I'm Poor, You're Poor, Everybody's Poor, Poor!!!!

Yes.  We are gaining in numbers.  Whoops. I guess that doesn't help us.  The Poverty Rate rose to 14.3%, the highest since 1994.  How horrid.  And when I say 'poverty,' I mean pooooooor as dirt;
"For a single adult in 2009, the poverty line was $10,830 in pretax cash income; for a family of four, $22,050."  That is really poor.  I actually don't think I qualify, but we'll see when I do my quarterly taxes at the end of this month. I always seem to think I did better than I actually did.

It seems that this number could have been so much worse.  Thank God for mom and dad:

And the numbers could have climbed higher: One way embattled Americans have gotten by is sharing homes with siblings, parents or even nonrelatives, sometimes resulting in overused couches and frayed nerves but holding down the rise in the national poverty rate, according to the report.

So, what's the REAL poverty rate?  Why do I always have to ask these questions for the retards over at the New York Times. I'd like to see the stats on how many able bodied people are couch surfing and what the real poverty rate is based on that number.  God, must I do everything?  And they make the story even more bland by noting that those poverty stricken by the recession are the usual suspects:

Dr. Smeeding said it seemed almost certain that poverty would further rise this year. He noted that the increase in unemployment and poverty had been concentrated among young adults without college educations and their children, and that these people remained at the end of the line in their search for work.

We're in the front of the line, I suppose.  So, they go into several heart wrenching stories of uneducated folks with babies that are forced to move in with relatives to weather the financial storm.  I would rather read about people like BL1y who no one would have ever thought would be living below the poverty line.  Oh yah, he doesn't count because his parents are working.

But the situation would be more bleak but for unemployment benefits and, at the same time, it's not as bleak as we thought because of certain benefits that come with living in this Great Country of ours:

If food-stamp benefits and low-income tax credits were included as income, close to 8 million of those labeled as poor in the report would instead be just above the poverty line, the Census report estimated. At the same time, a person who starts a job and receives the earned income tax credit could have new work-related expenses like transportation and child care. Unemployment benefits, which are considered cash income and included in the calculations, helped keep 3 million families above the line last year, the report said, with temporary extensions and higher payments helping all the more.

So, once again, a half ass story from an ass clown publication.  Try and publish a real story, New York Times!

Thanks for the tip, BIDER Reader.