Economic Report:

More than 40 years after the start of the war on poverty, how is the U.S. doing? Not very well according to a recent survey of mayors across the country. The poverty rate in the U.S. is currently 12.3 percent – in 1967 that rate was 14.2 percent. However, many of those polled said the official government number is far below what is actually necessary to survive. The federal government currently considers a family of three with an income of less than $17,170 as in poverty, but 30 percent of the mayors said a family of that size really needs at least $30,000 a year.