Poverty soars among young families in US [View All]

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/pove-s22.shtml

Poverty soars among young families in US
By Naomi Spencer
22 September 2011

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Government data indicate that more than one in three young families with children were living in poverty in the US in 2010, the highest rate ever recorded. At the same time that families are financially strained, assistance programs for the poor have been cut and eligibility rules tightened.

A new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found that 37.3 percent of households headed by a parent under age 30 were impoverished last year.

Poverty among these young households has surged by 12 percent over the past decade, surpassing the previous peak of 36 percent in 1993 and far eclipsing the 14 percent recorded in 1967, when the government began tracking family poverty figures. Since 2007, poverty across all age groups has leapt upward, to include 46.2 million people. (See, “America: The land of poverty”)

Official measures of poverty grossly understate its scope and depth. Many advocacy groups have pointed out that 200 percent of the official poverty threshold—which would be $44,000 for a family of four—is a more realistic measure of the bare minimum costs of raising a family. Across all age groups, the number of people earning less than twice the poverty line stood at 103 million in 2010, about one in three Americans.

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