32.9 million people are classified as living below the official poverty line ($18,104 for family of four) in 2001. [If you adjust the official poverty line to the inflation, the number of poor Americans would have been be closer to 50 million in 1999, when the official number was 35 million]
* The poorest 20% of U.S. households received less than 5% of all income in 2000.
* 16% of children under the age of 18 are living in poverty.
* In 2001, 26.4% of female-headed families were below the poverty threshold, and in such families the average income was about 60% less than the median income of all families.
* Almost 23% of the black population and 21.4% of people of Spanish-speaking descent have incomes below the official poverty line, compared with 9.9% of the white population.
* About 1.35 million children-nearly 2% of the nation's total-are homeless.
2007-05-01
10:07:19
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9 answers
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asked by
kay
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