1 in 15 Americans now rank as poorest poor
WASHINGTON - The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high -- 1 in 15 people -- spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.
New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.
CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports the Midwest is the region with the fastest growing poverty rate, up 79 percent. And Youngstown, Ohio, has the highest concentration of poverty, having been hit hard by the loss of steel jobs.
In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America.
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"There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners," said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. "Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn -- which will end eventually -- will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover."
Traditional inner-city black ghettos are thinning out and changing, drawing in impoverished Hispanics who have low-wage jobs or are unemployed. Neighborhoods with poverty rates of at least 40 percent are stretching over broader areas, increasing in suburbs at twice the rate of cities.
Once-booming Sun Belt metro areas are now seeing some of the biggest jumps in concentrated poverty.
Signs of a growing divide between rich and poor can be seen in places such as the upscale Miami suburb of Miami Shores, where nannies gather with their charges at a playground nestled between the township's sprawling golf course and soccer fields. The locale is a far cry from where many of them live.
One is Mariana Gripaldi, 36, an Argentinian who came to the U.S. about 10 years ago to escape her own country's economic crisis. She and her husband rent a two-bedroom apartment near Biscayne Bay in a middle-class neighborhood at the north end of Miami Beach, far from the chic hotels and stores.
But Gripaldi said in the past two years, the neighborhood has seen an increase in crime.
"The police come sometimes once or twice a night," she said in Spanish. "We are looking for a new place, but it's so expensive. My husband went to look at a place, and it was $1,500 for a two-bedroom, one bath. I don't like the changes, but I don't know if we can move."
About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level. Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.
That 6.7 percent share is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has maintained such records, surpassing previous highs in 2009 and 1993 of just over 6 percent.
Broken down by states, 40 states and the District of Columbia had increases in the poorest poor since 2007, and none saw decreases. The District of Columbia ranked highest at 10.7 percent, followed by Mississippi and New Mexico. Nevada had the biggest jump, rising from 4.6 percent to 7 percent.
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Who said I am defending the GOP?
I always enjoy coming here and reading the comments. We do live in a great country. Living the last 53 years in America id like to say something. In 1977 the average percent rate on a home was i believe 13-14% even if you could get that. Gas was in a shortage so bad some times people would wait half a day to even fill up. People drove 55 miles a hour to save gas, home heating systems included wood , or the walls was build with 2X6 walls. Personal intrest rates where around 9 %. Even before President Reagan took over the Japineese where building car plants in Tennessee and other plants. Jobs where leaving the country even then. People where still buying Japan made cars , tv's radio's and other manufactored items. Jobs where none existance and old indutries where disapering fast. The middle class then suffered bad. Since then after Reagan. The country had 28 years of good times mostly. In those 28 years people warned of over imagration , over use of the resources in America and expanding credit but no one really listened. Banking rules was remade by Both parties where everyone could buy a home. Which I am not agianst, But hell you can't aford 2-3 hunderd thousand dollar home in a service industries. The waking up after 28 years of good times , well now is the head ache is here. Good sense will tell you all these poor people that work here illegaly are also counted in that poverty. In the last 10 years we have watched Both parties make it where people can't have collective bargaining. We have wacthed as work visa's is still given for outside workers to come in to take jobs. Hell check into it you own electric companies are owned by someone over seas. Folks while the 28 year party was going on. YOU let them give away your future and somehow has made your country reponsiable for every damn stinking thing in the world!!!! You really cant believe that is up the us or the goverment to solve everthing!!! Do you??? But i guess we will sink further and futher until we all begian to work to portect out jobs, quit having this guilt crap that has been tought in the school in the last years and decide if we are a Independant country. I remember the middle class stood for somthing. Demanded respect and a peace of the pie. Instead of this crap we are taking now. The sadist thing i have wittiness in my life is that a foreigner was sent from a foreign country of the company to be trianed buy the bastard he was taking his job from!!!! Our for fathers was not perfect , but by damn in there words A LITTLE REVOLUTION IS A GOOD THANG!!!
The numbers speak what you want it speak when you have a political axe to grind. You buy when the price is low and sell when its high. It doesn't matter who is president in the economic "long run."
These figures also explain these events in Oakland and around, poverty has reached the middle class, thanks to the Republicans
"au revoir"
2009 the year bush left office after 8 years of distruction and 1993 right after 12 years of bush sr. and raygun path of destruction.