Census Bureau: Poverty Worse Than We Thought

Agency's updated formula finds a rise in the number of Americans in trouble

File under "Bad News." The Census Bureau just released an "alternative" measure of poverty that sees an overall increase in the number of folks in economic need across the US.

Earlier this year, the federal government's number crunchers announced that the national poverty rate stood at 15%. But under an updated method of measuring poverty that takes into account not only income but government programs and previously overlooked out-of-pocket costs, that figure has risen to 16.1%, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ's Ben Casselman notes the nugget of good news buried within the report: child poverty is not as high as earlier believed. Whereas the Census Bureau's official report puts the youth poverty level at just over 22%, the alternative analysis places the figure lower, at 18.1%, by taking stock of targeted anti-poverty programs designed for families with kids.

On the other hand, the report reveals, seniors are in worse shape than previously thought. Out-of-pocket medical expenses noted in the alternative figures pushed this group's poverty rate from 8.7% to 15.1%, Casselman observes.

Via The Wall Street Journal.

What is the best way of measuring poverty in the US?

[Zazziness]

Count tears

[CanisCanemEdit]

Poverty isn't worse than we thought.

Poverty is worse than the media wanted to report it before the election.

It's the same thing as spinning the unemployment numbers.

[Thegrif]

@CanisCanemEdit exactly right

[JpMonty]

@CanisCanemEdit

It's about to get worse!!!

http://www.moneynews.com/Outbrain/interview-e...

[Zazziness]

@JpMonty If you get your financial news from NewsMax, you're off to a bad start.

[JpMonty]

@Zazziness

Actually, I get my news from a lot of different sources, not just one!!! I just used this Newsmax article due to the fact that the majority of people on here are mainstream-media brainwashed sheep that discredit any other alternative information that's not from a mainstream source!!!

In the article it basically reports what I have gotten from my alternative sites, that an economic collapse evidently around the corner and possibly will occurs sometime around the first of next year.

[ir0nw0lfe]

Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? I'm not. Does your money go farther or less? less. Are you struggling now more than you were 4 years ago? I am. I'm pretty sure we should all take a closer look at the poverty level. Most of us are going to become intimately acquainted with it in the near future.

[Neo_NtheMatrix]

What amazes me is so many fools have bought into the nonsense that obama preaches. Have they not learned as their jobs, savings, and communities go belly up? Still they turn out by the millions to vote for their destruction. I would say they deserve their poverty, but they are taken the rest of us down with them.

[woodtick57]

@Neo_NtheMatrix My savings are way up and my porfolio looks so much better than it did 4 yrears ago...

[DrMoonshine]

Prices have gone up, but so has my salary and net worth. A lot of the companies that I work with are hiring by the thousands. Cushy office jobs with 60k+ starting salary except no one to fill them in. Corporate profits are an all time high. If you call yourself a Republican, then this is how it's suppose to be. Survival of the fittest is it not? All the doorways and opportunities are available. If you didn't make the right decisions earlier in life, or just not up to the challenge, you only have yourself to blame. Not someone sitting in a white house.

Word to the young. Have an emergency fund with 6 months worth of salary hidden somewhere. Max your 401k and meet your employers max contribution matching. Open a few ROTH IRAs and max those.

[MRMacrum]

Actually Ironwolfe, yeah, I am better off than I was 4 years ago. My business took a hit, but I am climbing out of the pit.

[ir0nw0lfe]

@MRMacrum good for you.

[woodtick57]

Pverty is worse than they thought?

Dang, and up till now we all thought it was a blast!

(some of these titles are great...can i have that job?)

[WilliamWallace]

Thank You OBAMA!!!!

[WilliamWallace]

@dances-weebles Ok. I'm sorry.

Thank You OBAMA, dances-weebles, and the other "people" that voted for OBAMA.

Just giving credit where it is due.

[dances-weebles]

how many people can afford to eat healthy meals at least 3 times a day, and be able to afford adequate health care under the old system. in 1990 the poverty level in upstate new york was measured at somewhat over 20,000 dollars a year income. any person who was working for minimum wage was below the poverty level.

[1hardcorerepub]

I was able to afford 3 squares a day, provide for my family of 6 and all relevant health care cost associated under the old system. Of course we never lived above our means either and pay all of our bills on time.

[dances-weebles]

@1hardcorerepub congratulations... you were among the lucky. now try it on minimum wage... which is all a lot of people can earn.

[1hardcorerepub]

@dances-weebles actually was doing it when minimum wage was 4.25/hr

[dances-weebles]

@1hardcorerepub and what percentage has the cost of livine gone up as opposed to minimum wage since then?

[1hardcorerepub]

@dances-weebles inflation affects the rich too, not just the poor.

[PNWest]

It doesn't matter how you measure it we as a country need to push this number lower.

[dances-weebles]

that's a good idea. but it'll never happen in the u.s. it's only going to get worse and worse and worse. it doesn't matter who is sitting in the whitehouse... it never has, really. the closet that it has was when fdr and then carter were the presidents. noone else has come close to being able to bring the nation out of its downward spiral. face it. the u.s. is failing.

[PNWest]

@dances-weebles I hope that you are wrong. If you are right it's going to be a much harder life for the young people of today.

[woodtick57]

@dances-weebles I cannot agree with that. would you rather have been in poverty a century ago? i think we have come a long way in how we care for the poor in the US and how we try to prevent people from getting there in the first place..

[dances-weebles]

@woodtick57 yes, we have... and still have such a long way to go

[dances-weebles]

@PNWest i hope that i'm wrong, as well.

[Jack-Black]

It is only going to get worse.

[FFX_VA]

Poverty is a horrible place to be no matter how you calculate the line.

What doesn't change is the political equation that's applied: Bad news = previous president's fault. Good news = current president's success. No matter what the reality is.

[Romney2012]

Go up to every American and ask them if they are poor

[Zoe2012]

Not the government, wait until after the election. Should be privately evaluated but it really won't matter. Anyone with common sense already knew this and it will, become worse. You are now entering the beginning of the U.S. becoming a third world nation.

[Penn1699]

Interesting so many "facts" out after the election. Get ready people. This is just the beginning.
Everyone likes the hard way...

[greatsphinx]

When you're homeless and too tired to get to the soup kitchen so you wait until Dunkin doughnuts throws out it surplus at the days end and fish through their trash cans for the best doughnuts or you're so broke all you can afford is a bottle of ketchup to make ketchup soup to serve to you and your family.There are people in America living like this so on Thanksgiving night say a prayer that someday life will be better for the poor in America.

[tomincali]

i am sure it is alot worst,yet those who have never worked for a living will have little to worry about they stay the same no matter what condition the working class is in.

[windance]

Outsource Seceders

[LibertyInc]

The best way of measuring poverty would be to determine how many (a) Families and (b) individuals, are dependent on government assistance or charity.

[Denizen_Kate]

That would only be accurate if everyone who qualified for assistance actually applied for and received it. Also it doesn't take into account those who make minimum wage and a little more and DON'T qualify for assistance, but are still below the poverty line.

[LibertyInc]

@Denizen_Kate
I also included charity. However, for me being self-reliant and independent is the opposite of poverty.

[bsking]

multiply every figure coming out of the Obama administration by 10. you can't trust these Liars

[mimi57]

Poverty is always sad, and heartbreaking for children. I was a victim of childhood poverty. I am well off at this point
in my life... The problem with poverty, is the more you try to make things fair, the more unfair things become. I still
believe the government can give a limited amount of assistance for a limited time, even helping fund education,
that is the only cure..when government assistance becomes a hammock, it truly cripples the people it claims to be
helping, it enslaves them and causes a generational problem. I've seen it over and over again. The best way to
over come poverty is to educate yourself and take any job, work as if it pays lots of money, even if it's minimum wage...all work is noble.

[CAUCASIAN]

The way (some) people measure poverty (more like jealousy or lazyness)
now adays is in the following way:
1. No cell phone
2. No IPad, Kindle Fire, wii, Playstation 3, IPod
3. No computer with high speed internet
4. No North Face clothing
5. No new vehicle
6. No cigaretts
7. No booze or party money
8. No dwelling just section 8
9. No 105,785869 satellite channels with TIVO
10.No supped up furniture for the pad
11.No food to feed the 5 kids under the welfare system with dead beat parents

But they do have that church where after they use the welfare checks and can't feed the kids the last week before the next check comes; they sure go and get can foods from them.
They sure use the pawn shop to pawn the games they bought with the welfare checks that month to buy cigaretts untill they get the next check.
After a night partying and taking prescribed meds for a pain they have not, they can't go to work and go back to the doctor through welfare to get more meds.
They use the excuse that the economy is bad, I can't get a job, I hurt myself way too bad in my last job of (2 weeks), That if they work it would cost them more money on child care that what they would earn. That they are overqualified or underqualified to get a job.
Yesterday a young man applied for a job at a car wash, the manager told him to show up at 7 am from Tue to Sunday. The young man told him he could not work on Sunday because of church. I know about freedom of religion but how about freedom to be able to feed your families and stop using welfare as the first choice!

Can't write any more I have seen these things first hand even when people buy something and get out of a store with change in hand and toss it on the ground because, "There're only pennies", I was told when I approached him.
ARRRGGG!!!! It makes me want to treat them like privates in the Army like in the '70 where you could chew their heads up and spit them out on the way to beat the enemy.
Now they are the interior enemy of the US of A.

[Freegirl3237]

I agree with you that these things do occur, and I have seen them first hand as well... I have seen 3rd world economies and their homeless... My friend went to Guatemala to work for the "Dump Day" they have every year- Basically, the city dump is the place where the kids, and even adults, find food- normally they sleep there as well... Yes, I have seen these things, with my own eyes, not in pictures. I will never forget the day I went to Cornevaca Mexico to hand out bags to homeless kids. I won't forget the week I spent in Mexico City- or the drive back where we passed miles and miles of houses (more like sheds) on top of others all built from random trash and such, and the realization that they walked to the city to find work... How could I forget? It awakened me to realize what a fantasy land we live in... My father was a veietnam veteran, and I currently live with a retired veteran and his wife... I hear stories and I love speaking with those who know the Truth about this sad world and our greediness in this country... Yes, what you say is true, yet you and I both know that not all of those in American poverty are so ignorant... People make mistakes... I have a friend who is a recovering addict/alcoholic and now has 3 years sobriety. She does have 4 kids and only has custody of one. She was homeless in California until a little over a year ago. She moved to Arkansas and I met her. She is married and does her absolute best to maintain her household. She refuses welfare, but does receive food stamps. Her husband finally has a job. As I said, people make mistakes. In California, indecent exposure is a felony and he was seen in his house, through a window- to avoid prison, so he could see his daughter, he accepted a sex offender registry and in California is a level 3 for the rest of his life. In Arkansas, that will go away after 7 years... No one would hire him... He told every interviewer what happened, because he wanted to obey the law... After applying at, almost literally, every business in town, he finally met someone who gave him a refrence. He didn't put on the application about his registry because they needed the money... They still struggle financially, but they refuse to take advantage of the system as much as they could. Yes, their life and struggle is caused by last mistakes. I admire them because they refused to be shut up... They want to prove that just because someone is in poverty level financially, does not mean they are lazy. Her husband is bipolar as well, and that qualifies for disability, but they do not use that as an excuse... Couples like them are rare, yet it does happen... My issue with the poverty "problem" in America, is that, compared to the rest of the world, what problem are they talking about?!?!

[Antiecm]

Obama voters? Are ya happy yet???? Myself, I am laughing my ass off at you. Starve... See if we care.

[Thegrif]

Poverty Worse!
What? No way.
Does everybody else know?