GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR

GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR…

Written on the Statue of Liberty

1. The 400 wealthiest Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the U.S. population (or 204 million people).

1. Nearly 41 million Americans live below the federal poverty line (FPM). The FPL, which changes annually is $12,490 for a single person in 2019. In absolute terms, White people made up 42.5 percent of this population (17.3 million), and the next two largest groups are Latinx (11.1 million) at 27.4 percent, and Black Americans (9.2 million) at 22.7 percent. In relative terms, Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the highest poverty rate of any racial group, at 26.2 percent. Black people have the second-highest poverty rate, at 22 percent. This is followed by Latinx people (19.4 percent), White people (11 percent), and Asian Americans (10.1 percent).
2. Nearly 140 million people (43.5 percent) are either poor or low-income  which goes beyond income to consider out-of-pocket expenses for food, clothing, housing and utilities, geographic disparities, and federal assistance. “Low income” in this context means a household making less than twice the poverty line.
3. Almost four in ten children spend at least one year of their lives in poverty, meaning that there has been a rise, also, in the number of poor families. In 2016, households led by single mothers comprised almost 30 percent of families with incomes below the poverty line. Households led by Native women had the highest poverty rates (42.6 percent), followed by those headed by immigrant women (almost 42 percent), Latinx women (40.8 percent), Black women (38.8 percent) and White women (30.2 percent). LGBTQ people are disproportionately represented among the poor as well.
4. A government survey of people who were homeless in 2017 found that 41 percent were Black, 47 percent were White, and 22 percent were Latinx. A majority of homeless families are headed by single women with young children. The problem is particularly acute for LGBTQ youth, who represent between five and ten percent of the nation’s young people, but between 20 and 40 percent of the homeless youth population.
5. A 2015 survey found that a much larger number of people, estimated at 2.5 million to 3.5 million, sleep in shelters or encampments at some point every year, while another estimated 7.4 million are on the brink of homelessness, having lost their own homes and transitioned into the homes of others.
6. About 31 million people remain uninsured, including 4.6 million Black people, 10.2 million Latinx and 13.6 million Whites. This is despite the fact that the U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other country, at approximately $10,348 per person per year. In 2016, 43 percent of adults with health insurance struggled to pay their deductibles, nearly 30 percent had a hard time affording medical bills and 73 percent cut back on basic household needs and food to pay their medical bills. Medical debt is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy filings, with an estimated 40 percent of Americans taking on debt because of medical issues.
7.  America has become a debtor nation. Excluding the value of the family car, 19 percent of all U.S. households (60 million people), 30 percent of Black households, 27 percent of Latinx households, and 14 percent of White households have zero wealth or their debts exceeded the value of their assets.