Five Things You Should Know About Poverty in the United States

A minimum-wage, full-time job does not guarantee a decent, affordable place to live.
Nowhere in the United States can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent, based on the generally accepted affordability standard of paying no more than 30 percent of income for housing. To afford FMR on a two-bedroom housing unit, one would have to earn between $8.72 per hour in West Virginia and $21.14 per hour in Massachusetts.
--National Housing Conference, National Low Income Housing Coalition

In 2001, one in seven Americans had critical housing needs.
This includes 14.4 million Americans who paid more than half their income for housing and/or lived in physically substandard housing. Working families with critical housing needs are found in both cities and suburbs. And while the highest percentage of housing needs is found in the Northeast and West, the most rapidly growing segment of housing need is in the Midwest.
--National Housing Conference

A child is born into poverty every 46 seconds.
With one out of every six American children (11.6 million) living below the poverty line in 2000, more children live in poverty today than did 20 or 30 years ago. The proportion of poor children in working families is at a record high, and the majority of poor children are white, even though the proportion of black and Hispanic children is far higher.
--Children's Defense Fund, U.S. Census Bureau

Poverty housing is not limited to inner cities.
Poverty remains a problem in rural America, with all but 11 of the 200 poorest counties in the United States being "nonmetropolitan." Nearly two million rural homes are moderately or severely inadequate, with structural problems, leaky roofs, faulty wiring and no indoor plumbing. Health-threatening substandard housing afflicts millions of rural families, particularly along the U.S./Mexico border, on Native American reservations and in regions such as the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia.
--Housing Assistance Council

Race and/or ethnicity matters.
Minorities continue to experience higher poverty rates than whites. While less than 8 percent of whites live in poverty, nearly 25 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives, nearly 23 percent of African-Americans, more than 21 percent of Hispanics and more than 10 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders spend their lives in poverty.
--Poverty USA; U.S. Census Bureau