Millions in US climb out of poverty, at long last

[pnwmom]

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Last edited Mon Sep 26, 2016, 04:26 AM - Edit history (3)

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/business/economy

The Caicedos are among the 3.5 million Americans who were able to raise their chins above the poverty line last year, according to census data released this month. More than seven years after the recession ended, employers are finally being compelled to reach deeper into the pools of untapped labor, creating more jobs, especially among retailers, restaurants and hotels, and paying higher wages to attract workers and meet new minimum wage requirements.

“It all came together at the same time,” said Diane Swonk, an independent business economist in Chicago. “Lots of employment and wages gains, particularly in the lowest-paying end of the jobs spectrum, combined with minimum-wage increases that started to hit some very large population areas.”

Poverty declined among every group. But African-Americans and Hispanics — who account for more than 45 percent of those below the poverty line of $24,300 for a family of four in most states — experienced the largest improvement.

Government programs — like Social Security, the earned-income tax credit and food stamps — have kept tens of millions from sinking into poverty year after year. But a main driver behind the impressive 1.2 percentage point decline in the poverty rate, the largest annual drop since 1999, was that the economy finally hit a tipping point after years of steady, if lukewarm, improvement.

Read more: New York Times

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The largest annual drop (in the poverty rate) since 1999 -- and African Americans and Hispanics showed the most improvement. (They were also, however, the groups most hurt by the 2008 great recession.)

ON EDIT: The link above doesn't work because it cuts off part of the address. Here is the correct link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/business/economy/millions-in-us-climb-out-of-poverty-at-long-last.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[mountain grammy]

1. About time, K&R.

and it's way past time to raise the federal minimum wage.. Now, Congress, now! Do something for once in your pathetic Republican lives.

[bhikkhu]

3. Exactly - a little bit of government action can push the momentum

now that there is a little momentum to push.

Of course, the wrong choice in November could also erase 7 years of foundation building.

[nolabels]

2. May your boomerang come around the back side to whack you on the head

Challenger candidates are not as successful when economic times are good or okay and improving.

Thank your nearest republican lawmaker for trying to hold things down for so long

[underpants]

4. Great news

[LonePirate]

5. Could you imagine the improvement if Obama had a Democratic Congress for 8 years instead of just 2?

[cstanleytech]

8. I can and it makes me mad that the Republicans put themselves and their party first rather

than the American people.

[Todays_Illusion]

6. Good Grief, have we ever seen NY Times carry such a whopper. No one in the working class has been

to buy a home since 1984, and that is only the beginning. We have seen the poverty numbers increase continuously and wealth and incomes decrease since 1976 when E.I.T.C. was introduced instead of a minimum wage increase.
Then there were the nearly two years of wealth stripping unemployment of 1982/83.
1982 8.6 8.9 9.0 9.3 9.4 9.6 9.8 9.8 10.1 10.4 10.8 10.8
1983 10.4 10.4 10.3 10.2 10.1 10.1 9.4 9.5 9.2 8.8 8.5 8.3


Followed by the farm bubble bust that turned the farmland over to corporate growers
Followed by the first big housing boom bust of the late 80s,
Those included the first privatization of government services where wages were decreased to provide profit for once good paying government jobs, union busting, job exporting, the
and so on until we have been shown year after year the number of poor increase, not decline.

Are you all believing this, Working class, now the middle class are totally shut out of home ownership and now the working class can't even buy a new car and the people called middle class can't buy a home

Throw in student debt, and more job exporting and wage reduction and I am flabbergasted that they expect us to believe this.

Are any of you believing?

This is the second time in less than two weeks they are trying to peddle this monstrous lie.

[PersonNumber503602]

7. How do you define working class?

I know plenty of working class people who have bought homes and who bought new cars. Are you saying only the wealthy own homes and new cars?

[Todays_Illusion]

10. You are moving the topic and, I meant new cars, and I mean incomes for a family with two wage

earners and 1 or more children earning the current median income of $53K or less. Rents are high, child costs are high, and employment is not very permanent for anyone.

Why didn't you counter with what you think the working class is. It used to mean those people not holding a university degree or running a successful small business.

When all the pay cuts began in the 1980s they promoted the working class to the name middle class.

53K/year is not a middle class, professional class income except for someone just entering the job market.

[PersonNumber503602]

21. I agree that employment isn't permanent for anyone

and that concept of a job for life (or retirement) is something I have never experienced. I will also say that lack of security is one of the reasons why I personally do not have much desire to own my own house. Although I also credit my roving personality for part of that too.

So you're saying working class is two wage earners making 53k between them? So we're talking about jobs making around $25k/yr? In that case, then you're right there are not many people making $25k/yr who have kids who are able to buy new cars outright or high car payments on financed cars. However, I didn't realize that working class was such narrow definition. I put people with post-secondary education who make $40k - $80k/yr in that category too (where I live, which is in Texas) Now perhaps my definitions are incorrect and not in line with the accepted definition.

[closeupready]

12. New cars are $15,000 minimum, to start. You know "plenty"

of working class people who can afford to shell out that kind of cash for a car? Uh-huh, I believe you.

[FrodosPet]

16. Do real people even qualify for car loans?

Who can even pay a car LOAN, much less buy a car with cash?

[PersonNumber503602]

20. Yes, actually I do.

There are of course financing options available to almost anyone who has a job. There is also my preferred method which is saving up for such a purchase. Now I understand that isn't an option for many people out there, but it's not out of the realm of possibility for someone who is making 40, 50, 60k where I live. If buying a new car is important and you make a decent salary (but still working class) that amount can be saved up in a couple years. In fact, I have a friend who recently bought a new car outright doing that. I was highly impressed with her ability to pay for a $35,000 car with money she saved up over a period of four years or something like that.

So yeah, I'm not really sure why that's difficult to believe.

[cstanleytech]

9. To be honest? No, I am not believing it not when retailers like Walmart continue to treat

their employees like shit with only a few shitty hours and a schedule that fluctuates up and down every week and shitty low wages.

[Todays_Illusion]

11. They want you to believe we don't need an increase in the minimum wage. Don't you feel rich yet ?

[pnwmom]

15. No. The article actually supports the thesis that Obama's policies have been improving

the economy, after the worst recession since the Great Depression, and that we're on the right track.

It is not an argument against raising the minimum wage. It supports Hillary's plan to build on the gains President Obama has made.

[pnwmom]

13. These are figures from the CENSUS BUREAU, not the NYT. The paper is merely reporting them.

You have a post full of purported facts, but no links.

[bhikkhu]

14. I've been blue collar for 27 years, and most people I've worked with have bought houses

I bought a house myself in 1998, which I should have paid off before retirement. Most of the younger guys I work with are married with kids, some with working spouses, some without, but more than half own homes or are in the process of buying. Most of them drive older cars, but quite a few drive newer cars. Some have student loans or are supporting spouses through college.

Not that its easy to buy a house or maintain debt loads for anyone, but its not "monstrous lies", its just work and life, that's what people do.

At the moment, and for the last three years, the economy has been on the upswing in my area, and our biggest problem is keeping up with the workload in a shop that needs to be bigger, and trying to hire and retain good workers. Benefits are good where I'm at, but many smaller independents pay more hourly so there is some local poaching. We've had the best success ourselves poaching skilled workers from more rural areas that tend to pay less.

Its a healthy economy, showing all the signs of getting healthier.

[jtuck004]

17. Yesterday's gone.

"Only 17 percent of California homes affordable to teachers: A typical California home costs $200,000 more than an average teacher can afford."

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/california-housing-unaffordable-few-teachers-can-afford-affordability-very-low-real-estate/

But that's just a bit of it. Homeownership, that thing you point to - rightly - as a marker of a healthy economy? We have replaced 10 million homeowers with 10 million renters, and a significant number of people who used to be of an age when they were renting and working are still or back living with mom and dad.

"Scorecard on housing for the last decade: Renter households up 10 million, homeowner households down 1 million.
The current homeownership rate has fallen to where it was two decades ago."'

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/renter-households-versus-owner-occupied-data-homeownership-rate/

It was thought the Millennials would pull it out...

Millennials will not save the housing market: 50 percent of Millennials have less than $1,000 in savings. A large number are mired in student debt

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/millennials-will-not-save-the-housing-market-50-percent-millennials-save-1k-or-less/

They aren't alone - most people according to a recent survey did not have $400 for an emergency. Much of the country is right on the edge - and ignoring that is why they look to others who seem to hear them. Yes, some have insurance that didn't - even if they can't afford to use it still. And yes, there are a couple million less, leaving us only about 45 million Americans in poverty.

That's a hell of a lot of our neighbors. And it doesn't count all of the working poor which may be as much as another 50 million at any given time.

Their money is being taken by laws and policies put in place by the last 4 administrations, in favor of the wealthy. On purpose, while we are being told it is to save us all. What a load of crap. It ain't working.

What's more, the household earnings of those rich families were up 6 percent over their pre-recession earnings in 2007, whereas the earnings of the bottom 60 percent of households remain lower today than they were in 2007. (Scroll over the chart below to see the dollar amounts.)

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/census-bureau-income-wealth-poverty-great-recession-recovery

[bhikkhu]

24. Only if I close my eyes

If I open them, I see the guys around me buying cars and houses. And I see young guys getting hired and working for decent pay, and sometimes leaving for other jobs with even better pay. Not that anything is easy, but I was young "yesterday", and it was far from easy then. Its never been easy, but I see plenty of opportunity now, and plenty of people doing well.

[jtuck004]

25. The links I posted have the numbers from real sales, the census bureau and other markets, and they

say otherwise. But you are free to post any substantiation to your Pollyanish fiction.

The people who can't pay their bills and can't afford houses because the bank$ter.jihadists have been made wealthy on their backs don't believe that bullshit anymore.

And if you doubt it, feel free to watch our former Treasury Secretary Timothy McVeig - I mean Timothy Geithner (I get my killers mixed up), who created the plan under this administration to make his bank$ter/jihadists friends rich while screwing over working people, feel free to read his book "Stress test". Hre doesn't address all the homeowners who lost everything, some their lives, under his plan, just tries to unsuccessfully lie his way out of it.

Watch as an audience of voters laugh at Geithner's face as he tries to spin what he did into something else. Quite entertaining. And millions of people have watched it.

http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/interviews/z9b8f1/timothy-geithner-extended-interview

Voters know...

[bhikkhu]

28. I think the main thing is 14 million new jobs created

and unemployment dropping to 4 point something percent. In my state it was over 10 percent, and its down to 4 percent. That's a lot of people affected.

Another thing is wage gains, which have been solid since the recession began, combined with very low inflation.

Another thing is the stock market more than doubling under Obama, which I know many people just see as the rich getting richer, but a very many older people have had their retirement savings in stock. When it does well, then retirement becomes possible. Lots of older people leaving the workforce because they can, and opening up jobs for younger people, which is a healthy situation.

The articles you link to are cherry-picked and limited. You can't base a statement on the terrible economy on solely on home ownership rates, especially following a collapse in the housing market linked to a bubble in the housing market and historically (perhaps artificially) high home ownership rates. Perhaps where we are now is a good balance, and the previous was not.

You also can't base a statement on the economy on household income very accurately, in spite of how commonly that is done. Household income is a somewhat self-correcting number. For instance, in the 50's most households (90 percent) with a single wage-earner. Over time women entered the workforce and household incomes reflected two wage-earners. At the same time the trend away from predominantly married couples accelerated, and now less than 50 percent of households are married couples. I say its a self-correcting number because economic necessity is often a central factor in how people group in households; when employment for women was less available, women stayed in lousy marriages. When employment generally is bad, people rent rooms or keep their working kids at home to help pay the bills. The magic number is that it takes about 50k to run a household (varying greatly by area of course), and people tend to form groups of necessity, in whatever shape or form, to maintain that.

A better number is the average hourly wage, which looks only at people working for hourly pay. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages
. Things are ok, generally, and going in a good direction.

[jtuck004]

29. " Things are ok, generally, and going in a good direction" Glad you got yours, but you did it on

the backs of about 150 million people who are hurting. From over 8 million Americans who had their homes stolen from them, to the 20 million people who have been left in poverty these past 10 years so as to support the bank$ters and insurance companies, to the tens of millions working the new wage jobs that will leave them and their children in poverty - I'm sure they will be happy to know that you think they are doing ok as they head to the polls.

The articles you link to are cherry-picked and limited. < Yeah, the census bureau only picks up on a few of the people.

Enjoy your fiction,and good luck. You shouldn't have a care in the world.

[JNelson6563]

22. I have seen improvement all around me.

In spite of the Rs best efforts in DC and my state of MI.

I have a pretty full picture of my state thanks to my work in politics. Yes, we have pockets that have yet to feel the comeback but I have been pleasantly surprised at how many communities are really doing much better. Of course saving the auto industry has gone a long way in achieving this.

Wages still have along way to go but there has been a sea-change happening on that count as well. So many employers here have paid as little as possible, as long as possible. Well finally nobody would take their shitty jobs. All at once I see these companies upping their starting wages significantly. I see it happening elsewhere too, to varying degrees.

It is gradual but it is real. If it is happening in Michigan, in spite of complete GOP control that has fucked up every step of the way, it is not hard to believe it is happening elsewhere.

I am glad to see it as well to be one of the lowly working class people experiencing it.

Julie

[elmac]

18. income inequality will keep the poverty rates high

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/fairfield-county/501215/

[moondust]

19. Still much inequality.

23 September 2016

~

Drawing on the work of the Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, I have created the following five charts that show not only substantial growth in wealth inequality, but an even more lopsided distribution than that for income inequality.

~

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37731-the-state-of-the-united-states-on-wealth-inequality

[Hekate]

23. This is good to hear. Too bad DTs has his Trumpsters convinced the whole nation is in the pits....

...with African Americans all living in a post-Apocalyptic inner-city Hell.

Much gratitude from me to President Obama for the progress he has managed to help the country make!

[Democat]

27. Even on this thread there are posters who refuse to accept good news

There are plenty of people on our side who will find the bad in every bit of good news.

[Helen Borg]

26. Better than nothing but...

Knowing that 1M+ families now make $24,500 instead of $24,300 still makes me very sad.

[Wounded Bear]

30. Good news, with much left to be done...

It won't get better under Trump, for sure. Under Clinton, it will continue to improve, providing we can keep the R's from continuing to block everything.

[In_The_Wind]

31. Locking. However this OP is perfect for GD or GD:2016. Please re-post it there.

Statement of Purpose *

Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. * No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.