World crisis :46 million Americans now live in poverty

The U.S. poverty rate climbed last year to its highest level in 27 years, with more than 46 million Americans - one in every six - suffering in the struggling economy.
The 15.1% poverty rate, up from 14.3% in 2009, was at its highest level since 1983, according to the annual Census Bureau report released Tuesday.
The number of people living in poverty was the highest since the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking the figures 52 years ago.

 "It's disappointing that the poverty rate is going up," said Mayor
Bloomberg. "We have got to make sure that globalization and technological automation doesn't take away the ability of people to be self-sufficient.

"Rather than sit around and complain about it ... government's got to do something about it."
In New York state, about 3 million people are living beneath the poverty line - $11,130 per year for one person, $14,218 for two, $17,374 for a family of three and $22,314 for a family of four.
The U.S. poverty rate between 2007-10 grew more than any three-year stretch since the early 1980s, a further indication of the long and lingering effects of the recession. The numbers add up to trouble for President Obama, whose reelection campaign will likely focus on the slumping economy.
The President is pushing for a $450 billion job creation package to get the economy back on track. There was even more bad news for the American worker and his family: The average household income was $49,445 - a 2.3% decline.

And the number of people without health insurance jumped to 49.9 million, the highest number ever. "Families are struggling to put food on the table, and they don't have the purchasing power to help the economy recover," said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

For blacks, the number of people living in poverty increased from 25.8% to 27.4% in 2010 while the number of Hispanics jumped from 25.3% to 26.6%. Child poverty was up as well, from 20.7% to 22%, the statistics showed.

nydailynews.com