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Great Satan US has money for wars But US poverty remains high,household income flat

US poverty remains high,household income flat

The US household income did not rise in 2012 and poverty failed to fall, according to new data from the Census Bureau.

The figures show that the income of the median American household this year, adjusted for inflation, is no higher than it was for the equivalent household in the late 1980s. But experts warn that the poverty rate in the country is too high.

“Everything’s on hold, but at a bad level,” Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution said as reported by the New York Times. “The poverty and income numbers are a metaphor for the entire economy,” he said.

According to the Times, incomes have stagnated or worse for more than a decade for all but the most highly educated and affluent Americans.

The census report found that median household income, adjusted for inflation, was $51,017 in 2012, down about 9 percent from an inflation-adjusted peak of $56,080 in 1999, mostly as a result of the Great Recession. Most Americans have had no gains since the economy hit bottom in 2009.

The report said the economic recovery has largely failed to reach the poor and the middle class while corporate profits have increased. The official number of people living in poverty is more than 46 million.

According to the Census Bureau data, income gains have accrued, since the recession officially ended in 2009, almost entirely to the top 5 percent of earners – households making more than about $191,000 a year. However, those in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution are generally making considerably less than they had been, hit by high rates of unemployment and nonexistent wage growth, the bureau found.

A recent study by the Internal Revenue Service has shown that the income gap between the richest 1 percent in the United States and the rest of the American people reached its widest point in 2012 since 1928. The wealthiest 10 percent collected 48.2 percent of the total earnings in 2012, according to the study.

The official US unemployment rate now hovers around 7.3 percent. But some economists believe the true rate is much higher – more than 20 percent.

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