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Poverty and income trends continue to paint a bleak picture for working families

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Economic Policy Institute: A lost decade – Poverty and income trends continue to paint a bleak picture for working families, By Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz | September 14, 2011

  • “Between 2009 and 2010, an additional ­­­­­­2.6 million people slipped below the poverty line, as the poverty rate increased from 14.3 percent to 15.1 percent. The rate represents 46.2 million people living in poverty in the United States. The last time the poverty rate was higher was in 1983, when it was 15.2 percent. The poverty rate for children in 2010 was 22.0 percent, higher than the overall rate and up more (1.3 percentage-points) than the overall poverty rate, which increased 0.8 percentage points from 2009 to 2010. The 2010 “children’s poverty rate” represents 16.4 million kids living in poverty. In 2010, more than a third—35.5 percent— of all people living in poverty were children. Nearly all of the decline in poverty achieved during the business cycle of the 1990s has now been reversed. From 1989 to 2000, overall poverty declined by 1.5 percentage points, and child poverty dropped by 3.4 percentage points. From 2000 to 2010, however, poverty increased overall by 3.8 percentage points, and by 5.8 percentage points among children. The large increase in poverty suggests that as anti-poverty policies have come to depend more on paid work as the main pathway out of poverty, the safety net has become less effective in reducing economic hardship when the economy and job market are under performing.”
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