Over 56 Million Americans Live in Poverty – How The Census Bureau Propaganda Ignores 10 Million Poor

[stockholmer]

http://ampedstatus.org/over-56-million-americans-live-in-poverty-how-census-bureau-propaganda-ignores-the-suffering-of-10-million-impoverished-americans/

Here we go again. The government and corporate media are pumping out more propaganda on vital economic statistics to mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive unemployment http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/#unemployment , GDP http://daviddegraw.org/2011/07/gdp-revisions-shockingly-bad-economy-in-much-worse-condition-than-government-has-reported/ , inflation http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/#inflation and poverty http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/#poverty measures are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. The latest deception comes from the Census Bureau in their annual poverty report, which is now uncritically being “reported” on throughout the corporate media and echoing throughout online news outlets as well.

The new Census data reveals that a stunning 46.2 million http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf Americans, 15.1% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million people since 2009. While these are staggering statistics that represent the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic year-over-year increase, it significantly undercounts the total.

The Census Bureau poverty rate is a highly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 — 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic expenses. They also don’t factor geographically-based costs of living. For example, try finding a place to live in New York that costs the same as a place in Florida. A much more accurate measurement of poverty, which factors in these vital cost of living variables, comes from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Unlike the Census poverty measure, which gets significant coverage throughout the corporate media, the NAS measurement gets little, if any, mainstream media coverage.

To see how the Census Bureau drastically undercounts poverty totals, let’s look at the past few years of data. In 2008, the Census reported that 39.8 million Americans lived in poverty. However, based on NAS calculations, 47.4 million Americans lived in poverty that year. In 2008, the Census undercounted by 7.6 million people. For the year of 2009, the Census reported that 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty. In my analysis, http://ampedstatus.org/census-bureau-poverty-rate-drastically-undercounts-severity-of-poverty-in-america/ extrapolating data from 2008 NAS measurement, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million. http://ampedstatus.org/census-bureau-poverty-rate-drastically-undercounts-severity-of-poverty-in-america/ After making this estimate, the NAS measurement was released, backing up my claim by revealing that 52.8 million http://ampedstatus.org/exclusive-analysis-of-financial-terrorism-in-america-over-1-million-deaths-annually-62-million-people-with-zero-net-worth-as-the-economic-elite-make-off-with-46-trillion/#poverty Americans lived in poverty. In 2009, the Census undercounted by 9.2 million people.

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[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[butterfly77]

2. Kicked&Recommended...

[DJ13]

3. It sounds like the Census Bureau uses the same fudged numbers

that has kept Social Security recipients from getting any COLA for two years in a row.

(Side note, yet a different methodology of factoring cost of living has given Federal employees an over 2% COLA for this year alone.)

[jannyk]

4. k&r

[hfojvt]

5. well they make a pretty dumb argument here

"Let me repeat that: $22,050 for a family of four. That breaks down to $5513 per person, per year. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine living in the United States on $459 per month."

Yes, because a family of four has the same living expenses as four families of one. Riiight. They need four houses, four cars, four TVs, four phones, four stoves, four refrigerators, four packs of cigarettes, four beers, four cams of catfood,... I am just sure.

I am not even sure how they count that. Because a family of four making $22,050 would presumably pay $1,687 in FICA taxes, but would also get $3,862 in EIC and perhaps refundable child tax credits as well. They might also qualify for food stamps and free school lunches and SCHIP. Should some of those items be included in income? Are they?

I am not sure I trust anybody criticizing the current system who makes such a dumb argument.

[stockholmer]

6. Do you for one minute think that a man or woman (lets say they make 50K/yr) is going to only pay 459

a month per child for child support? I am sure there are plenty of parents in child support court who would LOVE to have your logic applied (if they are the one getting sued to pay).

[hfojvt]

7. what I hear about child support

is that it is based on income, and I had a number of fathers tell me that paying child support is a lot more expensive than paying child expenses. One was celebrating that he no longer had to pay - because he was getting his kid or kids, and I said "but you still have to pay" and a bunch of fathers chimed in to tell me that I was wrong about that. The point is, that it may be impossible for one person to live on $459 a month, but it is easier for two people to live on $918 a month or three people on $1,377 a month. It is absurd to divide the income by the number of people and claim that is some sort of equivalence.

[stockholmer]

8. I agree to a point, but 3 people living on $1377 a month is definitely poverty level in the US, IMHO

Especially in any major urban areas. In many of the biggest cities, that level would barely pay the rent, let alone food, health insurance (if they do not qualify in their state for Medicaid), transportation cost, utilities, school supplies, clothing, etc. In addition, for many cities, the waiting list for low cost housing is 3 to 5 years long as well.

The system seems broken, badly.