What you are about to see is more evidence that the growth of poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. It turns out that there is a tremendous amount of suffering in “the wealthiest nation on the planet”, and it is getting worse with each passing year. During this election season, politicians of all stripes are running around telling all of us how great we are, but is that really true?
As you will see below, poverty is reaching unprecedented levels in this country, and the middle class is steadily dying. There aren’t enough good jobs to go around, dependence on the government has never been greater, and it is our children that are being hit the hardest. If we have this many people living on the edge of despair now, while times are “good”, what are things going to look like when our economy really starts falling apart? The following are 21 facts about the explosive growth of poverty in America that will blow your mind…
#1 The U.S. Census Bureau says that nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.
#2 Other numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau are also very disturbing. For example, in 2007 about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.
#3 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America”, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.
#4 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.
#5 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.
#6 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.
#7 Police in New York City have identified 80 separate homeless encampments in the city, and the homeless crisis there has gotten so bad that it is being described as an “epidemic”.
#8 If you can believe it, more than half of all students in our public schools are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.
#9 According to a Census Bureau report that was released a while back, 65 percent of all children in the U.S. are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
#10 According to a report that was published by UNICEF, almost one-third of all children in this country “live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income”.
#11 When it comes to child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 “wealthy nations” that UNICEF looked at.
#12 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.
#13 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.
#14 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are being raised by a single parent are living in poverty.
#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.
#16 There are simply not enough good jobs to go around anymore. It may be hard to believe, but 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#17 There are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”. When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.
#18 Owning a home has traditionally been a signal that you belong to the middle class. That is why it is so alarming that the rate of homeownership in the United States has been falling for eight years in a row.
#19 According to a recent Pew survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.
#20 At this point, 25 percent of all Americans have a negative net worth. That means that the value of what they owe is greater than the value of everything that they own.
#21 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.
If we truly are “the greatest nation on the planet”, then why can’t we even take care of our own people?
Why are there tens of millions of us living in poverty?
Perhaps we really aren’t so great after all.
It would be one thing if economic conditions were getting better and poverty was in decline. At least then we could be talking about the improvement we were making. But despite the fact that we are stealing more than a hundred million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day, poverty just continues to grow like an aggressive form of cancer.
So what is wrong?
Why can’t we get this thing fixed?
Tell us what you think we should do as a nation to solve this problem by posting a comment below…
Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.
We start by allowing “poor” Americans land ownership, we help by providing them seeds, and housing. We stop taxation, and switch to a suitable currency. We stop sending young Americans to school to learn about some fictional world, and we allow them to learn about the real one. We cease to pay countries the rediculous sums that we have in the past. We put our best and brightest minds on finding us the energy source tesla was seeking. We legalize hemp and cannabis, we use the hemp to build a new infrastructure. We use the cannabis as a way to wean Americans off of the deadly psychotropic drugs they currently rely on.
We rebuild cities enphasizing community, we surround those communities with fruit trees and crops. Hopefully we can arrange cities that work with natural resources, instead of wasting them. We continue to build new cities and then we destroy the old ones. As we grow we set up a new city and when our young reach maturity we give them that city, and it goes on until someone comes up with better. I’m thinking each city need only be a hundred strong.
We exit the world stage and focus on national issues. We adopt a loving posture to all that are here, regardless of beliefs, background, race, etcetera. We help each other through what is quickly becoming the worst era of our lives. Each time we need politicians we do not choose the men that are overly eager for the job, we choose the men who wish to have nothing to do with it.
Parents will educate their kids in tho parent households with the support of their community. When they have learned as much as they can from their parents they and begin to have questions their parents can’t answer, we send them to the university. The university will be a knowledge hub where students themselves seek the information they deem pertinent.
All will have community roles, which serve only as upkeep and will be but a minute fraction of the day. When they have finished those roles for the day, they then go and figure out whatever other joy they want to make a reality. With the help and support of their community. The free market will solidify or reject their creations.
I know I know, takes good people to make it happen, but hey one should always remain hopeful that their countrymen will meet the challenge. Just a few ideas, I’m sure there are better.
I’m in your vision, Michael. Problem is our governments fed, state, even locally. We are not “allowed” to live, build, farm, educate, heal ourselves. We have become slaves to master systems, under illusions of freedom. In the shtf worse case scenarios, tho, it’ll be people like us who actually know how to do things & treat each other with respect & compassion. The idiot, inept, indulgent, egotistical manipulators (elites & wanna be puppet masters) will, on the opposite side, still be busy ripping each other to shreds & blaming everyone else.
Good suggestions michael howard. Though I don’t think that the continuation of representative government is a good part of your plan. What we need is anarchy; a land with no rulers, no one in a position of political power. We get along with our neighbors just fine. We don’t need some panzy authority figures showing us how to live within the law as law has always been a tool of oppression.
The poor U.S. education system does not teach about types of government.
Our founding father tried to set up a Limited Constitutional Republic which is the highest form of government known.
The U.S. devolved to be below a monarchy.
The U.S. devolved to be below a dictatorship.
The U.S. devolved to be below anarchy.
The U.S is the lowest of the low. U.S. subjects are controlled by a d-word or r-word “government”.
.
d-word – two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
r-word – same as d-word except somewhat hidden.
This whole system is one con game. You cannot win unless you are connected to the elite. A few thousand people own and run the entire world. If you rely on their corporations instead of our cooperation then we will all perish because they pull the rug whenever they need fear to justify slavery. We’re running out of time…………2022.
End fiat currency.
There is not enough space to explain all this. There are a few issues which have existed for decades. 1. Nixon took us off the gold standard. 2. Our government allowed the creation of the 3rd central bank – the Federal Reserve. It is not federal and it has NO reserves. 3. In 1913 our government approved the once unconstitutional income tax. 4. Democrat policy and laws have created a permanent welfare class and the housing bubble. 5. Congress considers itself aristocracy. Salaries and benefits are over the top. 6. Government debt was mentioned above. It will crush this nation, eventually. 7. Government waste has never been addressed, even though every candidate running for office always brings it up during campaigns. OUR biggest problem is the apathy and ignorance of the American people. Personal responsibility is disappearing in our population. It is lacking and the media encourages it with sit-coms and reality shows. Solution: people need to start reading and quit watching TV. The government needs to be reigned in and reduced in size. The media needs to stop the propaganda and begin telling the truth.
Yes, John. Many more people are learning the truth about Federal Reserve (FDR continues to be praised for selling us all to world corps, for instance), reasons for birth certificates, and bankruptcy of the USA has occurred several times. Since internet availability, we can look up anything we are curious to learn about. Like you, I’m not a TV person. I watch movies at night, though, on PC for free (YT & putlocker have tons of movies, music, documentaries, lessons of all types), for escape/entertainment; get my news from all over the world via alternate & independent sources, etc. “Personal responsibility” seems to be declining, yes, in direct proportion to all the control, rules, denial of right to make choices that are politically incorrect because it will take profits away, how to raise & teach our own children, constant bombardment how we must submit & only do & be what some authority deems. I mean, some people have been harassed for growing food in their home yard gardens! Children are seized by CPS because their parents wanted a 2nd opinion or refused a spinal tap or vaccines parents believed not necessary right then. On & on it goes, so people do lose their initiative & passion & get tired & settle into just go with the flow. It’s much bigger, TV news, for instance, has symbols & sounds to trance the brain & insert subliminal beliefs.
Back in 60’s, when I was in high school, we couldn’t graduate until we passed all our civics courses. There was no such thing as elementary schools sending parents a note that if their child finishes 3rd grade but still cannot read, the school will provide summer school free. Huh? Something is bad wrong if a child cannot read after 3 years of school & that early lack must affect a child’s feeling of capability, courage & curiosity maybe forever. I have taught several children to be able to read easy words at age 2 to 3. I made cards, start with all words that have the “at” sound, for instance: “a, at, bat, cat, fat, mat,rat, vat” & they’re absorbing sounds of letters along with order of alphabet (to be able to use the dictionary later on!), have a sense of reward, self-confidence & eagerness to try the next step. If a child expects to learn because of successes built in small increments, then their whole life they can keep learning & actually enjoy challenges. That’s why kids like games so much, they succeed more as they practice, mastering skills & exercising memory. By time started kindergarten, they could read pretty well.It wasn’t hard at all. It’s the methods employed & required after gov began intruding into public schools more.
And our crazed Government under Obama wants to allow thousands of illegal aliens and refugees into our country with full benefit packages? Muslims who are not willing to even assimilate into our culture and have stated we are Infidels. They wish to institute their own Sharia Laws and get all kinds of special priveleges. This is the ultimate insanity. No illegal aliens and no refugees should be allowed into the USA !! We need to take care of our own citizens first . And our treasonous POS is sending millions secretly to supply arms to our enemies and build mosques whilst sneaking in Muslims and Illegals. He is ruining America !
“So what is wrong? Why can’t we get this thing fixed?” – The answers are very secret. Let us consider one of them – Profiting is stealing. Here is one example:
A CEO makes a product at $5 per unit, and sells it at $15. Thus the CEO is making a profit of $10 from each unit. The cost of the product for the CEO is $5, but for you, me, and others it is $15. Thus the CEO is stealing $10 from each one of us, every time we buy his item. This is how the CEO is becoming richer and we are all getting poorer. All activities of the central bank economy (CBE) is designed to steal wealth from people.
You cannot become rich without stealing from others. In every win-win case you will always find a third party who will be the loser. Win-lose is a law of nature. Your data proves – “The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.”
Only solution is to get rid of money and create money-less economy (MLE). Second secret answer is – Money is false, because it is not an object of nature. Therefore money must be free, and abundant at its source, which is the central bank. Since money is false, it cannot be necessary to run an economy. Only MLE can remove poverty. Take a look at the poverty chapter and also the MLE chapter in the free book at https://theoryofsouls.wordpress.com/