Tuesday, November 25, 2008

NYT: Big Jump Foreseen in Ranks of the Poor

Big Jump Foreseen in Ranks of the Poor - NYTimes.com
Rising unemployment could push an additional 7.5 million to 10.3 million United States residents below the federal poverty line over the next two or three years, a research group has estimated, based on the experience of the last three recessions and the latest projections of job losses.

If the analysis is correct, this would be the largest jump in the poverty rate since the prolonged recession of the early 1980s, when the number of poor people climbed to 35 million from 26 million over four years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington. Milder recessions in the early 1990s and in 2001 caused significant but lesser increases...

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