Census marks rising rates of US poverty

A US Census report Tuesday more citizens are poor now. The report states that current welfare regulations aren't helpful to the newly poor.

Amplify’d from www.msnbc.msn.com
“Clearly the safety net has helped, but it’s got holes in it,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former White House economist.

With the unemployment rate stuck stubbornly over 9 percent, the poverty rate in the United States climbed to 15.1 percent last year — the highest level since 1993 — as the number of impoverished Americans swelled to a record 46.2 million, the Census report said.

The rate would be even higher without a variety of government programs intended to blunt the impact of the worst recession since the 1930s. The Census estimated that the extension of unemployment benefits enacted in 2009, for example, helped another 3.2 million remain above the poverty line, which the government defines as an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. Last year, the Social Security helped some 20.3 million seniors and disabled working-age adults avoid falling into of poverty.

Millions more households are collecting food stamps to stretch household budgets far enough to keep food on the table. Since the recession began in 2007, the number of households receiving food stamps has nearly doubled to 21.4 million.

The recession's lasting damage to the job market was a major force driving families into poverty last year. President Barack Obama sent a 155-page jobs bill to Congress Monday, and Republicans have been busy coming up with counterproposals.

“Welfare is a good example of a program that was reconfigured to work much better when the economy is at full employment,” said Bernstein. “TANF has been extremely unresponsive to higher unemployment.”

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