How Bad Is It?

Child poverty in US approaches 25%

"The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in the U.S. will soon hit 25 percent, the report said. Those children would be the largest American generation to be raised in hard times since the Great Depression.

In Seminole County, near Orlando, Fla., so many kids have lost their homes that school busses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week.

American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives.

According to a revised report by the Census Bureau, overall poverty in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people.

One in five American children lives in poverty and one in four American child is on food stamps.

More than 16.7 million children live in households that struggle to put food on the table.

Critics say the poverty line does not take into consideration certain factors such as rent or the median price of a home. If it did, the percentage of Americans living under the poverty line would raise to 30 percent."

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