Human poverty index, Poverty and race

Human poverty index

The United Nations Development Programme, uses the human poverty index in order to assess the development with regards to poverty among OECD countries. The index takes the likelihood of a child not surviving to age 60, functional illiteracy rate, long-term unemployment and the population living on less than 50% of the median national income into account. While the United States has the second lowest long-term unemployment rate in the developed world, it has the highest percentage of children who are not likely to live to age 60 and persons living on less than 50% of the national median income and the third highest percentage of adults lacking functional literacy skills.

Poverty and race
The US Census declared that in 2007 - 12.5% of all people, including
- 10.5% white people
- 24.5% black people
- 21.5% all Hispanic people of any race, lived in poverty.
Poverty and age
The US Census declared that in 2007
- 12.5% of all people including
- 18% of all people under age 18
- 10.9% of all people 19-64, and
- 9.7% of all people ages 65 and older, lived in poverty
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) uses a different measure for poverty and declared in 2008 that child poverty in the US is 20% and poverty among the elderly is 23%.