Poverty in America, worst in 35 years!

Weekly, if not daily, Bush or one of his minion is on TV saying how great the economy is. For who? The upper 10% of the richest of the rich? Even Bernanke admitted in a Senate hearing last week that the devide between the rich and the poor is growing.

Here's the report from the US Census from 2005:
"Almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure".

And that was over a year ago. It would certainly be over 16 Million now.

Many headlines today mention this report:

Severe poverty in U.S. hits high
The Buffalo News - 2 hours, 36 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

Poverty level is at a 32-year high
Baltimore Sun - Feb 25 12:53 AM
Nearly 16 million Americans classified as severely poor, McClatchy report shows The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's haves and have-nots continues to widen.

Here's some of the McClatchy report via the AFP via Raw Story:

Based on the latest available US census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars -- one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the "deep poverty" threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005," the US newspaper chain reported.

"That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

"That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

"These and other factors have helped push 43 percent of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty -- the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades," the report said.

Just about two more years of Bushco will deepen this devide since he thinks he is the "decider". More like "dictator"!