One in seven Americans is living below the poverty line, it was revealed yesterday.

With 45mn Americans officially designated as poor, the US census figures reflect the worst decline in living standards for more than half a century.

Child poverty also increased last year to more than one in five. That compares to one in three children in developing African nations.

The grim statistics are another serious blow to President Barack Obama and his Democrat Party and will be a key issue in the looming mid-term elections.

The American government sets the poverty line at £14,000 a year for a family of four.

The census report shows that about 15% of Americans earned less than that last year, up from 13.2% in 2008. It was the highest single-year-increase since the government began calculating percentages of poor in 1959. The previous high was in 1980, when the rate jumped 1.3 points to 13% during the energy crisis.

Mr Obama tried to put a brave face on the barrage of bleak economic data last week, insisting: 'The most important anti-poverty effort is growing the economy and making sure there are enough jobs out there.

'If we can grow the economy faster and create more jobs, then everybody is swept up into that virtuous cycle.'

But one Republican analyst said: 'The official poverty level grossly underestimates the amount of money needed to live a decent life in America today. The real number of people dealing with severe financial hardships is probably nearer 100m.'


http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=514732&in_page_id=2&position=moretopstories#ixzz0zelJpGwo

Some people wish they could blame Obama legimately but alas they cannot.

In dollars the poverty line used to be at $25,000 USD but it has been adjusted to about $28,000. That doesn't pay for SQUAT here in Los Angeles and if this were Tokyo or New York...

HOLY HANNA! THAT WOULDN'T BE SQUAT!

Welcome to the reality of a deregulated economy!

I hate to say it, but the way things going, this is only gonna get worse. This is gonna be a long cold winter.

Recessions take a long time to recover from.

It started before Obama and it will end after he is out of office.

Only if time would do the magic trick. Let's face it. Those jobs that went offshore, aren't coming back. The Chinese and the India would be stupid to give up those manufacturing jobs that were transferred off from here. Neither Japan gonna stop making cars, neither Germany. These jobs are gone for good and unfortunately the only thing you can get right now is in either secretarial/administrative or in the medical field. The first one doesn't require a large crew, it's really over saturated right now. For the medical field, the amount of schooling and certification required keeps many back, and it's only a question of time when those positions will be overloaded.

Only new job creation could start making some positive move, but I don't see any of that happening, not even trying.

Call me a crazy doomsday bird, but USA can't sustain another year , because it will continue to sink even farther and the value of the dollar will start to deteriorate. All you need is China to dump the dollar and we got a huge problem. I don't close out a civil war..or we gonna have a USA look like a scene out of Mad Max.

I think with the world changing things get scarey. Change is always scarey. But it is necessary. So we will work through all these difficulties and America will learn the lessons needed so that we can move forward.

Other Presidents lowered taxes during a recession.Obama thinks the key is to raise them.Yes I am going to blame Obama for this mess because any past President could have had us out of this recession by now.I am also going to blame Obama for the last two years because everything he has done in the last two years has been a failure for this economy.Who are you going to blame for that one?


You want to see the economy booming again.Lower the tax rates for business from 36%(or what ever it is now)to 20% or lower.Lowering the tax rate is a automatic 16% profit increase for business's with out them spending a dime.

Nearly every business in America is struggling to surving going from red to black every month.Now Obama is going to slap the highest tax in American history and take away what little profit these companies are making.

At least America will start to look like his home country of Kenya soon.People living in card board boxes on the street.

They said that in the 1930s too before and into the Depression. Obama is just driving the last nails in the coffin.

Oh yes they can!!
He has repeatedly spent billions more dollars than Bush did, in les time too.

He has spent money very unwisely, and still is. Being in denial does'nt fix the economy.

And Americans simply need to quit buying foriegn goods. If those jobs that went to China & India are'nt coming back, then why keep supporting them??

People need to step up and spend the extra money on American made products. Quit shopping by price alone!! Actively seek out American made goods, its not too difficult.

Dont just repeat the same old Wal Mart mentality and say "I cant find anything made in USA"...thats BS!!