US Census: Black Individuals had Record Low Official Poverty Rate 2022

[Mel Hopkins]

 

 

While the Black community is still overrepresented at 20% in the poverty category, Black people have reached a "new low"overall. This time, "low" is good because, according to the US Census Bureau, the official poverty rate for the Black Population reached a historic low of 17.1 %. The Black Community was the only group to experience a significant change in poverty between 2021 and 2022! (Say what?)  For comparison, in 1959, more than half (55.1 %) of the Black population was beyond broke.

I've attached the link to the study below. When you have time to review, you may conclude that COVID-19 programs helped the Black Community immensely because one measurement (Supplement Poverty Measure) indicates the poverty rate was as low as 11.3% before the pandemic safety net programs expired.

 

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/black-poverty-rate.html

 

By the way, did you notice the poverty rate for the white population? OMG!!!
 

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

[richardmurray]

Bill Moyers recalled from LBJ

We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

 

The land of opportunity myth is one of the great tragedies of the usa. It's always been  even when british colonies mostly filled with the impoverished. A 1% ofrom each : whites/women/indigenous/blacsk/males/many more

 

 

 

[ProfD]

24 minutes ago, richardmurray said:

The land of opportunity myth is one of the great tragedies of the usa.

Yep. Americans should be asking themselves why there is poverty at all in the most powerful country on the planet. Of course, it's by design.

[richardmurray]

@ProfD i oppose the need for the question of why, the british colonies that became the usa and the usa itself throughout its entire history was and is always mostly filled with financially poor people. You seem to suggest that once the usa became the militaristic empire , circa commonly called world war II , most people in the usa should not had been fiscally poor then and after. Militaristic power does not equal spreading of wealth, it never has. No need for the question of why poor . They were poor before and will be after. It is beyond design, it is the way of the country. 

[ProfD]

3 hours ago, richardmurray said:

@ProfD i oppose the need for the question of why...No need for the question of why poor . They were poor before and will be after. It is beyond design, it is the way of the country. 

As always, you have every right to oppose the question but it still remains. 

 

There is no need to have poverty/poor people in the wealthiest nation on the planet.

 

I'm not suggesting that everyone should be a millionaire. 

 

However, the US can afford to providing opportunities for every citizen to have food, clothing and shelter. 

 

On a daily basis, Americans throw away enough food to feed a small country.

 

By design, having poverty/poor/working class people feeds the economy. 

[richardmurray]

@ProfD well the arithmetic is simple,

A= USA revenue+ wealth in total

B= USA revenue+ wealth owned by: the one percent, the billionaires, the millionaires,  or various other controlling interest like members of the federal government which includes the military

C=A-B= the amount USA revenue + wealth available to the rest. 

D= need to the rest. 

 

B has always been large enough to make C<D. 

And B being large is fair, the usa is a fiscal capitalistic country. Fiscal capitalism is not socialism or communism. In fiscal capitalism one has the freedom to obtain huge amounts of wealth thus the attraction of fiscal capitalism. China's fiscal capitalism , born from their own socialism, essentially disallows a private sector one percent while maintains a public sector one percent. The government of china is not only has the government share like the usa federal government has, but also the one percent. 

But greed is acceptable in fiscal capitalism and sequentially, Fiscal Greed  which is completely legal in the usa makes (A-B)<D

To rephrase in pure arithmetic terms

(A-B(greed) )<D

case closed. You can not criminalize fiscal greed in the usa. So, the need is honest. Now, if fiscal greed becomes illegal in the usa then .... a different algorithm

[Pioneer1]

I admit that living in Western Michigan, my region isn't the most ideal one to measure and determine how successful Black America collectively is doing, but having grown up in a mostly Black city and having been all over the nation since the 80s.....AND knowing history....I have to question who came out with that report and how did they come to the conclusions they came to.

How can more Black Americans be in jail and homeless right now more than in any time in history AND be at a record low poverty rate at the same time????

Black folks....in Michigan atleast....collectively were doing MUCH better in the 80s and early 90s than they are collectively today.

Not nearly as many were incarcerated.
You didn't see nearly as many homeless.

Most lived in houses that they either owned or were buying.
Most had good jobs in factories with benefits and decent pay.

The percentage is MUCH lower now.

More Black folks have college degrees today than in the past....true.
But those jobs are very transient and you bounce from one to the other without a retirement, the pay doesn't seem to buy as much, and many don't even get jobs in their field of study.

You drive around the nation today and you see pockets where thousands of Black folks are out on the streets begging and many many more thousands are locked up behind bars.....not counted in the economic system.
Like the unemployment rate -I don't think they even count incarcerated people when they do poverty statistics.
It's like they don't even exist.
 
But being incarcerated is worse than poverty.
And being homeless and destitute as so many are today is worse than living on a meager income in the projects as so many were in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

[ProfD]

14 hours ago, richardmurray said:

@ProfD well the arithmetic is simple...case closed. You can not criminalize fiscal greed in the usa. So, the need is honest. 

 

The solution is even simpler...human beings need to do a better job in taking care of each other. More love. Less greed.

[richardmurray]

@ProfD well 

A = quantity of human beings that want to help other human beings

B = quantity of human beings that don't want to help other human beings

C= quantity of human beings that follow the leader

 

G1= fiscal effectiveness ( A)

G2 fiscal  effectiveness(C) 

G3= fiscal effectiveness (B) 

 

G1 > G2> G3 

(A-(B1(G1)-B2(G2)-B3(G3)) )<D

thus, again, the algorithm is simple. Those who don't want to help are more effective. Which again, goes to the nature of fiscal capitolism, which is the core of the usa. 

 

@Pioneer1 well over 95% of black people were once enslaved which is a pure combination of being incarcerated plus homeless at the same time, so I argue your assertion is wrong that black percentages to either are higher than ever. 

[Troy]

@Pioneer1 I don’t think people who are locked up are factored into the poverty figures. 

 

 The poverty rate also measures income versus a defined figure fora location as more blacks move out of cities where the threshold for poverty is higher to place where the threshold is lower poverty rates will decline (assuming local rates are being used in the graph above.

 

People were still getting stimulus checks, PPE money, extended unemployment in 2022 right? 

with inflation, rising the cost of energy from utilities to gasoline. The Increased cost of money I can see gains in 2022 being erased. 

[Pioneer1]

richardmurray

 

 

well over 95% of black people were once enslaved which is a pure combination of being incarcerated plus homeless at the same time, so I argue your assertion is wrong that black percentages to either are higher than ever. 

 

 

Well, let's look at it.....

Firstly, I was making two separate points.

1)How can more Black Americans be in jail and homeless right now more than in any time in history AND be at a record low poverty rate at the same time????

 

Then....

2)Black folks....in Michigan atleast....collectively were doing MUCH better in the 80s and early 90s than they are collectively today.

Not nearly as many were incarcerated.
You didn't see nearly as many homeless.

I'd have to argue that slaves generally speaking weren't "homeless".
They had homes they were actually forced to live in.

 

Also, I stand by my statement that more Black folks are in jail (which is a form of slavery in most cases) than at any time in history.

Prison is a form of slavery BUT....slavery wasn't necessarily the same as being in prison or jail.

Kind of like apples are fruit, but not all fruits are apples.

 

 

 

Troy

 

I think the income figures used to determine poverty are too low.

There are plenty of people making $50,000 or $60,000 a year who are on the verge of being homeless along with their families.
Those who do these studies like to make assumptions like the person is getting medicaid as well as taking advantage of certain programs like section 8 to help pay for their housing.

 

[Mel Hopkins]

On 9/19/2023 at 5:53 PM, Pioneer1 said:

How can more Black Americans be in jail and homeless right now more than in any time in history AND be at a record low poverty rate at the same time????

@Pioneer1 You ask great questions - and the beauty of the internet is the answers are also there too. In this case, the U.S. Census also offers its methodology. As @Troy mentioned, institutionalized individuals aren't represented in the poverty report.

 

"People Whose Poverty Status Cannot Be Determined
Poverty status cannot be determined for people in:

Institutional group quarters (such as prisons or nursing homes)
College dormitories
Military barracks
Living situations without conventional housing (and who are not in shelters)
Additionally, poverty status cannot be determined for unrelated individuals under age 15 (such as foster children) because income questions are asked of people age 15 and older and, if someone is under age 15 and not living with a family member, we do not know their income. Since we cannot determine their poverty status, they are excluded from the “poverty universe” (table totals)."

 .

I usually provide links so that "lurkers" can review for themselves. :D

Also, These reports aren't based on observation but actual data from the groups. I live in Atlanta and I would never base what's going on in Black America with many of these folks who are multimillionaires,  That assumption would be an absolutely false representation of the financial status of Black America.  I'd suggest going by the numbers - especially since Michigan doesn't even fall in the top five when it comes to the largest number of African-American residents.    https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/blackafrican-american-health

[Pioneer1]

I can understand why the poverty status of college students and military personnel isn't recorded.
But people who are jailed and in prison?

It shouldn't be hard to determine a person's financial status before incarceration.

 

And as for:

Living situations without conventional housing (and who are not in shelters)

What about homeless people who are living on the streets and not in shelters?
They don't count them either although they are definitely in poverty.

I think they're being not only lazy but quite deceptive in their statistics.

 

Kind of like they do with the "unemployment" rate.

They don't count the unemployed homeless OR people who stopped looking for work OR working aged people who are disabled in their statitics....which they should.

How would you know the TRUE unemployment rate if you remove people who are actually UNEMPLOYED???? 

That's like doing a survey on how many adults are single....but not counting those who are crazy, ugly, and anti-social.
Ofcourse the stats are going to be skewed.

[Mel Hopkins]

3 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

How would you know the TRUE unemployment rate if you remove people who are actually UNEMPLOYED???? 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics statisticians remove unemployed people from monthly reports. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/063015/how-does-us-bureau-labor-statistics-calculate-unemployment-rate-published-monthly.asp     

 

Quote

The greatest threat to the status quo of this country -is if all our Black babies excel in advanced mathematics. 

 

[Pioneer1]

Exactly........

The games these people play.

 

Another game they've been playing over the past 10 years or so was counting deserts and forests as people.

Political commentators will put up a map of the United States featuring communities that are mostly Republican in red vs communities that are mostly Democrat in blue.





What's deceptive is -everywhere PEOPLE actually live is Democrat blue but all of the land that is empty and nearly deserted except for trees and coyotes are red.
But they'll put the mostly red map up to make it look like Republicans dominate the U.S.