The "Officially Poor" Are Not The Only Ones Hurting

The other day I posted about the growing problem of poverty in America -- a problem that now encompasses nearly 50 million people and more than 15% of the population. So that must mean nearly 85% of Americans are doing just fine -- right? Actually, no! It turns out that there are a lot of people in this country that are hurting even though they don't quite fit the official government definition of living in poverty.

According to a U.S. Census report detailed in The New York Times, there is another 51 million people in the United States that don't make an income below the poverty line but live on an income lower than 50% above the poverty line. These people are being badly squeezed in this recession economy. They have seen their wages fail to rise for years while the price of nearly everything they have to buy has gone up dramatically. These families are just scraping by, and many of them are just a paycheck or two from slipping into poverty themselves.

That means there are currently about 100 million people in the United States who live below or near the poverty line. That's about a third of our total population. And many of these people work in full-time jobs (although usually low-wage no-benefit jobs). And for many others, they are barely kept out of poverty by government programs like unemployment insurance.

Of the 51 million living just above the poverty line, nearly half are White, about 26% are Hispanic, and about 18% are Black. Around 49% live in the suburbs (along with a lot of the poor). Poverty and near-poverty are no longer just a problem in our inner-city urban areas. About 20% were kept above the poverty line by one or more government programs.

The Democrats in Congress don't seem to have an answer for these hurting Americans. And the Republicans are even worse. They want to cut or abolish the government programs that help many Americans to keep their heads above water, so they can give even more money to the richest Americans and corporations through new tax cuts. Is it any wonder that the Occupy Wall Street movement has found favor with millions of Americans?