It's far from a secret that the U.S. economy is in trouble. A new report by the U.S. Census Bureau just puts numbers on what so many Americans already know.
Across the country last year, the state of poverty, income and health insurance worsened. Indeed, 15.1 percent of Americans lived in poverty in 2010, the highest percentage since 1993, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Tuesday report on poverty. In total numbers, 2.6 million more people fell into poverty last year, bringing the total to 46.2 million nationwide. For a family of four, poverty is defined as living with an income of $22,314 or less.
An increasingly stratified economy has taken its toll on income as well. The same report finds that inflation-adjusted wages for the median male worker are at lows not seen since 1968, as businesses begin to tailor product lines to account for a country with more rich and poor, and fewer middle-class.
Health insurance benefits has also taken a hit. Many employers are beginning to suspend worker health insurance benefits or instead rely on part-time workers to cut costs. The Census Bureau reports that 1.5 million fewer Americans were covered by employee-sponsored health plans in 2010. Furthermore, the number of Americans with no insurance at all now sits around 50 million. Dire, indeed.
Here are 13 devastating numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau's report, compiled by the Economic Policy Institute:
