A new Census report indicates America's phenomenally durable economic expansion is touching more and more people. The poverty rate is down to 11.8 percent, or 32 million people, the lowest percentage since 1979. Gains are especially dramatic for blacks and Hispanic-Americans. While the economy delivers prosperity for millions, it's also driving up rents. Across America, millions of working families, folks who failed to cash in on stock market expansion or the new global economy, are forced to double up in seedy, overcrowded apartments.
Whole families share single bedrooms.
Some sleep in their cars. Many full-time workers have to choose between paying the rent or paying for food, medical care or child care. And in some hot-growth areas, the situation is even worse. In more than half of America's metro areas, fair market rent is at least twice the minimum wage. And U.S. child poverty remains higher than that of most advanced nations.