From Jerome Corsi's RED ALERT News Letter comes the following sobering statistics on poverty in America.  

Statistics released just last week indicated that unemployment and poverty in the United States might be much larger in the first two years of the Obama administration than had been previously reported.

Under a revised formula, the Census Bureau reported that the overall poverty rate in 2009 stood at 15.7 percent, or 47.8 million people, compared to the previously announced official 2009 rate of 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million, that the Census Bureau had reported in September, the Associated Press reported.

15 shocking poverty statistics

In September, Michael Snyder, writing on his Economic Collapse blog published 15 "shocking poverty statistics," a list that began with the two key findings summarized above:

1) Approximately 45 million Americans were living in poverty in 2009;

2) In 2010, the largest number of Americans was living in poverty since the government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959, despite trillions of dollars being spent since Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in 1965;

3) The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development;

4) According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, on a year-over-year basis, the number of households participating in the food stamp program has increased more than 20 percent;

5) The number of Americans on food stamps approached 43 million for the first time ever in December;

6) As of December, the number of Americans on food stamps had set a new all-time 27-year record, with one of every seven Americans now receiving food stamps;

7) One out of every six Americans is now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program;

8) More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid, the U.S. government health-care program designed to help the poor;

9) One out of every seven mortgages in the United States was either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010;

10) Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, is almost four times as many as were receiving it in 2007;

11) The number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen more than 60 percent in the last year;

12) Approximately 28 percent of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job;

13) Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 30 percent in the 12-month period ending June 30;

14) More than 25 percent of all Americans now have a credit score below 599, marking them as poor risks for lenders;

15) One out of every five children in the United States is now living in poverty.

And yet we are being led to believe that things are getting "better".  The question is for whom?