Poverty in the United States

This week we got some unsettling news on income, poverty, and education that should leave us all deeply concerned.

Here are the facts from the census bureau as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

- the income of the typical American family has dropped for the third year in a row, is at the same level as 1996 when adjusted for inflation and 7% below its peak in 1999

-income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010

-Earnings of a typical man who works full-time year round are lower than in 1978 when adjusted for inflation

-Women are making 77 cents for every dollar earned by comparably employed men and their median incomes rose in 2010

-22% of American children live below the poverty line, up from 20.7% in 2009, and the biggest percentage since 1993 ( thought this significantly overstates poverty my mission government transfers)

-US per capita net worth is $169,691, up from $147,889 in 2007

-14 million Americans remain unemployed

-16.3% of Americans do not have health insurance, or 49.9 million people.

-5.9 million Americans between 25 and 34 (14.2% of that group) lived with their parent in Spring 2011, compared to 4.7 million (11.8%) before the recession

- the results from the college entrance exam, taken by about 1.6 million students, revealed that only 43% of students posted a score high enough to indicate they were ready to succeed at college.

(for many more FACTS check out the resource section of this web-site)