Poverty's down, but not enough
Some modest good news this week from the Census Bureau [pdf]: for the first time since the Great Recession began, the poverty rate is down a little and the child poverty rate is down a little more. The latter was driven by a bit of job growth and—among families with children—higher income.
But at this pace it'll take years for the poverty rate to get back down just to where it was in 2000. And as Kevin Drum points out, the oft-repeated claim that poverty has been mostly stagnant for 40+ years glosses over a gloomier reality: poverty among seniors has gone way down over the years, but poverty among working-age people has gone the other way. Meaning that while the overall poverty rate may be pretty steady, the market economy is increasingly failing the working class.
The social safety net helps, of course. But it's too small, and wages are too low—and political realities prevent either situation from changing. Monica Potts sums it up well:
