America's North Shore Journal

Remember how old people used to get by on cans of cat food? Well, at least under George Bush, things are better than that. The poverty rate for people over 65 was at a record low in 2006, 9.4%, and is at its second lowest for 2007, 9.7%.

Looking at the graph, do you suppose that the crisis with the elderly may have been exaggerated? It appears that, in the post-industrial economy, the poverty rate for the elderly seems to hover around 10%. That may be a baseline given all the factors that go into that rate. The drop from 15% to 10% took about 20 years. Another drop of one third could be possible, 10 to 7%, but we are a decade at about 10%.

On the other end of the spectrum, children living in poverty is at 18%, the highest rate since 1998. That stat is driven by a black children’s poverty rate of 34.5% and a Hispanic rate of 28.6%. 4.5 million Hispanic children live in poverty and 3.9 million black children. 13.3 million children of all races live in poverty with the vast majority being black and Hispanic.