One In Seven Americans Are Below The Poverty Line

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Sep 12, 10:33PM EDT · Published Sep 12, 8:32AM EDT

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US poverty levels are likely to post a record increase for 2009, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels, according to the AP

Census figures for 2009, to be released in next week, will probably show a significant increase in poverty rates among US citizens to close to 15%

Nearly 45 million in the United States, or more than 1 in 7, were poor in 2009. This means the US will have its highest single-year increase in the poverty rate since the government began tracking poverty figures in 1959.

The previous high was in 1980 when the rate jumped 1.3 points to 13% at the height of the energy crisis.

Experts say the ranks of the working-age poor are approaching the levels of the 1960s which caused the beginning of the the national war on poverty.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.