week 5

Week 5 Discussion

Deborah Scherch

South University

The poverty rate increased in 2010 to 15.1 percent, which went up from 14.3 percent in 2009. This was the third time an increase in the poverty rate. In 2007, the poverty rate was increased by 2.6 percentage points. This is only one of the main reasons for this increase in the poverty rate increase. In 2010, when President Obama took office, he instilled The Obama Care Act, due to this act all tax paying citizens were required to have health insurance. During this time the country was at one of its worst economic crises since the Great Depression. Millions of citizens were only surviving because of expanded unemployment insurance and other government assistance available to low-income families. The main reason for the poverty rate was for the lack of jobs in the United States. Lack of employment raised the poverty rate to increase (which is a percentage of population whose family income has fallen below the poverty line). Due to this deterioration in the labor market, incomes dropped, and poverty rose.

When the Great Recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, but the labor market continued deteriorating through the end of 2009, and the modest economic growth in 2010 was not enough to compensate for those losses.  The number of jobs fell dramatically when the unemployment rate increased from 9.3 percent to 9.6 percent. The citizens of the United States that where unemployed had been unemployed for more than six months climbed from 31.2 percent to 43.3 percent. This deterioration in the labor market, incomes dropped, and poverty rose.

The poverty rate in 2010 (15.1 percent) was the highest poverty rate since 1993 but was 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. Scientists have found several effects from the recession which started in December 2007 and continued through 2009. A survey in 2011 found that most citizens’ personal finance felt their financial situation was getting worse instead of better. The government had not started tracking the statistics about poverty. As the government started tracking the poverty level it has fluctuated up and down, because more families started living together because the cost of living was to expensive for younger and elderly people of society. Some people lived with relatives even if it meant sleeping on the floor in a one-bedroom home.

Between 2009 and 2010, the poverty rate increased for children under age 18 (from 20.7 percent to 22.0 percent) and people aged 18 to 64 (from 12.9 percent to 13.7 percent),but was not statistically different for people aged 65 and older (9.0 percent). In 2012 employment improved, however the improvement wasn’t what the environment needed, they were hoping for a much greater improvement. In Great Recession, which occurred in late 2007, which the statics should that it ended in the middle of 2009, but the economy continued to lose jobs through early 2010. The job growth we did experience was not adequate to increase the share of the working-age population with new jobs. In 2011 and 2012, there was some improvement. The working-age population with a job dropped from 63.0 percent in 2007 to 58.4 percent in 2011 and rebounded slightly to 58.6 percent in 2012. Given the tight relationship between the health of the labor market and incomes for most households, it is unsurprising that incomes for most households grew only marginally.

The modest income growth for non-elderly households lost income between 2011 and 2012 barely began to offset the losses incurred during the recession. Some, incomes were substantially lower than they were before the recession began for all but the top 5 percent of the income distribution, and the poverty rate remains elevated.

Furthermore, there are many disappointing trends from the Great Recession and its aftermath come on the heels of the weak economy. Poverty rates actually increased and, for the first time in record, incomes for the middle class did not rise. 

REFERENCES

http://epi.orglpublication/lost-decade

Retrieved November 19, 2020