Depression by the numbers

Depression By The Numbers – A Poverty Bulletin

From ProPublica:

* The number of Americans earning below the poverty line in 2010: 46.2 million people
* Official U.S. poverty rate in 2007, before the recession: 12.5 percent
* Official U.S. poverty rate in 2009: 14.3 percent
* Official U.S. poverty rate in 2010: 15.1 percent
* Last time the poverty level was this high: 1993
* Poverty line in 2010: $22,314 for a family of four, or $11,139 for an individual
* Rough amount people in poverty are living on per week: $200 or less
* Poverty rate in the American suburbs: 11.8 percent, the highest since 1967
* Percentage of the population making less than half the poverty line in 2010: 6.7 percent
* Percentage of the population making less than half the poverty line in 2007, before the recession: 5.2 percent
* Poverty rate for white Americans in 2010: 13 percent
* Poverty rate for African Americans in 2010: 27.4 percent
* Real median household income in 2010: $49,445
* Decline in median household income since 2009: 2.3 percent
* Decline in median household income since before the recession: 6.4 percent
* The last time median household incomes have been this low: 1996
* Real median household income in 1999, in 2010 dollars: $53,252
* Median income for full-time male workers in 2010: $47,715
* Median income for full-time male workers in 1973, in 2010 dollars: $49,065
* Official unemployment rate in August 2011: 9.1 percent
* Total number of unemployed people in August: 14 million
* Number of people who were employed part-time for economic reasons in August 2011: 8.8 million
* Number of people not counted in the labor force who wanted work: 2.6 million
* Net jobs created in August 2011: 0
* Total number of long-term unemployed people as of August 2011: 6 million
* Number of unemployed workers per job opening, as of July 2011: About 4.34 (3.2 million openings and 13.9 million unemployed people in July 2011)
* Total number of uninsured Americans in 2010: 49.9 million
* Percentage of Americans who didn’t have health care in 2010: 16.3 percent
* Percentage of Americans who didn’t have health care in 2007, before the recession: 15.3 percent
* Percentage of children who were uninsured in 2010: 9.8 percent
* Percentage of children in poverty were are uninsured in 2010: 15.4 percent
* Percentage of American households that had enough to eat throughout the year in 2007: 88.9 percent
* Percentage of American households that had enough to eat throughout the year in 2010: 85.5 percent

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9 Responses to Depression by the numbers

Adam Randolph | September 20, 2011 at 8:33 pm |

However “poverty” is calculated (like “unemployment”), it makes no sense and is not relevant. It’s a govt. miscalculation at best and a lie intended or not.

Worst in the suburbs since 1967? What.? No way! Things were not bad at all in 1967. Anybody could find a job in 1967. People, in the suburbs were doing just fine in 1967. America was on the top of the world in 1967.
Apocalypto | September 20, 2011 at 8:56 pm |

The trends are clearly on a downward slope.
Rusty | September 20, 2011 at 8:57 pm |

What a crock. Most of these stats are so subjective as to mean nothing at all.
JonnyJames | September 20, 2011 at 9:00 pm |

@ A. Randolph
I agree, these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. For example GDP per capita is an almost worthless stat. For starters, the way GDP is calculated is problematic in the first place. Prison expenditures (highest in the world), health-care industry gouging (highest in the world), weapons mfg. (largest in world), financial fraud etc. are all counted as productive economic activity when these are destructive activities.

GDP per capita says absolutely nothing about distribution of income and wealth etc.
And as you point out, these are cooked #s in general, which has been documented. Take CPI for just one example.

I was born in 1967 so I cannot comment personally, but there is a lot of evidence to back up what you say.
Don Willetts | September 21, 2011 at 1:00 am |

Yeah, anybody could find a job in 1967 – because if they didn’t (or even if they did), they’d get a government job humping a ruck through some east Asian rice paddy & hoping they didn’t get run into an ambush by a glory-hog butter bar.
Oh yeah, US on top of the world in 1967 – unless you were Black, Hispanic, poor, female, or anything but a nice white-bread male with a deferment. One of Dick Cheney’s people.
Mary Genoud | September 21, 2011 at 1:03 am |

If you change the number in income from $22 thousand plus for a family of four to $28,000, the poverty rate would probably increase from 15.1% to 40 % of US population.
$28,000 would be considered poverty by any O.E.C.D. country.
the underfundedmentalist | September 21, 2011 at 4:31 am |

there was a draft going on in 1967? maybe we should try that again, its gotta be cheaper than renting blackwater!
JonnyJames | September 21, 2011 at 6:05 am |

No Don, even a black man had a better chance of a good paying job then than now. There were more black owned businesses back then as well. The Rich Man has always dominated, so what else is new?

The one thing you missed is that in 1967 thousands of young men were coming back in body bags and the US was slaughtering 10s of thousands of civilians in Vietnam. If you want a smartass sideswipe, you missed it. Try again
indeed | September 21, 2011 at 7:04 am |

It was a whole different world then – oranges and apples.
How do they figure “enough food”? Nobody has ever asked me (or even cares), and I know I’m hungry.
If anyone cares – I went to court yesterday. Yeppers, they pushed it down the road. I now have a trial for the made-up credit card “debt”. I also have to write a letter of discovery, to see if they have some type of proof of what I bought.