Severe Poverty Growing Rapidly

The percentage of Americans living in severe poverty – with incomes less than half of the federal poverty line – has reached a 32-year peak. A recent analysis of 2005 census data by McClatchy Newspapers found nearly 16 million Americans living in deep or severe poverty, defined as a family of four with income of $9,903 a year or less and an individual living on less than $5,080 a year.

The analysis found that the number of severely poor people increased by 26 percent between 2000 and 2005, more than 56 percent faster than the rise of poverty in the overall population during those years. Significant increases in severe poverty were found in 28 states and 65 of the country’s 215 largest counties

Washington, D.C. had the highest rate of severely poor people at 10.8 percent, followed by Mississippi and Louisiana at 9.3 and 8.3 percent respectively. Severe poverty was also prevalent along the Mexican border. In raw numbers, California had 1.9 million severely poor people, followed by Texas with 1.6 million, and New York with 1.2 million

Demographically, one out of three severely poor people is under age 17 and almost two out of three are female. A large share of the severely poor consists of female-headed households with children. Nearly two-thirds (10.3 million) of the severely poor are white.

The McClatchy report noted that despite economic expansion and increased worker productivity, corporate profits so outstripped wages and salaries that household income for working families declined every year in the five-year period studied. “These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation’s 37 million poor people into deep poverty – the highest rate since at least 1975,” the newspaper group reported. With the exception of Mexico and Russia, the U.S. directs the smallest portion of its gross domestic product to federal anti-poverty programs than any other country in the world.

Consequently, one in three Americans will experience a year of extreme poverty during his or her adult life, said Mark Rank, a University of Wisconsin at Madison professor who has done long-term research on poverty. “It would appear that for most Americans the question is no longer if, but rather when, they will experience poverty,” said Rank. “In short, poverty has become a routine and unfortunate part of the American life course," Rank wrote in a recent study. "Whether these patterns will continue throughout the first decade of 2000 and beyond is difficult to say ... but there is little reason to think that this trend will reverse itself any time soon."