DAILY BEAST US LOSING GENERATION TO POVERTY
EXCERPT
"The world was incredibly different. But the way we measure poverty remains the same. We also still imagine poverty looks the way it did in 1964. In reality, economic hardship is much more commonplace, and its appearance is more subtle. Its effects, however, are no less devastating.
This week, when the United States Census Bureau released its poverty data for the year 2013, it showed the first significant decline in poverty since the Great Recession hit: down from 15 percent to 14.5. Greeted more cheerily by economic observers was the news that child poverty had made its biggest drop in years: down almost 2 whole percentage points. It was better news than observers expected.
It’s all relative, though, and enthusiasm was qualified. These numbers are still higher than they were before the recession. In a statement, Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, a left-of-center think tank in Washington, wrote that if current trends continue, it would take until 2020 for poverty to fall to its 2000 level..."
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