Von der Leyen manifesta confiança num acordo comercial com EUA

[Surfer]

By the end of last year, 34.6 million Americans lived in poverty. Among those, 12.1 million are children, up from 11.7 million in 2001... Good News... America can still offer you noodle ramen at just 12 cents a package

U.S. household incomes declined for the third year in a row, and nearly 1.7 million people in the country fell into poverty as the economy recovered sluggishly from the 2001 recession, the U.S. Census Bureau reported yesterday.
The poverty rate rose, for the second straight year, to 12.1 percent in 2002, from 11.7 percent the year before. Even so, the poverty rate last year remained below the average for the previous two decades.

The poverty increases were concentrated among African Americans, suburban residents and Midwesterners. By the end of last year, 34.6 million Americans lived in poverty. Among those, 12.1 million are children, up from 11.7 million in 2001.

Median household cash income, the level at which half of Americans earn more money and half earn less, fell 1.1 percent, to $42,409 in 2002, from $42,900 the year before. Annual median household cash income, which excludes non-cash payments such as food stamps or housing subsidies, peaked in 1999 at $43,915, and has dropped since then by 3.4 percent.

"The reach of the jobless recovery really jumps out at you in these numbers," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "We're looking at another protracted weak recovery where the disconnect between economic growth and household income lasts for years."

Daniel Weinberg, chief of the bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, said the decline in income and rise in poverty mirror statistics from virtually all previous recessions. He suggested the numbers might have been worse had it not been for President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut passed in 2001 and a rise in the value of food stamps and housing subsidies.

The figures come as Bush's approval ratings are at the lowest levels of his term and Democratic presidential candidates have focused their criticism on his stewardship of the economy. Even the timing of the data's release raised questions. Census Bureau officials acknowledged yesterday that the annual income and poverty reports have never before been released on a Friday, the day when bad news is often released in Washington in hopes its impact will dissipate over the weekend. Democrats alleged that the change was politically motivated, an assertion that Census Bureau spokesman Larry Neal denied.

Poverty levels rose in many of the states that will be closely contested in next year's presidential election: Arkansas, Florida, Illinois and Michigan. Median household income fell in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri and Florida.

The other states with statistically significant increases in their poverty rates were Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah.

Averaged over two years, which is how the bureau releases the information by state, poverty rates in 2001 and 2002 jumped 0.9 percent in the District of Columbia over the 2000-2001 average. Virginia had a 0.8 percent increase, and Maryland had no change. Using the same two-year averages, household cash income fell 4.7 percent in the District and 0.5 percent in Maryland. Median income rose 0.4 percent in Virginia.

By: Jonathan Weisman/title -Damon Vickers