

If the long-term unemployed lose their unemployment insurance benefits before the economy produces enough well-paying jobs, the ranks of the "new poor" will continue to swell steadily through 2017, the study found.

"Many of the 'new poor' are the former middle class," broadcaster Tavis Smiley, who requested the study, said in a statement. "Poor people are not moochers and welfare queens, as some would like you to believe."

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/11/poverty-america-likely-worse-report?newsfeed=true

http://www.indiana.edu/%7Espea/pubs/white_paper_at_risk.pdf

7 Comments

7 Comments


Read the Rules
[-] 1 points by friendlyopposition (574) 12 years ago

"The Indiana University study says that the numbers of people falling into poverty is also likely to grow because of severe cuts to state and federal welfare budgets."

Lower welfare budgets will cause more people to go on welfare? That doesn't make sense.

[-] 1 points by GirlFriday (17435) 12 years ago

It is going to get a lot worse.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23769) 12 years ago

We need to get money out of politics and return our government to the hands of the people. Only then will our political and economic systems begin to promote the general welfare of the American people instead of the wealthy and corporations.

[-] 0 points by FreedomIn2012 (-36) from Hempstead, NY 12 years ago

How do you define poverty? The poverty rate in the US has changed little since they began measuring it. By definition it will never go down. Poverty today means having cell phones, ipods, $200 sneakers, leather jackets, EITC, free breakfast, lunch, and now dinner.

[-] 0 points by DependentClass (19) 12 years ago

But we can help. Support enforcing our immigration laws and stop mass immigration of people with grade school level educations. Importing utterly unskilled people is importing poverty. Want less poverty? Do you see it as a problem? Then stop this.

You can also support demanding an end to illegitimacy and dropping out of school. If you're popping babies that'll have no idea who the fuck their dad is, you're creating more poverty. Same goes for dropping out of school. Want a quick trip to being a low income person an OWS cries to sleep over? Drop out of school and become chattel in the labor force.

Detroit is also a center of dysfunction. Are you still "hit" by poverty if you did it to yourself?

[Removed]

[-] -1 points by FreedomIn2012 (-36) from Hempstead, NY 12 years ago

If we stopped paying for single women to have babies, and forced the father and/or their families to pay, illegitimacy would drop over night.And as noted above, there are hoards of low skilled, poorly educated flooding across our borders! And god forbid if a state tries to deal with it, the Feds step in and say you cannot!!

[-] 0 points by DependentClass (19) 12 years ago

Yes, it really would. We underwrite dysfunction in a shame-free/judgment-free check writing world of welfare. Shame worked. Standards worked.

Liberals claim to be against poverty and income skew. That's bullshit. The border, illegitimacy and drop-outs are like fire hosing spraying poverty into our communities. But bring up any of them and they'll shout you down as a "racist" or the all-purpose "hater".

But anyone with even half a fucking brain knows that if we want less poverty in the country, we should stop importing it. Mass immigration of utterly unskilled and educated people is a poverty maker. It is and liberals should know better.