Highest Levels: Corporate Profits, Severe Poverty

Nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty.

While this is not all too shocking news, it is certainly worth noting and examining.

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty is the highest in thirty years, in which millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between this country's ''haves'' and ''have-nots'' gets wider.

According to the study the article cites, "nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty." The 16 million compose 43% of the 37 million poor people in the United States, the highest the rate has been since 1975. The picture does not get any better when the statistics are broken down by race.

Nearly two out of three people (10.3 million) in severe poverty are white, but blacks (4.3 million) and Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) make up disproportionate shares. Blacks are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while Hispanics are roughly twice as likely.

While wages and job growth have not seen a sizable increase since 2001, corporate profits certainly have.

At the same time, economists found worker productivity increasing sizeably since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. The share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. Median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

Ironically, the city with the highest percentage of those in severe poverty is our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., sitting at 10.8%.