This news story today was totally taken from USA Today News under top news stories. It makes my blood boil to read how bad it is and how beat down we are in this country now! I am just another person losing my means to pay my bills and picking out a trash can to call my own. No kidding!
Household Income Drops To Lowest Point Since '96
The median income of U.S. households fell 2.3% in 2010 to the lowest level since 1996 after adjusting for inflation, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
The annual report also said the number of families living in poverty rose 2.6 million to 46.2 million, the largest increase since Census began keeping track 52 years ago. Long-term unemployment has left millions of people out of work and struggling to find jobs.
"It's all about joblessness," said Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for the Research of Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. "Young guys don't have work, and poverty would be even higher if so many 25- to 34-year-olds weren't living at home with their parents."
The weak economy has driven household income down for three straight years, to $49,445 in 2010, a total 6.4% decline since the recession began in December 2007. The government says the recession ended in June 2009.
Poor people and minorities were hit hardest. Median income for black households fell 3.6% to $32,206 while white household income dropped 1.3% to $54,620.
Income fell least for the most affluent households — down 1.2% to $180,810 in 2010 for the top 5% of households. Income declines got increasingly large down the income ladder. The bottom fifth of households — those making $20,000 or less in 2010 — saw incomes decline 3.8% after inflation.
"There is a widening of the gap between the extreme top and bottom," said Edward Welniak, chief of income statistics at the Census.
The release of the data comes as President Obama pushes Congress to pass a $447 billion jobs creation proposal that he unveiled last week. Obama was in Ohio on Tuesday selling his jobs plan in the key battleground state.
Katharine Abraham, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, speaking at a forum in Washington on Tuesday, said that the increase in poverty runs parallel with the rise in unemployment -- about 1.8 million adults did not work in 2010 than a year earlier.
"Clearly the pace of job growth needs to be faster," Abraham said. "We need to be aggressive about boosting growth and adding jobs.
Hard times are forcing people to "double-up" — live with their parents or other family members, said Trudi Renwick, chief of poverty statistics.
The number of households doubling-up grew from 19.7 million in 2007 to 21.8 million in spring 2011, she said. The number of adults ages 25-34 still living with their parents was especially notable, she said.
The report showed that a record number of women live in poverty and extreme poverty. The poverty rate among women climbed to 14.5% in 2010 from 13.9% in 2009, the highest in 17 years, according to an analysis by the National Women's Law Center.
The extreme poverty rate for women jumped to an all-time high of 6.3% in 2010 from 5.9% in 2009.
"The record numbers of women and families living in extreme poverty and without health insurance should send an urgent wake-up call to Congress to tackle the immediate deficit facing this nation — the lack of jobs — by acting swiftly on President Obama's job creation proposals and passing a robust package that will put millions of American women and men back to work," said Joan Entmacher, NWLC vice president for Family Economic Security.
Dwanna Myree, 38, of Detroit has a degree in accounting but has scraped by with temporary jobs and unemployment insurance for three years. Her region, the Midwest, has suffered a 13.6% drop in household income since 2000, double the national average.
"It's totally frustrating," said the single mother of three.
A family of four is considered in poverty if income is $22,314 or below. The poverty measures cash income before taxes. A measure that includes the value of Medicaid, food stamps and other government programs will be released in October.
Tim Ticknor of Reno was once a successful car salesman who brought in nearly $100,000 a year. In 2010 as car sales continued to tank, Ticknor made about $30,000. In January 2011, his dealership went bankrupt.
Since then, Ticknor, 45, has moved his family in with his mother-in-law. His only income comes from a few days a week as a day laborer — a job that typically pays about $55 a day, $20 of which is spent on gas.
"I used to make tons of money," he said. "It's difficult. Just surviving is difficult."
The report showed the share of people without health insurance rose from 16.1% to 16.3%, 49.9 million people. The number of people with private insurance fell while the number covered by government programs increased.
Congress passed a health care overhaul last year to deal with rising numbers of the uninsured. Though the main provisions do not take effect until 2014, one aspect taking effect in late 2010 allowed young adults until age 26 to be covered under their parents' health insurance.
Brett O'Hara, chief of the Health and Disability Statistics branch at the Census Bureau, noted that the uninsured rate for adults ages 18 to 24 declined last year, from 29.3% to 27.2%. It was the only age group that posted a decrease.
"For the change in uninsured, the law change certainly could be a factor," he said.
The Census figures indicated that the percentage of women under 65 without health insurance climbed from 19.2% in 2009 to 19.7% in 2010, the highest rate recorded in more than a decade. The number of women younger than 65 without health care coverage increased to 19 million.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7%. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6%.
Contributing: John Wisely, Detroit Free Press; Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal; Aamer Madhani in Washington; Associated Press.
This is what’s killing us people! We can’t afford to live because we have to deal with this reality while trying to carve out a decent enough life so that we don’t have to commit suicide to afford to live. I’m so pissed off and if I have my way I will never pay taxes again since I don’t seem to benefit from anything the government has to offer! We get one time only to live and I feel it sucks! Not all of us have families willing to help either and those people hit the streets hard.
I can’t help but be angry and fed up. As you know I try hard to be positive and happy. I don’t want to shove my blogs down anyone’s throat I just happen to like to write. I used to hope I could make a living somehow online but jobs like that just elude me.
I know it’s just more bad news, but we should pay attention to it. Is there nothing we can do? Don’t tell me about voting the government is weak and ineffective. I notice more and more people don’t respond to the bad news anymore. If we ignore it, it isn’t going to go away!
Keep On Bloggin’!
Look at this place with the car in front of it. No room for a garage? A road?
These pictures were sent to me in an email so I thought I’d share them with you this Friday night. We actually have our telescope outside right now and are doing a little star gazing while chilling at home. It’s a warm Fall evening. 
Keep On Bloggin’!
