poverty

Half of Americans have almost no savings, according to a May 2016 survey by the Federal Reserve. For such people, car trouble or a toothache can trigger financial ruin.

A clear and persistent legacy of the Great Recession is the country’s high national unemployment rate, which has hovered at 9 percent or greater since May 2009. It has been less clear, however, how the economic downturn has impacted the collective wealth of U.S. households.

Once upon a time, the American family of the popular imagination lived in the suburbs, had 2.5 children, and spent its weekends washing the car in the driveway. The United States has become increasingly diverse and significantly more urban over time, however, and such images no longer hold true for much of the country — even to the exclusion of that most American of icons, the family car.

In 2010 and 2011, the rate of poverty in the United States stayed roughly constant at 15% — some 46.2 million people, according to Census Bureau figures issued in September 2012. This represents the greatest total number of people designated as poor since the government began the count more than a half-century ago.

A 2016 study explores the issue of the unclaimed dead – who they are, how they died and how long they waited in a coroner’s office before burial or cremation.

Update: The USDA’s “Cost of Raising a Child” report has been released for 2011.