I was messing around on Wikipedia, as one does, and ended up on the page Social programs in the United States, wherein I found this: “The poorest 20% of American households earn a before-tax average of only $7,600, less than half of the federal poverty line.” (Social programs bring it up). I went to the source and it’s from 2008-2009, but assuming that percentage hasn’t drastically dropped since the recession, and accounting for inflation, that’s almost a quarter of Americans living well below the poverty line. Is this accurate?
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Wikipedia has sources, here’s the one from the paragraph you mentioned https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43373-06-11-HouseholdIncomeandFedTaxes.pdf
I don’t want to expose where I work but this is definitely true. These are the people in public housing going to food pantries
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/
Some people work part-time
And some of those people working for six or seven or $8000 a year do so by choice
A friend of mine’s wife helps a accountant during tax season, which means she starts in the middle of February and works March and April
She works about 30 hours a week about 10 weeks a year for 20 bucks an hour
The rest of the time she’s stay at home mom I guess
Average household income in the lowest quintile (20%) is **$22,500**.
“The average income of households in the highest quintile was about $418,100, CBO estimates, roughly 19 times the average income of households in the lowest quintile, which was $22,500. ”
[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60706?utm_source=chatgpt.com](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60706?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
I don’t know- but it really varies state to state. I know at the school my kids went to there was 30% of students on meal assistance programs (meaning deemed too poor for their family to buy them breakfast or lunch so school provided it) but we’re in on of the poorest states- so I wouldn’t assume that is typical.
My first thought, not saying your information was wrong, but what source was cited for the income data? Is it IRS? My parents had no reason to claim me on their taxes after I turned 18. I was 18 in high school & worked as a waitress & filed my own taxes. I was essentially “my own household” even though I lived with my parents. Be very critical of data that seems odd.
Of my 8 students only 1 has a parent that works at all so I’m not be surprised
You would be shocked how many families are living entirely off government assistance.
That doesn’t include government benefits or unreported income.
2008/2009 was both a recession *and* a decade and a half ago, so the numbers are certainly quite off. However, the basic concept – that about 20% live in poverty – is accurate.
There’s a small town near where I live where the median income is about $12,000.
I work with the low income population. I can’t speak to the actual percentage of the population they occupy, but it’s more than most people think. A lot of them are seniors living on bare-bones social security payments. A lot of folks are disabled. A lot of folks are a primary caregiver and can only work part time at a minimum wage job. And some folks live off of social assistance, like TANF, which provides far, far less money than most people think it does. They are hidden because there’s basically no way to participate in American life if you’re this poor. If I may quote The Onion (America’s Finest News Source), [poor people are pretty much fucked. ](https://theonion.com/report-poor-people-pretty-much-fucked-1819567168/)
That’s pretty crazy because it’s less than half of what someone working a full time minimum wage job would make where I live. If true, I guess it’s a combination of part time workers and states that use the federal minimum wage. Though, I have a hard time imagining all that many people actually make minimum wage, even my teenage daughter makes more than minimum wage.
Well, the current unemployment rate is about 4.5%, and unemployment benefits are not calculated for GDP.
I wonder if old people on social security are counted.
It depends on the state minimum wage, $12,000 seems very low. In that case someone would be working less than part-time. I personally haven’t made under 25k since I was 18. Working any entry level job full time will put you significantly over $12,000.
Some people are really just poor.
With that said, think about the following situations, these people would be in that group:
* Company closes down and the president takes a year off before seeking work. His investments don’t do well that year because it was a recession.
* Small business owner who normally makes $300k per year invests $300k in his business and uses the old rule of fully depreciating the new assets at implementation. He now has no income that year.
* Early retired person with paid off home and plenty of savings doesn’t pull money from retirement accounts and just lives off of savings.
The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.
I haven’t looked it up. What I will say is that there can be a lot of variability in this type of thing and might include people who are seasonal workers, college students, people with grants or scholarships or something else. Maybe people in different reporting households but live together and pool their money together. Maybe people who have money but not income. Some, but not all, are folks who literally have that much money for the entire year. Others work under the table and don’t report their income. Just something to consider.
Huh? No.
No. Per the US Census Bureau, in 2023 the 20th percentile for household incomes was $33,000. [See Table 4a on page 32](https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-282.pdf).
Also, keep in mind that 20% of households does not equal 20% of the population. Three-fifths of the households in the bottom 20% are just a single person. That is a higher share of single-person households than any other quintile.
More facts about the bottom quintile of households:
* Housing tenure
* Owner-occupied: 46%
* Renting: 54%
* Household type:
* Family households: 36%
* Married-couple families: 17%
* Non-family households: 64%
* Single-person households: 60%
* Age of householder:
* 24 years and under: 6%
* 65 years and over: 44%
* Number of earners:
* No earners: 64%
* One earner: 32%
* Two earners: 4%
* Three or more: (rounds to zero)
This thread has similar stats for the other quintiles too: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1knghwb/comment/msiltln/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1knghwb/comment/msiltln/)
SSI, which is disability for disabled people who have not been in the workforce at all, or for a short time, pays slightly less that $12/yr, so I’d guess yes. And averages include people who make $0, of course. But your data is more than 15 years old and things have changed, including where the poverty line is, so yes.
Yeah a lot of people make friends near their income level and if you’re lower income you’re not gonna just show off every aspect of how different your life is
Many are retired, disabled, or short-term unemployed
“Earn” as in earned income? Yes, 20% of American households would include retired people who don’t earn income anymore and live off social security, investments and savings.
All three of my living grandparents, youngest being 80, survive off federal support programs such as SNAP and disability income. My 80 year old grandpa still has a part time job because he’d lose his house otherwise. Much more common than you think, IMO.
That’s a scary m, sad situation, and I certainly hope that figure is wrong, especially considering Elon Musk makes $12,000 every 13 seconds, and Jeff Bezos spent $1,600,000.00 just on roses for his recent wedding.
In 2023, the official poverty rate in the United States was 11.1%. The federal poverty level for a single individual is $15,060.
I am reading the book Evicted by Mathew Desmond. Takes place in Milwaukee and follows families living off low income. I highly recommend it, it’s really eye opening to how horrible low income families are treated in this country.
Irs.gov is a good place to look up the data.
You can find the tax brackets and how many people fell into each category etc.
Approximately 36 million households do not fall into any income tax bracket, meaning their income is below the threshold for taxation
Single $11,925 or less
Married Filing Jointly $23,850 or less
Married Filing Separately $11,925 or less
Head of Household $17,000 or less
Is one example.
You can get data alot of different things at the site.
Absolutely, from living in different parts of the country. There’s many people who are chronically ill but unable to get disability income, and even those on that have to live on less than $12/k a year. Also, people with neurodivergence have an extremely high rate of living in poverty and struggling with unemployment, and it’s very difficult to access benefits, and having them is very limiting.
There’s those caring for children, and living off of a shoestring budget, or caring for an elderly or disabled family member. While there’s some states with programs to pay a wage for those doing caregiver, many don’t have that luxury.
I grew up very poor. I remember looking at my parents’ IRS forms one day, as a teenager, and the yearly income was $12,800. My father was the only one working due to my mother having a stroke a year after I was born. Been through a plethora of eviction notices, consuming expired foods, cut off utilities, you name it. Those experiences gave me such an anxiety about money.