General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 80% of the US Population is at or below the POVERTY line - WHY is this NOT a National Emergency??? [View all]passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)From the census bureau,
The percentage of people in the US with income below 50 percent of the poverty thresholds grew from 5.0 percent in 2000 to 7.0 percent in 2012. Over this period, the percentage of people with income below 125 percent of the poverty thresholds grew from 16.5 percent to 20.8 percent. Among the largest 25 metropolitan areas, poverty rates in 2012 ranged from 8.4 percent to 19.0 percent.
I think the OP title is very misleading, as the article linked to states that 80% of the people in the US are at or near poverty level "At some point in their life", not at or below all the time.
The OP makes it sound much more dire than it really is. We do need to address poverty in this country, but lets not make up stories about how bad it is. Let's deal with facts.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-01.pdf