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New Census Data Show Many in Middle Class Are ‘Near Poor’
When the U.S. Census Bureau retooled its formula for determining the number of poor people living in the United States, the number the bureau estimated to be living in poverty shot up from 46.1 million to 49.1 million. Now that reformulation is shining a light on the vast numbers of people who appear to be middle class but who actually fall into a category called the “near poor.”
The new numbers reveal a grim portrait of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, often without access to health care, many behind the middle-class exterior of a suburban home. According to the new data, some 51 million Americans receive incomes that are just 50 percent higher than the official poverty line—a figure that is 76 percent higher than the previous measure, according to The New York Times, which reports:
All told, that places 100 million people—one in three Americans—either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.
Roughly half of the people who fall into the “near poor” category live in the suburbs, and half live in households headed by a married couple. A sizable number—28 percent—work full time.
Yet conservatives in Congress continue to push for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—cuts that could push the “near poor” over the poverty line, and further increase the ranks of the poor, especially among the elderly.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers continue to refuse to raise taxes on the richest Americans, who pay a much smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class taxpayers. Among the expenses now calculated as part of the new poverty formulation—expenses previously omitted under the old formula—is an individual’s tax burden. After adding that, along with the cost of medical expenses, transportation and other life necessities into the formula, the numbers for those in the “near poor” category exploded.
The new numbers on the “near poor” have yet to be published by the Census Bureau. The numbers were crunched at the request of the Times, whose editorial staff suspected a larger story lurked in the new numbers. But the results, the paper reports, shocked even the Census Bureau’s chief poverty statistician, Trudi J. Renwick, who said:
These numbers are higher than we anticipated. There are more people struggling than the official numbers show.
As we reported last week, among the findings yielded by the new formula, which takes into account the cost of taxes, medical care and housing, was a higher level of poverty among Americans above the age of 65 than had been previously thought: 16 percent.
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9 Comments
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When the real estate mortgage and economic phony crises, which were deliberately created to “shake the worms out of the tree”, first happened, the news media acted like they were so oh very astonished to learn that the homeless shelters were experiencing an influx of white collar workers coming looking for refuge.
So why should we be any more surprised about this relevation about the middle class becoming poor? This is what the wealthy class wants: ALL THE MONEY FROM EVERYONE !!!
We are getting poorer because of government. They are the ones that caused inflation,wars,and policies that hinder private companies from creating jobs. Free trade agreements did not work for American workers. WE do not need Big Government to create prosperity. WE need to change politicians every election cycle.
Let’s figure this out. Government deliberately hinders creating jobs by signing the FTA’s? Firstly, Companies are hindering jobs in the US because they are only too willing to send them to 3rd world countries for the lowest possible wages. Secondly, Bam tried to get something going with the “half” stimulus. Every economist with any knowledge said it wasn’t enough. The elephant turds blocked any further action. I don’t believe that we should change elected officials every electon, but I do believe in term limits, maybe 5-6 for a representative and 3 for a senator.
“Yet conservatives in Congress continue to push for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—cuts that could push the “near poor” over the poverty line, and further increase the ranks of the poor, especially among the elderly.”
Once again, Republicans and “conservatives” in Congress are forever blamed, without any mention of the central role that President Obama and the Democratic Party has played with his “deficit reduction” attacks that target specifically all “entitlements” that help working people.
Once again the “leadership” of organized labor setting the stage for supporting Obama in 2012!
Read this article on the SEIU:
Service Employees International Union endorses Obama in 2012
By David Walsh
19 November 2011
The 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced on Wednesday its unusually early endorsement of Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. Other than the timing, the statement by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry comes as no surprise, considering the longstanding alliance and increasing integration of the US trade unions into the big business Democratic Party.
However, that takes nothing away from the brazen and provocative character of Henry’s announcement, from the point of view of ordinary SEIU members, many of them low-paid health care and building cleaning workers, struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck, as well as the rest of the working class.
…
None of this bothers Henry and the other leaders of the Change to Win and AFL-CIO union federations. The SEIU officialdom’s support for Obama makes perfect sense from its selfish vantage point. If one sets aside the hollow references to Henry and her fellow executives as “labor leaders,” and considers them as well-heeled business figures, the years of the first Obama administration have been good to them.
,,,
A number of other SEIU officials joined her in the wealthiest five percent: Executive Vice Presidents David Regan ($298,647), Mitchell Ackerman ($297,133), Gerald Hudson ($224,372) and Thomas Woodruff ($216,168); International Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina ($250,373); Executive Board member Kirk Adams ($199,847); George Francisco Jr., Fireman & Oilers International President ($187,976); Bill Lloyd, Executive Board member ($182,092); Anna Burger, International Secretary-Treasurer (now retired and a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, ($180,345); Eileen Kirlin, Executive Board member ($167,309); Thomas De Bruin, Vice President ($166,166); Stephen Lerner, Executive Board member ($165,498); and Deborah Schneider, Executive Board member ($156,763). Total top SEIU officer disbursements added up to $3,625,469.
The endorsement by Henry and the SEIU of this right-wing, anti-working class administration reveals what and who she is, part of the lower-level management of American capitalism.
Read the full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/seiu-n19.shtml
For once Mr. SweartoGod has it right! We are getting poor because of the Government–the Bush presidency that started two expensive, unnecessary wars and cut taxes on the rich at the same time; and also the recalcitrant Republicans in congress that won’t do anything to reverse the imbalance of wealth between the 99% (us) and their puppetmasters in the 1%.
It is a conspiracy activated by the people who control the money in this world. They want to bring the United States down to the level of the third world countries so they can easily steal the natural resources remaining in this country. They will then make weapons from our natural resources for their police force to use to control the masses of the world’s needy poor people, enforcing us into slavery to serve their wicked desires.
You succintly and accurately stated the true facts in appropriate fashion, W-Donald.
Let me get this right – many Americans are poor, and “Many in middle class are near poor”, which implies three classes in this country – the rich, or the one percent which is the ruling class; the ‘middle class’, which presumably includes all of the people that the Democratic Party and their followers, the Labor officialdom, pretend to care about; and the poor, who everyone feels sorry for but nobody speaks for. This article seems to lament that the beloved ‘middle class’ is getting poor too. What ever happened to the spirit shown by Eugene V Debs when he was sentenced to prison for refusing to support WWI, and said “If there is a low class, I am of it; if there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”?
We can only win this fight if we know who we are and who our enemy is, and who our potential allies are. We are the working class, fighting the ruling class for the power to build a new, more just, peaceful, sustainable and rational society that benefits the majority and not the few. We fight the bosses – the 1 %, and we look to build alliances with middle class layers like students and farmers. We look to build alliances with them, and tie their stuggles in with our program, but we must at all times represent the workers, especially the most oppressed and marginalized sectors of our class, which are the unemployed and underemployed, the deliberately undereducated, the immigrant and the injured worker and all of the most downtrodden workers. Their ranks are growing as they become restive and look to unions to inspire and organize them. Our future is inseperable from that of the most exploited workers.
I think you got that entirely wrong, William, the top 9% are not rich, they are elite wealthy. The “simply-wealthy” have always been looked down upon and discriminated against by the established “old elite wealthy”. And I mean — discriminated against!