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Since we are talking about poverty, I thought I would research statistics surrounding poverty and homelessness. Right now, there are now more homeless people than any time in US history. And there is a new wave of homeless people that don’t fit the profile of the “skid-row bum.”
When you think of the word "poverty," it suggests destitution but only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While material hardship does occur, most of America's "poor" have an income level that would be considered comfortable a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s (after adjusting for inflation.) About 30 percent of homeless people are families with children and more disturbing is that 30 percent of homeless people are children without families. This is approximated from a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
The economic conditions don’t matter much. Whether times are good or bad, the typical working poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year. That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year--the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year--nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. In addition, a stagnant minimum wage has put housing out of reach for many workers in every state in the US. In fact, in the median state a minimum-wage worker would have to work 87 hours each week to afford a two-bedroom apartment at 30% of his or her income, which is the federal definition of affordable housing. Thus, inadequate income leaves many people and families homeless.