According to a Census Bureau report released Thursday, the ranks of the working-age poor climbed to 14.3 percent – 43.6 million people – the highest the poverty rate has been in this country since the 1960s.
The report covers 2009 and saw the poverty rate increased 13.2 percent or rather 39.8 million people according to a story published by the Associated Press.
In a statement, President Barack Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.
“Because of the Recovery Act and many other programs providing tax relief and income support to a majority of working families — and especially those most in need — millions of Americans were kept out of poverty last year,” Obama said.
The 2009 poverty level was set at $21,954 for a family of four, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as noncash aid such as food stamps. (Make the Armory a safe play area for our children).
The Census study produced two very disturbing statistics:
• Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but stood at higher levels for blacks and Hispanics. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent; for blacks it increased from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent.
• Child poverty rose from 19 percent to 20.7 percent.
One way to gauge the level of poverty in New Rochelle is to see how many children are registered for free lunches or reduced price meals in our schools. It is an extraordinary number when you look at individual schools. In many cases, the breakfast or lunch a child receives in school is their primarily meal for the day.
Also, in some of the working class neighborhoods, there are no opportunities to play and exercise for our children. Schools close at sunset. School gymnasiums are closed at night because their lawyers told them to close or the school can’t afford to pay overtime to. So our kids play in the streets risking gettting injured by automobiles.
That was not the only bad news.
Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis.
The foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row.
In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up three percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said. August makes the ninth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis. The previous high was in May.
Foreclosures and poverty are two faces of the same economic problems the nation is facing. Here in New Rochelle, the numbers are the same.
“My guess is that politically these figures will be greeted with alarm and dismay but they won’t constitute a clarion call to action,’’ said William Galston, a domestic policy aide for President Bill Clinton. “I hope the parties don’t blame each other for the desperate circumstances of desperate people.’’
Lawrence M. Mead, a New York University political science professor who is a conservative wrote “The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America’’ argued that the figures would have a minimal impact in November. “Poverty is not as big an issue right now as middle-class unemployment. That’s a lot more salient politically right now,’’ he said.
In New Rochelle, our elected officials must recognize the poverty that exists here. More funds need to be sought to build affordable housing (where are the credits from giving Trump and Capelli tax breaks?). Many of our black and Hispanic senior citizens live in desperate conditions unable to afford food or medication beyond the 15th of the month. Have you notice that a concern about these seniors is never verbalized by our mayor? Instead we have leadership in city hall building bike paths to nowhere.
The new story, released Thursday, also stated that the share of Americans without health coverage rose from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent — or 50.7 million people — mostly because of the loss of employer-provided health insurance during the recession. Congress passed a health overhaul this year to address the rising numbers of uninsured people, but its main provisions will not take effect until 2014.
The Associated Press said:” The new figures come at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before the Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters restive about high unemployment and the slow pace of economic improvement will decide whether to keep Democrats in power in the House and Senate or turn to Republicans”.
The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994 and slightly lower than that predicted by many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year’s skyrocketing unemployment.
Although it will be a while before we have official poverty numbers for New Rochelle, rest assure that they are high for blacks and Hispanics, but I think many of you already knew this.
