by Cynthia Wright

According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Wednesday, 27.4 percent of blacks are living below the poverty line. Even though the report also states that the overall amount of Americans living in poverty is at a 52-year high – the results are still staggering.

The news is particularly sad because it doesn’t seem like a decrease is on the horizon. Along with that, since the poverty rate is continuing to rise, the median household income and health insurance options keeps dwindling.

That’s not all, the report also discusses that while the recession officially ended in 2009, poverty has been steadily increasing. The report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010,” states that the number of people living in poverty rose by 2.6 million, from 43.6 to 46.2 million people. This marks the fourth consecutive annual increase, yet it appears nothing is being done to solve the issue. Leaving some to wonder, do the powers at be really want these issues solved.

Case in point, in the United States living below the poverty line means that you are making under $11,139 dollars a year. The number of blacks living below that line rose to 10.7 million, up 1.6 percent. At the same time, the median household income in 2010 was $49,445, the median in black households were $32,068, down 3.2 percent. The 2010 poverty rate is the highest its been since 1993.

When it comes to health coverage – the numbers are just as scary. With more and more people unable to find work, healthcare coverage took a dive, with 49.9 million (or 16.3 percent) of the population not insured. The change in numbers is likely due to the rising of insurance rates, causing employees to cut programs due to expense, while many with full-time jobs opt out of coverage, so they can financially stay afloat.

Although, the report paints a rather dismal picture – the fact is the outcome would have been a lot worse without the intervention of government assistance. While government assistance is not favored among most of the Republican Party; the government safety net is credited with rescuing borderline families from destitution.

Since the Census doesn’t count food stamps or the earned income tax credit as income – it is not easily defined in the reporting. Yet, Census officials say if it were allowed, it would show plenty of positive gains. Especially since, food stamps helped 3.6 million people, the tax credit helped an additional 3 million out of poverty, followed by Social Security and unemployment benefits. Not only that but the expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program made it possible for over a half-million children to have health coverage.

Cynthia Wright is an avid lover of all things geeky. When she isn’t freelancing, she can be found on her blog BGA Life and on Twitter at @cynisright.

There are two new rituals about the yearly census reports on poverty in America. One is that the census figures show more Americans continue to sink into poverty. The poverty rate this year jumped to the highest level in nearly two decades. Those hardest hit remain the same. Blacks and Hispanics were nearly twice as likely as whites to be poor. But racial distinctions aside, the census figures showed that there were a lot of poor whites too, and what’s become an increasingly even more common trend is that many of those who tumbled into the poverty column are those who at one time were by all measures considered middle class.

The other ritual is that the news of rising poverty makes headlines one day. And the next it is forgotten. This year is no different. Not one of the GOP presidential candidates made mention of the poverty rate jump. The White House was equally mum on the report. Poverty remains the taboo word on the campaign stump, among lawmakers, the media, and the general public. It remains even a taboo word among many of the poor.

Political and public references to poverty virtually disappeared from the nation’s vocabulary by the end of the 1960s. The continued existence of so many poor people after a decade of civil rights gains, the rash of initiatives and programs to end poverty, and massive government spending on the poverty programs by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, was ultimate proof to many that tossing money and programs at ending poverty was flawed, failed, and wasteful. It seemed to fly squarely in the face of the embedded laissez faire notion that the poor in America aren’t poor because of any failing of the system, but because of their personal failings. This is not just the hard bitten attitude of GOP free market conservatives. It is the attitude of the majority of Americans, including many of those who were poor. When poverty started to inch up in 2001, National Public Radio (NPR), the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School, conducted a national poll to find out just what Americans attributed poverty in the nation too. The terms that were bandied about by many of the respondents no matter their background was that the poor were “unmotivated,” “lacked aspirations to get ahead,” and “didn’t work hard enough.” A majority believed America was a place where with hard work and determination anyone could succeed. In other words, the loud message was that if you’re poor, it’s your fault, don’t blame society, and especially don’t look to government to be the cure.

Democratic presidents and presidential contenders took this message to heart. Still reeling from the fierce conservative backlash to the perceived failure of Johnson’s war on poverty, they gingerly moved around making any public pronouncements about massive government spending hikes on welfare, income supplement, and health care programs for the next two decades. The Democrats trembled that such talk would only stir up white anger by reinforcing the old perception that Democrats tilt toward minorities, and especially blacks.

But the poor stubbornly refused to go away. There was some hope during the 2008 presidential campaign that Democrats might lift the taboo about talking about the plight of the poor. Democratic presidential contender John Edwards fueled that hope when he openly talked about poverty, and that he would the issue one of the centerpieces of his campaign. In a well publicized appearance, Edwards launched his presidential campaign in the front yard of a mangled brick house in New Orleans’s mostly black, Katrina and poverty devastated Upper Ninth Ward. He talked boldly about the need to crusade against poverty. Democratic presidential rivals Obama, and Hillary Clinton, not to be outdone, also gave speeches challenging the nation to do more to alleviate poverty. The talk didn’t last. With the exception of Edwards, whose candidacy quickly disintegrated after public revelations about his love tryst, the candidates didn’t utter another word about poverty during the rest of the campaign. The GOP presidential contender, John McCain, as expected, made no mention of poverty as a policy issue either.
The mantra for the GOP and many Democrats are deficit reduction, tax cuts, and measured, and narrow spending on infrastructure projects to jump start the economy. The widespread view that government should play a minimal role in assisting the poor has crept through in President Obama’s speeches and talks in which he touts personal responsibility as the key to uplift. It would be the height of political and fiscal incorrectness, even heresy, to expect that to change in Obama’s drive to keep and the GOP’s drive snatch back the White House.

The ritual census figures that show that the number of poor continue to grow with little end in sight to the rise hasn’t budged the nation to do anything about their plight. Poverty is the forbidden word that sadly is doomed for now to remain America’s taboo word.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

by R. Asmerom

It seems that in the last decade, there’s been a lot of bad news for the U.S. economy and just when things seemed to be getting better, they got worse. A new report by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the national poverty rate has risen to 15.1% which is the highest rate reported since 1983. That percentage roughly translates to 46.2 million Americans living below the poverty line.

Unemployment and the shrinking of the economy is the culprit for the stunning poverty levels. In addition, median income fell 2.3 percent between 2009-2010. As the cost of living is increasing, salaries are not keeping up. Nearly 50 million Americans lack health insurance, which includes freelancers and those with full-time jobs whose employers have cuts costs by cutting health insurance.

With many jobs going overseas and demands of the economy rapidly changing, it’s time for the American economy to embrace fruitful change.