[Sixstrings]

Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census

WASHINGTON — They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.

Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called “near poor” and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.

When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.

...

“These numbers are higher than we anticipated,” said Trudi J. Renwick, the bureau’s chief poverty statistician. “There are more people struggling than the official numbers show.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/us/census-measures-those-not-quite-in-poverty-but-struggling.html?_r=2&hp

100 million people. One in three Americans, either in desperate poverty or just barely scraping by above that official poverty line.

[Cog]

With all these desperate and semi-desperate people out there, filling job openings and introducing simultaneous huge wage cuts should be no problem at all. Looks like a very merry Christmas again for the corporate bottom line.

[Pretorian]

Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census

WASHINGTON — They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.

Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called “near poor” and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.

When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.

...

“These numbers are higher than we anticipated,” said Trudi J. Renwick, the bureau’s chief poverty statistician. “There are more people struggling than the official numbers show.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/us/census-measures-those-not-quite-in-poverty-but-struggling.html?_r=2&hp

100 million people. One in three Americans, either in desperate poverty or just barely scraping by above that official poverty line.

They should lower the bar of poverty line, it will fix the problem.

[pup55]

Combined, she and her husband, a janitor, make about $51,000 a year, more than 200 percent of the official poverty line. But they lose about a fifth to taxes, medical care and transportation to work — giving them a disposable income of about $40,000 a year.

Adjust the poverty threshold, as the new measure does, to $31,000 for the region’s high cost of living, and Ms. Pendleton’s income is 29 percent above the poverty line. That is to say, she is near poor.

I

t took her three years to save $3,000 for the down payment on her house, which she got with subsidies from a nonprofit group, Capital Area Asset Builders. But even after cutting out meals at Red Lobster, movie nights and new clothes, she had to rely on government aid to get health insurance for her daughters, 11 and 13, and she is already worried about college tuition.

It would have been nice of them to tell us what the heck the poverty line is...but we can calculate it. Looks like it's around 25K.

So 50 percent above the poverty line is... 37.5K?

For a single wage earner that's a little less than $20 an hour if my calculating is correct, or 10 bucks an hour for each of them, I suppose.

So... there are many questions. One is, who encouraged these people that were making 10 bucks an hour to go out and buy a house?

Another is: what's the escape route? Here is a couple, a middle aged "social worker" and a "janitor" in this family, what exactly do you do, except possibly to move to North Dakota? Their problem is made worse by the fact that they live in DC.

So, I guess the salary for the Janitor is depressed because there are plenty of people around that can and are willing to do the work for that much..some of them spanish-speaking. and after about the first week on the job you get all of the experience you need so there is no value added for having been around a little longer (no prospects for periodic raises)...and we all know there is no premium for being a "social worker"...

Now, you can also argue "these people got themselves into this mess" by not working hard in school, but it's DC and we al know about the school system and other social institutions,,, and most of your academic achievement and attitude toward work and career is driven by your family and culture, and if you are part of the permanent underclass, maybe you do not have that benefit.

and I can also assure you that many many college grads in this era that are making less than 25K right now, including every starting teacher, starting cop, and a lot of other people that may well have borrowed money to get their degree...

So... What's the plan? How do you fix it?

[Unconventional Ideas]

Speaking of education as the key to avoid poverty, let me tell you about myself.

I have an MBA, an MA from Purdue University, am a former Air Force officer, owned a successful carpet cleaning business for 18 years, and am now at the age of 49, a janitor working for $10 an hour.

That is one of the reasons I'm an activist with the Occupy Movement.

Perhaps there are others like me????

Now's the time for all of us to come out of the closet.

[Cog]

@Unconventional

Since you had all these successes, how much money did you save up while you were on the gravy train? Sounds like you spent every bit of it and are now you want someone to bail you out of your unpleasant situation.

[vtsnowedin]

I find it odd that they have to pretend to wait for the census to find this out. The Social security administration has complete data on every working American and sends each of us a regular accounting of our lifetime earnings. A little computer cross sorting of mailing addresses would give accurate household income and any other info they might need. They know within weeks when our incomes go up or down just by measuring the tax flows into the IRS. So why are they surprised?

[Pretorian]

Speaking of education as the key to avoid poverty, let me tell you about myself.

I have an MBA, an MA from Purdue University, am a former Air Force officer, owned a successful carpet cleaning business for 18 years, and am now at the age of 49, a janitor working for $10 an hour.

That is one of the reasons I'm an activist with the Occupy Movement.

Perhaps there are others like me????

Now's the time for all of us to come out of the closet.

At what age did you obtain your degrees, and what kind of a job you had in mind while doing so, if you don't mind me asking? What kind of skills have you obtained that could be worth something to your employer? I know, you passed the exams, I get it. What can you do?

[TreeFarmer]

Unconventional

Maybe you could get your employer to sub out their janitorial work to a firm, your firm. You did carpet cleaning, maybe you could add janitorial work to that and have a more 'full service' business.

TF

[vision-master]

There is very little money in the contract cleaning business.

[Bruce_S]

100 million people. One in three Americans, either in desperate poverty or just barely scraping by above that official poverty line.

They changed the definition. Change it again, and nobody is in poverty. Change it the other way, and all the 99% is in poverty. Income as a system of measure isn't necessarily a good way to measure poverty without accounting for income levels AND cost of living in particular areas. We are talking about homeowners...in poverty. Want to bet that a homeowner in rural Illinois isn't near in as much poverty for the same income level as someone in Orange County California?

[Bruce_S]

Speaking of education as the key to avoid poverty, let me tell you about myself.

I have an MBA, an MA from Purdue University, am a former Air Force officer, owned a successful carpet cleaning business for 18 years, and am now at the age of 49, a janitor working for $10 an hour.

That is one of the reasons I'm an activist with the Occupy Movement.

Perhaps there are others like me????

Now's the time for all of us to come out of the closet.

And how did you arrive at your current predicament? Bad luck? Bad decisions? I went to test drive a car once, and was waited on hand and foot by a petroleum engineer. "What are you doing selling Mazdas, rather than helping propel our economy in the energy production field", says I. "I really like talking with people!", says he, as the strong odor of alcohol wafts by my nose.....at 11AM on a Tuesday.

Sometimes the world is unfair. Other times, it is not.

[ian807]

At what age did you obtain your degrees, and what kind of a job you had in mind while doing so, if you don't mind me asking? What kind of skills have you obtained that could be worth something to your employer? I know, you passed the exams, I get it. What can you do?

Pretorian, I think you're blaming the victim here. The guy got an MBA and was in the Air Force and started a business. Sounds like a typical American, doing what he was told was the right thing by his government, schools and the media. "Patriotic Capitalist" would be the description.

The problem is that all that was ... inaccurate. Many bright people who work hard in a capitalist society fail due to illness, aging, changes in technology, globalization, corporate takeovers or plain old bad luck in some form. There are plenty of circumstances beyond our control. The guy sounds like someone who would have voted for Reagan. It probably never occurred to him, or millions like him, that he might lose in the capitalist lottery.

FYI, I'm not knocking capitalism as long as it's sufficiently regulated (e.g. Glass-Steagal). Perhaps we'll have it again in the USA someday. We can hope.

So now people like him are discovering why unions formed in the first place and why people fought and died for those unions. This should be an interesting cultural transition.

[Duende]

Pretorian wrote:

At what age did you obtain your degrees, and what kind of a job you had in mind while doing so, if you don't mind me asking? What kind of skills have you obtained that could be worth something to your employer? I know, you passed the exams, I get it. What can you do?

Unconventional, Pretorian is expressing the new mentality. Crony capitalism in a peak oil world means fighting it out for the scraps of what's left - welcome to the world of social darwinism, American edition. Competition for living wage jobs is brutal (as you've discovered) and will continue to be so until wages are equilized across the world. Those who enjoy harder and longer work with less pay and fewer benefits will survive.

It is in all of our best interests to ready ourselves for the eventual dissolution of the social safety net. When this occurs, those who have prepared themselves psychologically will have a leg up on those who haven't because they will be willing to do things that other Americans are too proud to do. Are you ready to play 'every man for himself'? Because that's what happens when the fabric of society is shredding. Everywhere you look, evidence abounds.

[vision-master]

You can see the attitude right here on this 4um. Every man for himself.

[AgentR11]

First note, did anyone do a double take at the overall price of the home those guys chose to purchase? I would never say that they don't have the right to make such a decision, but *dang*, I can't imagine being comfortable with that sized mortgage on the kind of income they are drawing.

Competition for living wage jobs is brutal (as you've discovered) and will continue to be so until wages are equilized across the world. Those who enjoy harder and longer work with less pay and fewer benefits will survive.

This board is constantly overwhelmed by the need to be either one extreme or the other; there is something in the middle, "comfortable", "content", "accepting", even "resigned to", that are far below "enjoy" (in this case), but well above "desperate" or "miserable". There is nothing horrible in a statement like, "Americans could choose to be content to work 60hrs a week and draw an income that is sufficient to provide decent food and shelter for a family." Its not the liberal workers' paradise that they try to sell, but it is an honorable and reasonable life that is available.

Other thing that gets me... I keep seeing "MBA" popping up in people that think they should be *employed* by a corporation at a decent wage. Isn't the whole point of an "MBA" education meant to teach you how to run a business and make a ton of money? I get the feeling that a *lot* of people over the past decade saw MBA holders within a company get promotions, raises, and bonuses, and thought it was the degree that caused those results. Far from it in my opinion, the MBA degree was just a modestly trivial check off box in the midst of analysis that suggested that the guy or gal in question was going to make a ****-ton of money for the company. But Bob the Secretary thought it was the MBA, so he got one, even though he lacked the natural skills and talents, lacked the contacts and social structure, lacked the familial history with sizable estate, etc. He lacked everything that made the promoted successful, and spent money on a check off box that no one above really gave a flip about in the first place.

If one really had business getting an MBA, they wouldn't care whether they were employed in an existing corp, or building their own business; they will, regardless, make a ****-ton of money. But it won't have much to do with getting that silly piece of paper.

It is in all of our best interests to ready ourselves for the eventual dissolution of the social safety net.

Think of it more as a transformation of the safety net, from a benevolent, if somewhat flawed, backstop; into a sticky, inescapable, social spider web, that catches, holds, and renders impotent non-performing individuals. Locking them into place, keeping them soothed just enough so they don't struggle too much and make a mess. Expect foodstamps and subsidized housing to continue, expect medicaid to get really clamped down on in a way that makes current tightening look very gentle; expect SS to be means tested vs assets and income, expect medicare premiums strongly to rise for any service that could be seen as optional. That sort of thing. Remember, starving peasants tend to revolt and break things. Most of our infrastructure is quite breakable when faced with determined rioters; so the cheapest solution is to keep them at the edge of discontent, but still stuck firmly to the spider web.

[vision-master]

[AgentR11]

So now people like him are discovering why unions formed in the first place and why people fought and died for those unions. This should be an interesting cultural transition.

People with MBAs are excluded from the legal right to unionize. Managerial staff have never been allowed to form unions. They would simply be too powerful, and could crush an hourly-worker's union instantly, at will, with negligible impact on their lifestyle.

Sorry.

[vision-master]

untrue.....

[AgentR11]

true