6 states and D.C. with the most people in poverty
Monday, February 23, 2015 at 02:17AM We all know that the income distribution in the U.S. is completely uneven. According to the most recent Census reports, 80% of people share less than half of the income. And that other 20% has enough money to dive into giant piles of cash like Scrooge McDuck (excuse the dramatic exaggeration).
We often hear about the haves and have-nots. But, as some of us sit and think about how the office worker earns only a fraction of what the executive on the top floor does, we forget that there are also those who do not have enough money to even cover the most basic necessities.
The lowest income groups have only the tiniest pieces of the pie. The bottom 20% share only 3% of the income in this country, and the next 20% share only 9%.
There is a large group of people in the U.S. — around 45 million of them — who fit poverty guidelines. That is, they are part of a family of four living off of an annual income of less than $23,850, a couple living off of less than $15,730, or an individual living off of less than $11,670 (per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's most recent publications).
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