Exclusive: 4 in 5 in US face near-poverty, no work

[astr0144]

Exclusive: Working-class whites are gloomy about future amid rising income gaps, racial shifts


Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.

As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.

Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."

"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.

"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.

Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.

"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty. He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama's election, while struggling whites do not.

"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front," Wilson said.

___

Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 percent of the nation's destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.

Sometimes termed "the invisible poor" by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.

Buchanan County, in southwest Virginia, is among the nation's most destitute based on median income, with poverty hovering at 24 percent. The county is mostly white, as are 99 percent of its poor.

More than 90 percent of Buchanan County's inhabitants are working-class whites who lack a college degree. Higher education long has been seen there as nonessential to land a job because well-paying mining and related jobs were once in plentiful supply. These days many residents get by on odd jobs and government checks.

Salyers' daughter, Renee Adams, 28, who grew up in the region, has two children. A jobless single mother, she relies on her live-in boyfriend's disability checks to get by. Salyers says it was tough raising her own children as it is for her daughter now, and doesn't even try to speculate what awaits her grandchildren, ages 4 and 5.

Smoking a cigarette in front of the produce stand, Adams later expresses a wish that employers will look past her conviction a few years ago for distributing prescription painkillers, so she can get a job and have money to "buy the kids everything they need."

"It's pretty hard," she said. "Once the bills are paid, we might have $10 to our name."

___

Census figures provide an official measure of poverty, but they're only a temporary snapshot that doesn't capture the makeup of those who cycle in and out of poverty at different points in their lives. They may be suburbanites, for example, or the working poor or the laid off.

In 2011 that snapshot showed 12.6 percent of adults in their prime working-age years of 25-60 lived in poverty. But measured in terms of a person's lifetime risk, a much higher number — 4 in 10 adults — falls into poverty for at least a year of their lives.

The risks of poverty also have been increasing in recent decades, particularly among people ages 35-55, coinciding with widening income inequality. For instance, people ages 35-45 had a 17 percent risk of encountering poverty during the 1969-1989 time period; that risk increased to 23 percent during the 1989-2009 period. For those ages 45-55, the risk of poverty jumped from 11.8 percent to 17.7 percent.

Higher recent rates of unemployment mean the lifetime risk of experiencing economic insecurity now runs even higher: 79 percent, or 4 in 5 adults, by the time they turn 60.

By race, nonwhites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 percent. But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measure are among whites, with more than 76 percent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-4-5-us-face-175906005.html

[Amaterasu]

Eighty percent of Us are POOR.  19% are making ends meet. 1% are rich off our butts.

Hmmmm.

Is there a solution to this?

[ArMaP]

Eighty percent of Us are POOR.  19% are making ends meet. 1% are rich off our butts.

Hmmmm.

Is there a solution to this?

Communism? 

[zorgon]

Hang in there!





A star-spangled recovery: Why the U.S. economy is showing signs of life


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/a-star-spangled-recovery/article12579981/?page=all

[zorgon]

UNITED STATES UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Unemployment Rate in the United States remained unchanged at 7.60 percent in June of 2013. Unemployment Rate in the United States is reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The United States Unemployment Rate averaged 5.82 Percent from 1948 until 2013, reaching an all time high of 10.80 Percent in December of 1982 and a record low of 2.50 Percent in May of 1953. In the United States, the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force. This page contains - United States Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news. 2013-07-29

US UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT 7.6% IN JUNE



Anna Fedec   U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 195,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on July 5th. Employment rose in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, health care, and financial activities.
The number of unemployed persons, at 11.8 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.6 percent, were unchanged in June. Both measures have shown little change since February.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women (6.8 percent) edged up in June, while the rates for adult men (7.0 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent), whites (6.6 percent), blacks (13.7 percent), and Hispanics (9.1 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 5.0 percent (not seasonally adjusted), down from 6.3 percent a year earlier.

In June, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 4.3 million. These individuals accounted for 36.7 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed has declined by 1.0 million.

The civilian labor force participation rate, at 63.5 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.7 percent, changed little in June. Over the year, the labor force participation rate is down by 0.3 percentage point.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 195,000 in June, in line with the average monthly gain of 182,000 over the prior 12 months. In June, job growth occurred in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, health care, and financial activities. 


http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

[zorgon]

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

That is an important point

I know many people, me included that have had hard times but we survived. So did Americans during the Depression

Things will pick up as we get closer to the end of Obama's term

Personally I hope the banking system collapses before then and wipes out all debt. Start over with a clean slate. That happened to my parents in Germany  it needs to happen here

There seems to be plenty of normal people with money to burn on Ebay, Etsy etc, especially on the two coasts. I am happy to relieve them of some of that

[zorgon]

Eighty percent of Us are POOR.  19% are making ends meet. 1% are rich off our butts.

I would challenge your figures

Hmmmm.
Is there a solution to this?

Several  but no one listens

[Sinny]

Same across the pond..

I'm sure I don't  need to tell you all again how poor I am ? lol

Remember - it's not a recession - it's a robbery! 

[Amaterasu]

Communism? 

Only if You want to perpetuate scarcity.  That is a scarcity paradigm solution.  I would advocate abundancism.

[Amaterasu]

Remember - it's not a recession - it's a robbery! 

GOLD for THAT! 

[ArMaP]

That is a scarcity paradigm solution.

How?

[astr0144]

It is difficult to say why the world economy now and throughout history is or has been like it has been other than numerous combinations of things that had occurred or discovered to alter situations..

Much would had been down to corruption, theft wars tyrants who ruled and took other races over, some honest innovations from great discovery & inventions that created wealth.

Do humans vary or do we all have the same abilities within us to find our own paths to wealth or just go along the path that the majority do which is to work for others...That's how the majority of us have survived throughout history.

To succeed as an entrepreneur or business person may be a possibility,  to obtain wealth, but it maybe that only a few of us are cut out for this and that generally its the cleverer or those born with a greater drive that may succeed...

or maybe there are ways that individuals can create various types of businesses and obtain their own piece of the pie..to make more money than the average employee.

The way the world appears now just seems disturbing for those who are either young and trying to obtain even any employment..and for older folk, they are seeming to possibly be discriminated unless they have the skills and knowledge and the right experience and there are in demand within the workplaces..

We are being told many jobs or industries are now being sent abroad where labor is cheaper to help companies survive and prosper more at the expense of their own countries people..

Does the world really have to be like this ? I suspect not...

Big business has taken such a big hold on us all that we see few other options other than unemployment or low paid jobs that do not allow us to prosper.

Technology is so complex and most people cannot understand or keep up with such a fast changing world...

High populations need more opportunities..and this is possible IMO..
but the rulers make excuses to suggest this is a problem and hold the masses in poverty..instead of being more innovative where so much more could be done in the world with the huge gap of human potential that has and is being wasted..

Maybe we could be creating the star ships for the future and exploring the universe more if that is a possibility as well as doing more for our planet...

Eighty percent of Us are POOR.  19% are making ends meet. 1% are rich off our butts.

Hmmmm.

Is there a solution to this?

[astr0144]

Since 2007 & Leading up to 2013.. the US stock market had appeared to be similar to that of 1929 ..and appeared to be going to have a severe decline...it is often said that similar cycles repeat in history.

BUT SINCE MARCH 5TH 2013... IT MADE NEW ALL TIME HIGHS ON THE DOW JONES and the S&P 500 Index made new highs on April 10th 2013...and they have remained strong since...

Which does suggest that the economy is strong at least in one way or another. although it is said that the $ US currency is weak and maybe what we see in the stock market alone is misleading..

Looking at the chart formations on these markets, I now do not see any upcoming severe declines expected like that of 1929 where a major depression set in for many years.

But we may well see a correction any time back to the 2007 highs of 14200  or lower maybe to 13000 on the Dow. by October..

IF the Dow breaks its recent 15620 high made on 24th July 2013, I suspect we could see a continued rally into August September maybe to 16200 to 16666...

if this ocurs, I wouldn't count out a large correction...similar to the 1987 crash... that was only a correction not a major crash like that of 1929..

could be a great opportunity for a quick high return if use the right strategy..

I had a main cycle in last week that I expected the market to move in one direction to September/ october , but I am awaiting a break out between a low of 15400 to a high of 15620 to suggest a longer term direction.

market may continue down rather than up if it declines below 15400 into Sept / october  instead...


this is what another analyst suggests..


http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/stocks-heading-1987-style-crash-112708615.html

That is an important point

I know many people, me included that have had hard times but we survived. So did Americans during the Depression

Personally I hope the banking system collapses before then and wipes out all debt. Start over with a clean slate. That happened to my parents in Germany  it needs to happen here

[Amaterasu]

How?

One "pie" that everyOne puts Their energy as They can into creating; It requires Human energy input, winds up with money of some kind, with privilege going to the Ones who are running things.

Abundance has all NECESSARY work no One WANTS to do - or not enough People - being done by robot, with no money needed.  Governance is stigmergic, as are works We join together to create for betterment, be that in art, science, or adding to bliss in the field of Consciousness.

ALL are privileged.

Did that answer the question?

[robomont]

poverty?
i define poverty.not the rigged stockmarket and unemployed numbers.
me my wife and daughter live on 700 a month cash and 350 in foodstamps.been living this way for five years.in last month ive gotten a ticket for no insurance while on the way to insurance office.got ticket last week for not using my blinker in the country with no one around to signal to.except a stalking cop parked behind a building behind me.otherwise not a soul around.one hour later.my transmission broke.triple a towed my car home.now im stuck ten miles from town with no car.waiting on our gov check.thankgoodness there are a few neighbors who care about us.

thats why im so greatful for my investors in my project.i just couldnt do it without them.

the future doesnt look good when the lies are all removed.i think our politicians are running scared and afraid to vote on anything.