US in Poverty Trap, 37 million live under poverty line

A Strong economy that was adding jobs wasn’t enough to keep more Americans from falling into poverty last year, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. They show 37 million people living under the poverty line, up 1.1 million from 2003.

The report, released Tuesday, marks the fourth consecutive increase in the government’s annual poverty measure. It also found that household income remained flat, and that the number o people without health insurance edged up by about 800,000 to 45.8 million people.

Advocacy groups said the numbers were disappointing, given recent economic growth.
“If the prosperity that some people are experiencing was shared throughout this country, we should have had a decline in poverty,” said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of Washington-based Coalition on Human Needs. “That we’ve had an increase of more than a million is shocking.”

The George W Bush administration – which has not seen a decline in the poverty numbers since the president took office – said it was not surprised by the new statistics. Commerce department spokeswoman ER Anderson said they mirror a trend in the 1980s and 90s in which unemployment peaks were followed by peaks in poverty and then by a decline in the poverty numbers the next year.

We hope this is it, that this is the last gasp of indicators for the recession, “she said. Democrats, however, said the report show the nation is headed in the wrong direction.
“America should be showing true leadership on the great moral issues of our time – like poverty – instead of allowing these situations to get worse, said John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate. He has started a poverty centre at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.