Thanks Messers Bush and Cheney!
Census Bureau: Tough times began before recession
Even before the recession, more than one in five Americans needed help from family, friends or outsiders to pay for basic needs, according to a survey by the Census Bureau.
By SAM ROBERTS
The New York Times
Even before the recession, more than one in five Americans needed help from family, friends or outsiders to pay for basic needs, according to a survey by the Census Bureau.
In addition, 14 percent of all Americans and 26 percent of blacks who responded to the 2005 survey reported that at some time in the preceding year they were not able to meet essential expenses on their own, like paying the mortgage and buying sufficient food.
"Presumably, this would be more severe than just being late with your utility payment," said Kurt J. Bauman, a bureau analyst.
A variety of measures of well-being were recorded in the bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, which was released on Thursday.
While 99 percent of the nation's 113 million households reported having a refrigerator and a stove, that means that more than a million households lacked those appliances. Ninety-nine percent also said they owned a television.
The survey found that more American households had air conditioners and microwave ovens than computers. Since 1998, the share of households with a personal computer increased to 67 percent, from 42 percent. The poor, the elderly and people without a high-school diploma were least likely to own one.
Ninety percent had landline telephones (down from 96 percent in 1998), and 71 percent had cellphones (up from 36 percent). Among households headed by people under age 30, more had cellphones (81 percent) than landlines (71 percent).
Since the survey was conducted well before the recession started in 2007, presumably many measures of economic well-being have since gotten worse. Still, 9 percent of households overall and more than 25 percent of those below the poverty line could not afford nutritionally adequate food without resorting to food pantries or other emergency supplies or to scavenging.
Compared with the 1990s, people overall said they were more likely to expect help if they needed it from family, friends, social services agencies or religious institutions. Black and Hispanic respondents were a little less likely to expect such help; blacks were a little more likely to have received it.
seattletimes.nwsource.com |
