Sep/091
U.S. poverty rate hits 11-year high
War on Poverty
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. poverty rate hit its highest level in 11 years in 2008 as the worst recession since the Great Depression threw millions of Americans out of work, a government report showed on Thursday.
The Census Bureau said the poverty rate — the percentage of people living in poverty — jumped to 13.2 percent, the highest level since 1997, from 12.5 percent in 2007.
About 39.8 million Americans were living in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007.
Despite signs the economy was showing signs of crawling out the slump that started in December 2007, the poverty rate would rise gain this year and beyond 2010 as unemployment would stay elevated for a while, analysts and the government warned.
“Unfortunately, even with an improving economy, the higher unemployment rates during 2009 will almost surely lead to further declines in income and further increases in poverty,” Rebecca Blank, Undersecretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department told Senate’s Joint Economic Committee.
The government defines poverty as an annual income of $22,025 for a family of four, $17,163 for a family of three and $14,051 for a family of two.
With unemployment rising, real median household income fell 3.6 percent to $50,303 in 2008, a 10-year low. The percentage decline was the biggest annual drop since 1991 and snapped a three year streak of annual income increases.
The longest and deepest recession in 70 years has been marked by escalating unemployment as companies aggressively cut payrolls to cope with slumping demand. The unemployment rate was at 7.2 percent at the end of last year.
As of August, the unemployment rate was at 9.7 percent, the highest in 26 years, and is expected to peak just above 10 percent early next year. Almost 7 million people had lost their jobs since the start of the recession.
POVERTY WILL STAY HIGH
“The poverty rate will not fall back to the 2007 rate until the economy expands enough that the unemployment rate falls back below 5 percent. This is not likely to happen for several years,” said Sheldon Danziger, a Russell Sage Foundation fellow and professor at the University of Michigan.
“Government policies must stay focused on helping those among the poor and near-poor who have been left behind by economic growth in recent years.”
The Census Bureau also said 46.3 million Americans were without health insurance last year compared to 45.7 million in 2007. The numbers could feature in arguments over President Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system and dramatically expand medical insurance coverage.
The family poverty rate rose to 10.3 percent last year and 8.1 million families were classified as poor, the Bureau said, compared to 9.8 percent and 7.6 million respectively in 2007.
Analysts said rising poverty underscored the need for the government to strengthen its safety net, which many argue is inadequate.
“Unemployment insurance will need to be extended beyond the provisions in this year’s recovery legislation,” said Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
“For low-income and part-time workers ineligible for unemployment insurance, other forms of cash assistance and perhaps community service jobs will need to be provided,” said Henry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University in Washington.
Poverty was higher among blacks and Hispanics, the report showed. About 14.1 million children under the age of 18 lived in poverty last year, up from 13.3 million in 2007.
“We project that with the continuing deterioration in the labor market, by 2009 a quarter of all children in this country will be living in poverty,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; editing by Andre Grenon)
Sep/091
Bartlett calls for probe of ACORN over videos
ACORN and the Census Bureau
Census Bureau cuts ties with group; Md. recording might be illegal.
By Justin Fenton | justin.fenton@baltsun.com
September 12, 2009
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.ci.acorn12sep12,0,196923.story
A Maryland congressman called for an investigation of ACORN after a second video surfaced that appeared to show its employees offering tax advice for criminal activities, but city prosecutors say the surreptitious recordings themselves might have violated state law.
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau said it was severing ties with the organization, which also has been the target of complaints about fraudulent voter registration.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been under fire since Thursday, when a hidden-camera video shot in its Baltimore office surfaced. The video shows a man and woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute asking two apparently unwitting ACORN employees for advice on skirting tax and other laws.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia A. Jessamy said allegations of tax fraud would fall under federal jurisdiction, but the apparently secret taping, or spreading it online, could represent a violation of the state’s two-party consent laws for recording conversations. A spokesman said it would take a formal complaint to trigger an investigation. Baltimore police said late Friday that no such complaint had been filed.
The two part-time ACORN employees were fired Thursday. On Friday, a second video surfaced depicting a similar scenario at the organization’s Washington office.
ACORN officials have condemned the videos as part of a smear campaign but acknowledged that the employees acted inappropriately. The organization said it was conducting an internal review.
Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, said Congress should investigate the organization.
“Absolutely, there should be a congressional investigation since we now have a very apparent pattern of improper activities by ACORN,” he said. “However, it’s up to the Democratic majority to determine whether or not Congress will hold oversight hearings to justify any future taxpayer funding of ACORN.”
ACORN, which provides services to the needy, emerged as a target of Republicans during the 2008 presidential campaign, when it was accused of submitting fraudulent voter registration cards in several states. Although officially nonpartisan, the organization tends to serve communities that traditionally vote Democratic.
Earlier this week, police in Florida began arresting 11 ACORN canvassers on charges of falsifying hundreds of voter applications during a registration drive last year. Authorities were acting on a tip from the organization itself.
In splitting with ACORN, Census Director Robert Groves sought to tamp down GOP concerns that the organization would taint the 2010 head count.
“It is clear that ACORN’s affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts,” Groves wrote in a letter obtained by the Associated Press.
A spokeswoman for Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said his office had received many e-mails and phone calls from people concerned about the apparent promotion of tax fraud and child abuse shown in the Baltimore video, but she said that any potential violations appeared to fall out of its jurisdiction. Representatives of the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein and state Comptroller Peter Franchot said they knew about the videos but would not comment on whether they would investigate.
Maryland law requires all parties to consent to electronic recordings.
Joseph Murtha, a Lutherville attorney who represented Linda Tripp when she was charged with secretly recording conversations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, said prosecutors rarely pursue such charges. Charges against Tripp were dropped.
The key, Murtha said, is whether those being recorded have an expectation of privacy. Murtha said the Baltimore ACORN employees were acting on behalf of an agency and in their official capacity, with more than one person present and with a meeting room door open. “I think it would be a hard sell to prove that they had a legitimate expectation of privacy,” he said.
In the videos, posted on BigGovernment.com, a man and woman ask how to account for their income on tax forms and how to buy a house to use as a brothel.
The filmmakers, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, have said they were shocked that they were not turned away. ACORN officials say similar attempts were unsuccessful in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where employees called police.
ACORN officials said Friday that they were “appalled and angry” to see the video of two Washington employees offering advice on how to operate an illegal enterprise and keep it hidden from the government. But they also stressed that the employees did not break any laws, saying “no loan documents were signed or submitted, no bank loans were arranged, no new business was established.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Paul West and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
Aug/070
How Poor Are America’s Poor?
Robert E. Rector
Senior Research Fellow
August 27, 2007
Executive Summary:
How Poor Are America’s Poor? Examining the “Plague” of Poverty in America by Robert E. Rector Executive Summary #2064 Each year, the U.S. Census Bureau counts the number of “poor” persons in the U.S. In 2005, the Bureau found 37 million “poor” Americans. Presidential candidate John Edwards claims that these 37 million Americans currently “struggle with incredible poverty.”#[1] Edwards asserts that America’s poor, who number “one in eight of us…do not have enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need,” and are forced to live in “terrible” circumstances.#[2] However, an examination of the living standards of the 37 million persons, whom the government defines as “poor,” reveals that what Edwards calls “the plague”#[3] of American poverty might not be as “terrible” or “incredible” as candidate Edwards contends. But, if poverty means (as Edwards asserts) a lack of nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, then very few of the 37 million people identified as living “in poverty” by the Census Bureau would, in fact, be characterized as poor. Clearly, material hardship does exist in the United States, but it is quite restricted in scope and severity.
The average “poor” person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
- Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
- Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded; two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
- The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the averagecitizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
- Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
- Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
- Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians. Of course, the living conditions of the average poor American should not be taken as representing all of the nation’s poor: There is a wide range of living conditions among the poor. A third of “poor” households have both cell and landline telephones. A third also have telephone answering machines. At the other extreme, approximately one-tenth of families in poverty have no telephone at all. Similarly, while the majority of poor households do not experience significant material problems, roughly a third do experience at least one problem such as overcrowding, temporary hunger, or difficulty getting medical care. Much poverty that does exist in the United States can be reduced, particularly among children. There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don’t work much, and their fathers are absent from the home. In both good and bad economic environments, the typical American poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year—the equivalent of 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year—nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.
As noted above, father absence is another major cause of child poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor children reside in single-parent homes; each year, an additional 1.5 million children are born out of wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly three-quarters of the nation’s impoverished youth would immediately be lifted out of poverty.
Yet, although work and marriage are reliable ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, the nation’s remaining poverty could be reduced. While renewed welfare reform can help to reduce poverty, such efforts will be partially offset by the poverty-boosting impact of the nation’s immigration system. Each year, the U.S. imports, through both legal and illegal immigration, hundreds of thousands of additional poor persons from abroad. As a result, one-quarter of all poor persons in the U.S. are now first-generation immigrants or the minor children of those immigrants. Roughly one in ten of the persons counted among the poor by the Census Bureau is either an illegal immigrant or the minor child of an illegal. As long as the present steady flow of poverty-prone persons from foreign countries continues, efforts to reduce the total number of poor in the U.S. will be far more difficult. A sound anti-poverty strategy must seek to increase work and marriage, reduce illegal immigration, and increase the skill level of future legal immigrants.