In 2010 the percent of Americans in poverty was 15.1%, about same as 1966. Child poverty became much
[FM Lappe takeaway from article below: 40-50 years after the War on Poverty's height in 1966, the % of Americans in poverty is basically what it was then. And the child poverty rate is significantly greater than it was then. Now 22%. The share of households below half the poverty line is at a record high: 1 in 15. But for children, it's 1 in 10. ]]
"In 1966, at the height of the War on Poverty, the poverty rate was just under 15 percent of the population; in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, it was 15.1 percent. And the child-poverty rate is 22 percent — substantially higher today than it was then. And yet as a political issue, especially during this presidential campaign season, poverty has receded almost to silence." ---- "The number of families in deep poverty grew sharply during the recent recession and its aftermath, and in 2010, the share of Americans whose families made less than half of the poverty line hit a record: 6.7 percent of the population, or 1 in 15 Americans. The numbers are even higher for children, disturbingly so. In 2010, 1 in every 10 American children lived in deep poverty."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/obama-poverty.html?pagewanted...
Paul Tough, "What Does Obama Really Believe in?" New York Times, Aug. 15, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/obama-poverty.html?pagewanted...
[verified 4/17/14]