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Share Our Strength's Bill Shore on the New Statistics Showing Record Number of Americans Living in Poverty

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Share Our Strength | September 13 - The Census Bureau today released their annual statistics showing the extent of the poverty crisis in the United States in 2010. [Census Report]

September 13

Share Our Strength's Bill Shore on the New Statistics Showing Record Number of Americans Living in Poverty

Washington, D.C. - The Census Bureau today released their annual statistics showing the extent of the poverty crisis in the United States in 2010. [Census Report]

  • Poverty rate is up: The U.S. poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent the year before. This is the third consecutive annual increase.
  • More people in poverty: In 2010, 46.2 million people in the U.S. were living in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009. This is the largest number of poor Americans recorded in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been publishing this statistic.
  • Overall income Down: In 2010, real median household income for the nation fell 2.3 percent to $49,445.
  • Children affected: More children are living in poverty in America, with the rate increasing from 20.7 percent in 2009 to 22.0 percent in 2010.

Bill Shore, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Share Our Strength, released the following statement in response to these new numbers:

“These new statistics show a record number of Americans living in poverty. This underscores the need to prioritize and protect the most vulnerable among us: our children.The fastest and most direct route for doing so is to ensure that all eligible children are participating in the essential food and nutrition programs that were created with bipartisan support to serve as a safety net in times like these.

Ending poverty is complicated. Feeding a child is not. We have the programs in place to feed our children. Now is the time to use them and to remove every barrier that prevents children from accessing such programs.

Breaking the cycle of poverty starts at the schoolhouse door. For America’s economy to get healthy we need our schools to produce students who are strong, smart, healthy and competitive and able to compete for jobs with students anywhere in the world. And healthy students depend on the food and nutrition essential for their bodies and minds to grow. That’s why Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry model must be a key ingredient to any effort to reverse these trends and reduce the number of Americans living in poverty.”

Bill Shore is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood hunger in America. He isalso the author of four books, including The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, which was published in November 2010.

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