Source: Pew Research
Even conservative think tanks are alarmed.
Related reading:
America's real economy: It's not booming. (Forbes, 8/22/2018)
The Nation recently published a stunning overview of the working poor and underpaid. One of the most powerful data points in the piece described how empty the decline in unemployment actually is: having a job doesn’t exempt anyone from poverty anymore. About 12% of Americans (43 million) are considered poor, and yet they are employed. They earn an individual income below $12,140 per year, and slightly more than that for a family of two. If you include housing and medical expenses in the calculation, it raises the percentage of Americans living in poverty to 14%. That’s 45 million people.
Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not. (The New York Times, 9/11/2018)
U.S. unemployment is down and jobs are going unfilled. But for people without much education, the real question is: Do those jobs pay enough to live on?
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