Poverty, The Poor | featured news

The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net....

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans, almost 1 in 2, have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that is shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

John William Springs, a retiree who gets nearly $12000 a year in Social Security and disability checks, is $1300 above the poverty threshold: officially, not poor.

The Census Bureau report also found that median household incomes declined by 2.3 percent in 2010, in a sign of the toll the economic slump has taken.

The report said that 44 million people, or one in seven residents, lived in poverty in the United States in 2009, the highest rate since 1994.

Many low-income urban areas across the United States have epidemics of HIV, with 2.1 percent of heterosexuals in poverty-stricken urban areas infected with the incurable AIDS virus, U.S. scientists said on Monday.