Poverty increasingly means the employed

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:31:00 +0000

There are 10.4 million American households that qualify as working poor, according to an economic analysis reported in Reuters. This amounts to more than 47 million Americans living in "near poverty," defined as earning less than twice the official poverty rate, $22,811 for a family of four.

The recession officially ended in 2009 and unemployment levels have slowly receded, but income inequality continues to grow as more workers taking low-wage service jobs, many of them without benefits. The report, put out by the Working Poor Project, found that "nearly one-third of working families now struggle, up from 31 percent in 2010 and 28 percent in 2007, when the recession began."

Reuters:

"Although many people are returning to work, they are often taking jobs with lower wages and less job security, compared with the middle-class jobs they held before the economic downturn," the report said.

"This means that nearly a third of all working families ... may not have enough money to meet basic needs."

Salon.com > Service sector

Poverty increasingly means the employed