How’s that hopey changey stuff working out for ya?
The ranks of America’s poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.
The Census Bureau’s annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of a re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. The official poverty level is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.
Guess which Party was in control of the Legislative branch for the entire time, and the presidency for half that time?
The median — or midpoint — household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009.
So, this is what Obama and the Democrats policies have wrought. If they had simply said at the beginning of 2009 that they were simply going to keep things stable, not pass this and that legislation, and not propose or even discuss things that create consumer and private sector concern and uncertainty, the recession, which officially had ended in June 2009, would have melted away, and we would have been back on the road to prosperity. But, no, not only did they decide to avoid fixing the problems (such as Fannie and Freddie), they made things worse.
Of course, poverty in America isn’t exactly poverty in other countries. Heck, our poor are actually fat. Hot Air’s Tina Korbe deals with what poverty actually looks like. So, really, what we are looking at is people making less now than they used too. The Left will surely blame this on the evil rich, instead of the underlying boneheadedness of Democrat policies.
The Lonely Conservative has more, as does Doug Powers and Michelle Malkin.
