Tim Rogers: Depressing numbers

Good morning.

It can get really depressing, really quickly, when you look at the weekly economic statistics for our nation’s economy.

What is chilling to me is that if what these reports are saying is true — and there is no reason to not believe them — then we are seeing more people and more families dropping into the ranks of the long-term poor than we ever thought possible. And even more frightening to consider is the strong possibility that these numbers are going to keep increasing in the years to come, unless something is done quickly to reverse our economic fortunes.

The biggest shock came Tuesday when the Census Bureau reported that a record 46.2 million Americans now live in poverty, which is the most since the government started keeping track of the statistics in 1959.

As a percentage of the total population, the current rate of 15.1 percent is the highest on record since 1983.

In terms of dollars earned, that means that if you live in a family of four you have to have had a household income of under $22,350 to be listed as living in poverty. If you are single and on your own, that figure drops to $10,890 for you to be categorized as living in poverty.

Neither figure is really enough to pay for food, shelter, clothes and basic utilities, but that is what roughly 1 in 7 of us in the United States are trying to do.

Disturbingly, the figure is even higher in Georgia.

According to the Census Bureau report, 18.7 percent of Georgians are now living below the poverty line, which is the third highest percentage in the country.

Even if you are part of the fortunate 82 percent of the households that don’t fall into this statistic, the staggering numbers of long-term poor in our state carry an enormous fiscal price tag with them.

The Georgia Department of Human Services said the number of people on food stamps has increased every year since 2007, and in 2010, 590,000 state households received food stamps.

What should be even more distressing to anyone is that these numbers just begin to tell the story of the financial and economic void that is staring many Americans straight in the face.

According to the same Census Bureau report, the median income for all U.S. households fell in 2010 to $49,445, a decline of 2.3 percent from 2009. What that means is that many families are seeing their incomes falling at the same time that there are few employment opportunities to get a higher paying job.

And, according to the Census Bureau, if it weren’t for the government’s safety net programs, many more Americans would be listed as living in poverty right now.

According to the report, the new unemployment benefits passed in 2009 — which gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after layoffs — kept 3.2 million people above the poverty line, and Social Security helped another 20.3 million seniors and people on disability stay out of poverty.

All of this is happening as prices continue to rise on just about everything that you need to live.

On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in August. That report said prices for food, energy, rent and clothing all increased.

According to the same report, for the 12 months that ended in August, prices surged up by 2 percent, the biggest year-over-year increase in nearly three years.

We already knew that the economy added zero net jobs in August, and that unemployment benefit applications have increased in three of the past four weeks and are well north of the magic 400,000 level that we need to get below in order for there to be any chance of lowering the country’s unemployment rate.

As Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told The Associated Press, “Unless spirits improve soon, businesses will ramp up layoffs, consumers will pull back, and the economy will fall back into recession.”

I agree with him except for the part of falling back into a recession. While the economists will tell you that the U.S. economy has been growing, for most Americans that is a number that has rung false to them. We are collectively as bad off as we were in 2008 and 2009 and for nearly all of us we have never climbed out of the recession.

The question now is what do we do about all of this.

How do we connect our political and business leaders who aren’t suffering a loss in their standard of living to the millions of Americans who are? How do we get those households that have been fortunate enough to not see their standard of living go down to realize that a rising number of families are on the opposite side of that fence?

Income disparities have always existed and they always will exist. But as those gaps grow ever wider, Washington needs to start paying closer attention to why they are occurring and collectively move that issue to the top of its agenda.

Because if we don’t, and the numbers of people living in poverty continue to increase, we will all end up the poorer for it.

Tim Rogers is editor of The Daily Citizen. He can be reached at timrogers@daltoncitizen.com.

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