Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

Chart shows the percentage of people by ratio of Income and resources to poverty threshold

Chart shows the percentage of people by ratio of Income and resources to poverty threshold

(AP) ? Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans ? nearly 1 in 2 ? have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years."

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax reduction, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far. He said some people described as poor live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

"There's no doubt the recession has thrown a lot of people out of work and incomes have fallen," Rector said. "As we come out of recession, it will be important that these programs promote self-sufficiency rather than dependence and encourage people to look for work."

Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. Many formerly middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold ? roughly $45,000 for a family of four ? because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job.

States in the South and West had the highest shares of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, which have scaled back or eliminated aid programs for the needy. By raw numbers, such families were most numerous in California and Texas, each with more than 1 million.

The struggling Americans include Zenobia Bechtol, 18, in Austin, Texas, who earns minimum wage as a part-time pizza delivery driver. Bechtol and her 7-month-old baby were recently evicted from their bedbug-infested apartment after her boyfriend, an electrician, lost his job in the sluggish economy.

After an 18-month job search, Bechtol's boyfriend now works as a waiter and the family of three is temporarily living with her mother.

"We're paying my mom $200 a month for rent, and after diapers and formula and gas for work, we barely have enough money to spend," said Bechtol, a high school graduate who wants to go to college. "If it weren't for food stamps and other government money for families who need help, we wouldn't have been able to survive."

About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.

The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs as well as taxes. Doing that pushed the number of people below 200 percent of the poverty level up from the 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September.

Broken down by age, children were most likely to be poor or low-income ? about 57 percent ? followed by seniors 65 and over. By race and ethnicity, Hispanics topped the list at 73 percent, followed by blacks, Asians and non-Hispanic whites.

Even by traditional measures, many working families are hurting.

Following the recession that began in late 2007, the share of working families who are low income has risen for three straight years to 31.2 percent, or 10.2 million. That proportion is the highest in at least a decade, up from 27 percent in 2002, according to a new analysis by the Working Poor Families Project and the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.

Among low-income families, about one-third were considered poor while the remainder ? 6.9 million ? earned income just above the poverty line. Many states phase out eligibility for food stamps, Medicaid, tax credit and other government aid programs for low-income Americans as they approach 200 percent of the poverty level.

The majority of low-income families ? 62 percent ? spent more than one-third of their earnings on housing, surpassing a common guideline for what is considered affordable. By some census surveys, child-care costs consume close to another one-fifth when a mother works.

Paychecks for low-income families are shrinking. The inflation-adjusted average earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have fallen from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000, and earnings for the next 20 percent have remained flat at $37,000. In contrast, higher-income brackets had significant wage growth since 1979, with earnings for the top 5 percent of families climbing 64 percent to more than $313,000.

A survey of 29 cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors released Thursday points to a gloomy outlook for those on the lower end of the income scale.

Many mayors cited the challenges of meeting increased demands for food assistance, expressing particular concern about possible cuts to federal programs such as food stamps and WIC, which assists low-income pregnant women and mothers. Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger in cities, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.

Across the 29 cities, about 27 percent of people needing emergency food aid did not receive it. Kansas City, Mo.; Nashville, Tenn.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Trenton, N.J., were among the cities that pointed to increases in the cost of food and declining food donations. Mayor Michael McGinn in Seattle cited an unexpected spike in food requests from immigrants and refugees, particularly from Somalia, Burma and Bhutan.

Among those requesting emergency food assistance, 51 percent were in families, 26 percent were employed, 19 percent were elderly and 11 percent were homeless.

"People who never thought they would need food are in need of help," said Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Mo., who co-chairs a mayors' task force on hunger and homelessness.

___

Online:

Census Bureau: www.census.gov

U.S. Conference of Mayors: www.usmayors.org/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-15-Low%20Income%20America/id-94d86745cbae43909a81182722d5cfbb

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GOP hopeful Paul says no Medicare in Constitution (AP)

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. ? Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul wants the federal government out of the health care business.

Paul is known for his libertarian views, and he's drawing lots of people in this week's swing through New Hampshire.

He told an overflow crowd of about 500 at an event Tuesday night that there's no provision in the Constitution for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal programs that cover millions of seniors and children.

The congressman from Texas says individual states should be left to provide whatever health care coverage they want.

Paul says he doesn't want to throw seniors and children off federal health care programs. But he says a free society shouldn't let government meddle in important services like health care.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111214/ap_on_el_pr/us_paul

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The nations weather (AP)

Weather Underground Forecast for Thursday, December 15, 2011.

Wet weather moves into the East, while rain and snow develop across the Pacific Northwest on Thursday. A low pressure system moves over the Great Lakes and into eastern Canada. This system will continue pushing a strong cold front eastward, which will make its way to the Northeastern US. This front will extend down the Ohio River Valley and through the Mississippi Valley, where it will produce more heavy rain showers. Rainfall totals will range from 1 to 2 inches in most areas. However, additional energy from the Gulf of Mexico may allow for scattered showers and thunderstorms in the South. Thunderstorms may develop from eastern Texas through the Tennessee Valley. In the North, the back side of the low pressure system will push cooler air into the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest, allowing for light freezing rain and light snow flurries to develop. Significant precipitation is not likely in these areas as the system passes to the east. Lake effect snow showers will develop along downwind shores across the Great Lakes. These areas may see 1 to 2 inches of new heavy and wet snow.

In the West, a low pressure system moves over the Pacific Northwest and pushes a cold front southward through California. This will produce rain across the Pacific Northwest and northern California, with snow likely at higher elevations. Expect 1 to 3 inches of snow in the Cascades and northern Sierras. Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Wednesday have ranged from a morning low of -2 degrees at Big Piney, Wyo. to a high of 86 degrees at Falfurrias, Texas

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_re_us/us_weatherpage_weather

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NHL Realignment Officially Adopts 4 Conferences

After what was said to be a little less than an hour-long discussion about how the NHL would realign the divisions for the start of the 2012-2013 NHL season, the NHL's Board of Governors has reached the decision that they will adopt a four-conference format.

Read the whole story

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/nhl-realignment-4-conferences_n_1130865.html

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This Beautiful Water Jug Opens and Closes Automagically [Design]

Created by Danish designer Pil Bredahal, this water jug is not only beautiful but useful, opening automatically when you pour and keeping ice and any other solids inside. Also, the picture makes me thirsty for a gin-tonic. [Amazon via Swiss Miss] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/2OfS6vRkEU0/this-beautiful-water-jug-opens-and-closes-automagically

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Reduce Stress by Dividing Your Day into Three Operational Modes [Mind Hacks]

Reduce Stress by Dividing Your Day into Three Operational ModesPeople build stress by thinking about an issue all day or get into a cycle where worrying about something leads to the the behavior we were worried about, such as eating too much because we spend too much time worrying about gaining weight or continually arriving late to work due to the pressure of not running late. We have to break these cycles in order to reduce stress and accomplish our goals. To accomplish this, blogger Tim Horie recommends that we divide our day into three distinct operational modes: thinking, doing, and relaxing.

On the surface that is pretty obvious. But similar to how capturing actions in the Getting Things Done philosophy removes the need to remember everything, having a distinct time to think about our problems and goals and only allowing worrying and planning during those times is rather freeing. When the time comes for the second mode, doing, we will work on our goals and not analyze them. This is similar to the philosophy behind National Novel Writing Month?you're not trying to edit and create a publishable novel, you're just trying to get enough words down that something is accomplished for the day.

Once you're able to set aside time for pure thought and action without analysis you should be able to let everything go for a few hours to relax with a movie, exercising, or spending time with friends.

If you spend a week or so giving the Three Operational Modes technique a try you might find that you have become more productive and less stressed as your thoughts and worries aren't creeping into your work or relaxation time. Photo by Jukka Zitting

Reduce stress with 3 operational modes | Tim Horie's blog via Reddit

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/6wjwG3zy7ZA/reduce-stress-by-dividing-your-day-into-three-operational-modes

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Zynga hopes to raise about $1 billion in IPO

(AP) ? Hoping to harvest some fresh cash, the online game company behind "FarmVille" said Friday that it plans to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of up to 100 million shares.

Zynga Inc. is the latest in a spate of IPOs by Internet companies this year, ranging from professional networking service LinkedIn Corp. to the online deals site Groupon Inc. They're all precursors to Facebook's public debut expected sometime after April next year. Facebook could fetch as much as $10 billion in its offering.

Zynga, whose games are played mainly on Facebook, plans to sell its shares at $8.50 to $10 each. If the shares are priced at $10, Zynga will be valued at $7 billion based on the number of its total shares. That's a smaller valuation that the company's shares have traded recently on SharesPost, a secondary stock exchange used to trade the stock of privately held companies. There, a recent trade valued Zynga at $11.7 billion.

The company expects to sell 14.3 percent of its available stock, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's a relatively high "float," which could give investors confidence that the company isn't trying to artificially inflate its value. Groupon raised some concerns when it sold just 5.5 percent of its outstanding stock. Though not unprecedented, the amount was below that of many prominent tech companies, such as Google (7.2 percent), Amazon (12.6 percent) and LinkedIn (8.2 percent).

The offering gives investors the option to buy an additional 15 million shares to cover over-allotments, bringing the total number of shares for sale to 115 million.

Newly-public tech companies aren't always a hit after their initial offering. Shares of Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc., are trading below their IPO price and Groupon is slightly above and has fluctuated wildly. Unlike those two, however, Zynga is profitable. The company makes most of its revenue by charging small amounts of money for virtual items in its games. Players pay for new crops in "FarmVille," for example, or new buildings in "CityVille," its most popular game.

The company plans to use the proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes such as game development, marketing and other expenses. It also plans to use part of it for its philanthropic venture, Zynga.org.

Zynga has about 2,300 employees. It was founded in 2007 by CEO Mark Pincus. Following the IPO, Pincus will continue to be the sole holder of Zynga's Class C stock, each share of which carries 70 votes. After the offering, Pincus, 45, will control about 36.2 percent of the total voting power at Zynga through Class B and Class C shares he owns.

Companies often split their stock into different classes to keep control of the decisions about the company in the hands of founders and early employees. But having a class of shares carry 70 votes is unusual ? about 10 is more common.

__

Associated Press Writer Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-12-02-US-Zynga-IPO/id-5fa13483a44d4b0ab13cd8b32c809d02

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Gasoline Fuel Cell Would Boost Electric Car Range

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3D-printed bone replacements coming soon to an orthopedic surgeon near you, courtesy of WSU (video)

3D printers are slowly, but surely working their way into all sorts of useful, everyday applications -- like the creation of chocolates, flutes and even Mario Kart turtle shell racers. Now, Washington State University engineers are unveiling a unique implementation of the tech that could aid in the regrowth of damaged or diseased bones. Utilizing a ceramic compound, the group's optimized ProMetal 3D printer builds dissolvable scaffolds coated with a plastic binding agent that serve as a blueprint for tissue growth. The team's already logged four long years fine tuning the process, having already achieved positive results testing on rats and rabbits, but it appears there's still a ways to go -- about 10 -12 years, according to the project's co-author Susmita Bose -- before orthopedic and dental surgeons can begin offering "printed" bone replacements. With a synthetic windpipe already under medical science's belt and now this, it's looking like we're just a few short decades away from that long sought after full body replacement. Right, Mr. Lagerfeld? Click on past the break for a brief look at this osteo-friendly machinery.

Continue reading 3D-printed bone replacements coming soon to an orthopedic surgeon near you, courtesy of WSU (video)

3D-printed bone replacements coming soon to an orthopedic surgeon near you, courtesy of WSU (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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