Statistics Show Stock Market Wealth Doesn’t Curb Poverty In America

Today, the Census Bureau released poverty statistics for 2010. The data show that, even while the Wall Street economy continued its economic recovery last year, the rate of Americans living in poverty increased – to 15.1 percent.

This separation between corporate valuation and the economy of the America’s most financially troubled citizens would put a stop to Republican presidential candidates’ proposals to lower taxes on corporations – if presidential candidates were committed to a rational discussion of the economy. Increasing wealth held by corporations and the investor class is not trickling down. Instead, it looks as if corporations and investors have been hoarding wealth at the expense of the Americans at the bottom of the economic scale.

Is this an aberration? Is there a long-term link between Wall Street wealth and the ability of Americans to escape from poverty? Curious, I took the chart of poverty statistics from today’s Census Bureau report, and placed another graph over it – this one of the Dow Jones Industrials Average, over the same range of time.

This chart shows that, starting in the 1980s, the Dow Jones has enjoyed remarkable growth in value, but Americans have not been lifted out of poverty as a result. Going all the way back to 1959, as far as poverty statistics have been measured, we can see that there’s no relationship between the poverty rate and the success of Wall Street.

As a side note, “Welfare reform” hasn’t seemed to help America’s poor, either. Right now, the rate of Americans living in poverty is just about the same as “Welfare As We Know It” was ended by Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.