The American Community Survey for 2009, released on September 28th by the U.S. Census Bureau is out, the numbers are in, and the crisis of Poverty in the United States reaches new heights.
Lots of links are included below to follow for details, but here’s the 411:
An analysis of the new data by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center shows that the child poverty rate in the United States jumped from 18 percent in 2007 to 20 percent in 2009. They found there were 14.7 million children in households with incomes below the poverty threshold in the United States in 2009 — 1.6 million more than in 2007.
Families in Crisis: Florida’s numbers are horrifying: 14.9% of our families are living in poverty (which is defined as an annual income of $10, 830 or less for an individual, or $22,050 for a family of four – income numbers which are so out of touch with reality it’s crazy, but that’s fodder for another post). We’re talking about 2,707,925 Floridians, which is a 2.8% increase since 2007! In South Florida, Broward County’s overall poverty rate is 12.9%; Palm Beach County’s is 14.4%; and Miami-Dade’s is 17.7%.
Pity the poor children: They are suffering even more: Statewide, 21.3 % of children under 18 years of age were living below the poverty level in 2009. In South Florida, the poverty rates for children in Broward County is 15.5%; Palm Beach County is 22.6%, and Miami-Dade is 23.6%.
Want more? You can access the Census Survey data here, including a number of subject-specific “briefs.” The KIDS COUNT site allows you to search and access the report as well as hundreds of additional data resources that measure the welfare of children. And the Coalition on Human Needs has added a dedicated web page on their site with News, Data and Resource links about the Census Report here.
Want all the cold, hard, Census Bureau facts? The new US report provides data for cities, counties, and congressional districts as well as states. It answers questions about poverty, income, health insurance, educational attainment, cost of housing, people with disabilities, and use of government assistance programs, to name a few topics. It also has breakdowns by race/ethnicity/language spoken at home/immigrant status. You can download step-by-step directions on how to get the data here.
End Childhood Hunger Advocacy Center 