Poverty Levels in 2010 Reach 52-Year Peak, U.S. Says

[UpInArms]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.

And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1997.

Economists seized on a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that the median American household had a lower income, adjusted for inflation, than 13 years earlier, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University.

“This is truly a lost decade,” Professor Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html

[ixion]

1. Mission Accomplished.

:(

[JJW]

2. Tax Cuts

How are those tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires working out?

[tblue]

3. We need more stimulus. We need to raise taxes on corporations.

We know the solution. It ain't rocket science. But things will not get better til we do what needs to be done.