Poverty in America Up for 2002!

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: 1.4 million more Americans in poverty in 2002

It seems odd that as the economy continues to create record profits for companies and we created tax breaks for wealthier Americans that nothing was done about this problem. Allowing our next generation to falter through policies that allow our children (and I use that in the our america sense) is just plain wrong. While an astonishing 12% of the American public are now living in poverty the figure for children is 17.2%.

Keep in mind that the poverty threshold differs by the size and makeup of a household. For instance, a person under 65 living alone in 2002 was considered in poverty if income was $9,359 or less; for a household of three including one child, it was $14,480.

Seems like something could be done about that in a country as great as ours. It also seems like it would be in our interest to get the children out of poverty since new studies point to economic status as one of the prime determing factors in creating poory educated adults. Can the United States affford to have 17.2% of its popution in poverty and potentially undereducated in an increasing competitive world? I think not!