{
  "id": "R44698",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R44698",
  "active": true,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 457298,
      "date": "2016-11-30",
      "retrieved": "2016-12-09T19:09:11.361818",
      "title": "Demographic and Social Characteristics of Persons in Poverty: 2015",
      "summary": "This report provides a snapshot of the characteristics of the poor in the United States in 2015. It shows that people from families whose income falls below the federal poverty thresholds represent a diverse subset of the overall population. \nThere were 43 million people living below the federal poverty level in 2015, representing 13.5% of the total population.\nNearly half (45.1%) of all people in poverty lived in deep poverty (with income below 50% of the poverty threshold).\nThe largest share of people in poverty were non-Hispanic white (41.2%) but the majority were not. Almost all other racial and ethnic groups were over-represented among the poor, relative to their prevalence in the overall population. Similar to the overall population, children who were poor were more racially and ethnically diverse than adults who were poor, especially aged adults.\nA majority (55.9%) of poor people were women.\nChildren (under age 18) were disproportionately represented among people in poverty, constituting fully one-third of this group.\nMost poor children (two-thirds) lived in families where there was at least one earner; however, only 10.5% lived in families with at least two earners. Conversely, in the overall population, half of all children lived in families with two earners.\nMost poor children lived in single parent homes, but one-third lived in married-couple families. Two-thirds of children in the overall population lived in married-couple families.\nThe majority of people in poverty were working-age adults (age 18-64). \nWhile most (76.2%) working-age adults in the overall population were working in 2015, most (61.3%) working-age adults in poverty were not working in 2015. The most common reasons reported for non-work among those in poverty were illness or disability, the need to meet caretaking responsibilities, or being enrolled in school. \nAlthough most working-aged adults in poverty were not working, nearly 40% were working in 2015; 10.4% were working full-time, full-year.\nMost working-age adults in poverty lacked a post-secondary educational credential; 80.6% had a high school diploma or less, compared to 58.7% in the overall population.\nFewer than 10% of people in poverty were aged (age 65 and older); since aged adults make up 14.9% of the overall population, this means they are underrepresented among people in poverty.\nThe vast majority of aged adults in poverty either had, or lived in families that had, income from work or from retirement or other social insurance tied to prior work.\nAged adults in poverty are far more likely to live alone than aged adults overall (50.2% compared to 28.7%).",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": true,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "encoding": "utf-8",
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R44698",
          "sha1": "983b6d17c566bc7f742036e4fe681e4c23528891",
          "filename": "files/20161130_R44698_983b6d17c566bc7f742036e4fe681e4c23528891.html",
          "images": null
        },
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R44698",
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      ],
      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "IBCList",
          "id": 4890,
          "name": "Poverty"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Domestic Social Policy",
    "Economic Policy"
  ]
}