Showing posts with label U.S. Census Bureau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Census Bureau. Show all posts

Sunday, June 7, 2015

The Anti-Poverty Experiment

In the U.S. and abroad, a new generation of data-driven programs is testing ways to help the poor to save more, live better and find their own way to economic security

The U.S. and other wealthy nations have spent trillions of dollars over the past half-century trying to lift the world’s poorest people out of penury, with largely disappointing results. In 1966, shortly after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty, 14.7% of Americans were poor, under the official definition of the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2013, 14.5% of Americans were poor.
World-wide, in 1981, 2.6 billion people subsisted on less than $2 a day; in 2011, 2.2 billion did. Most of that progress came in China, while poverty has barely budged in large swaths of sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
Is it time for a new approach? Many experts who study poverty think so. They see great promise in a new generation of experimental programs focusing not on large-scale social support and development but on helping the poor and indebted to save more, live better and scramble up in their own way.
Linda Hanson of Duluth, Minn., 64 years old, works as an administrative assistant at a local organization for the disabled; her husband, Glenn, 65, is a retired city bus driver. Today, the Hansons have achieved some financial stability, but by early 2014, they were in trouble: Linda had lost her previous job, their catering business had failed and they had racked up about $28,000 on their credit cards.
Overwhelmed by the debt, they struggled even to make the minimum monthly payments, said Mrs. Hanson—until they heard about Pay and Win, an experimental program offered by Lutheran Social Services in Duluth to encourage struggling borrowers to manage their debts. Those who steadily pay down their loans each month are eligible for raffle drawings.
“When you know you have a hope of winning,” says Mrs. Hanson, “what a motivation!” The Hansons soon got their finances in order and felt less overwhelmed. In January, the Hansons got a surprise windfall: They won the program’s grand prize of $5,000, which they committed to use to pay down the principal on their debt. “We’re going to be OK now,” says Mr. Hansen.

Friday, September 13, 2013

CFPB's data-mining on consumer credit cards challenged in heated House hearing

ITS NOT WHAT IT APPEARS TO BE!
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officials are seeking to monitor four out of every five U.S. consumer credit card transactions this year — up to 42 billion transactions – through a controversial data-mining program, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.

A CFPB strategic planning document for fiscal years 2013-17 describes the “markets monitoring” program through which officials aim to monitor 80 percent of all credit card transactions in 2013.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 1.16 billion consumer credit cards were in use in 2012 for an estimated 52.6 billion transactions. If CFPB officials reach their stated "performance goal," they would collect data on 42 billion transactions made with 933 million credit cards used by American consumers.
In addition, CFPB officials hope to monitor up to 95 percent of all mortgage transactions, according to the planning document.
This is one step closer to a Big Brother form of government where they know everything about us,” said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.
At a Wednesday hearing before the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, CFPB Director Richard Cordray defended the data-mining practice and said his agency is monitoring credit card usage at 110 banks, including Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, Discover and American Express.
In a related development, Rep. Spencer Bachus, Hensarling’s predecessor on the House Financial Services Committee, told the Examiner he believes CFPB violated at least two federal laws by using the impartial U.S. Trustee Program to gather bankruptcy data as part of the data-mining campaign.
The Examiner reported Monday that bankruptcy experts are concerned that CFPB is undermining the trustee program's independence and impartiality. The trustee program is the federal government’s main administrative agency for handling bankruptcy cases.

Monday, October 22, 2012

U.S. Government's Foreign Debt Now $47,495 Per Household


(CNSNews.com) - The debt that the U.S. government owes to foreign interests now equals approximately $47,495 for each household in the United States, according to the latest data released by the U.S. Treasury and the Census Bureau.
The portion of the U.S. government’s foreign debt now owed to interests in Mainland China is about $10,090 per household.
At the end of August, the latest period reported by the U.S. Treasury, foreign interests held a total of $5,430,000,000,000 in U.S. government debt. According to the Census Bureau’s latest estimate (which was for June 2012) there were 114,328,000 households in the United States. Therefore, the total U.S. government debt held by foreign interests was about $47,494.93 per household.
Back in January 2009, foreign interests held a total of $3,071,700,000,000 in U.S. government debt. That month, according to the Census Bureau, there were 111,079,000 households in the United States. Therefore the total U.S. government debt held by foreign interests was about $27,653.29 per household.
Since January 2009, the total U.S. government debt held by foreign interests has climbed from approximately $27,653.29 per household to approximately $47,494.93 per household—an increase of about $19,841.64 per household.
Among foreign interests, those in Mainland China hold the largest share of the U.S. government’s debt. The Mainland Chinese, according to the Treasury, owned $1,153,600,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities as of the end of August.
Back in January 2009, interests in Mainland China held only $739.6 billion in U.S. government debt. That month, the U.S. government owed about $6,658 per American household to interests in China. As of the end of August, the U.S. government owed about $10,090 per American household to interests in China—an increase since January 2009 of about $3,432 per household.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Americans’ Incomes Have Fallen $3,040 During the Obama “Recovery”…

jobs
Americans must be wondering how much more of this “recovery” they can afford.  New figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the typical American household’s real (inflation-adjusted) income has actually dropped 5.7 percent during the Obama “recovery.”  Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession.  Now, after 38 months of this “recovery,” it has fallen to $50,678 — a drop of $3,040 per household. 
Yet it gets worse.  Amazingly, incomes have dropped even more during the “recovery” than they did during the recession.  In fact, they’ve dropped more than twice as much as they did during the recession.  From the start to the end of the recession, the real median income of American households fell $1,413, or 2.6 percent.  From the end of the recession to the present day, it has dropped $3,040, or 5.7 percent.  This begs the question:  What kind of “recovery” compares unfavorably with the recession from which it’s ostensibly recovering?

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Unemployment would be 11.2 percent if labor force same as when Obama took office


Last Friday’s jobs report does not tell the whole unemployment story, according to American Enterprise Institute blogger and CNBC contributor James Pethokoukis.
He writes, “If the labor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 11.2%.”
Had the participation rate remained the same as the previous month, Pethokoukis points out, “the unemployment rate would be 8.4 percent” — higher than the 8.1 percent in the August report.
Those who have returned to work amidst the meager recovery are often only finding jobs that are part-time and pay less than what they formerly earned.
“The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who want full-time work, is at 14.7 percent.”
Today, one in two are considered low income or below the poverty line, according to the Census Bureau, sparking fears of a shrinking middle class.
Record numbers of Americans receive food stamps and Social Security disability insurance, instead of seeking jobs that seem to be non-existent.
Via: The Daily Caller

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Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Lost Decade of the Middle Class


CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW

As the 2012 presidential candidates prepare their closing arguments to America’s middle class, they are courting a group that has endured a lost decade for economic well-being. Since 2000, the middle class has shrunk in size, fallen backward in income and wealth, and shed some—but by no means all—of its characteristic faith in the future.
These stark assessments are based on findings from a new nationally representative Pew Research Center survey that includes 1,287 adults who describe themselves as middle class, supplemented by the Center’s analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Fully 85% of self-described middle-class adults say it is more difficult now than it was a decade ago for middle-class people to maintain their standard of living. Of those who feel this way, 62% say “a lot” of the blame lies with Congress, while 54% say the same about banks and financial institutions, 47% about large corporations, 44% about the Bush administration, 39% about foreign competition and 34% about the Obama administration. Just 8% blame the middle class itself a lot.
Their downbeat take on their economic situation comes at the end of a decade in which, for the first time since the end of World War II, mean family incomes declined for Americans in all income tiers. But the middle-income tier—defined in this Pew Research analysis as all adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national

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