The Pew Hispanic Center reported on data from the Census Bureau yesterday that highlights that Latinos have the highest percentage of people living in poverty than any other group. If you recall, we reported previously that Latinos were hit hardest by the recession, largely due to the housing crisis, since they tended to hold about 2/3 of net worth in housing equity.
The new report describes how the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) used by the Census Bureau different factors to measure poverty, including: medical expenses, cost-of-living adjustments, food stamps and free lunch programs and tax credits. So the new SPM poverty measurement shows:
- A higher national poverty rate in 2010 of 16%
- That’s 49.1 million people
- 28.2% poverty rate for Latinos
- 11.1% for whites
- 25.4% for African-Americans
And as Pew points out, it doesn’t really matter which formula the Census uses to determine poverty figures for Latinos, there’s still more of them living in poverty than anybody else
…no matter which measure is used, Hispanics make up nearly three-in-ten of the nation’s poor—28.6% under the official poverty measure and 28.7% under the SPM.
To read the full report click here.
[Photo By Matthiasxc]
