Number of poor reaches record high

As we've been saying for quite a long time, yes, there has been class warfare in America but it's not the way repugicans like to spin it. The new numbers - 1 in 15 - are staggering, but not surprising. When the country was drunk on credit, people were more willing to overlook the hard reality of the class warfare that started during the Reagan years. Now that the credit allusion is gone, many of the 99% people are demanding a new model.

This has to change.

"There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners," said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. "Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover."

Traditional inner-city black ghettos are thinning out and changing, drawing in impoverished Hispanics who have low-wage jobs or are unemployed. Neighborhoods with poverty rates of at least 40 percent are stretching over broader areas, increasing in suburbs at twice the rate of cities.

Once-booming Sun Belt metro areas are now seeing some of the biggest jumps in concentrated poverty.