Andrew L. Yarrow is a senior research advisor at Oxfam America who studies inequality and low-wage work in the US.

Americans are struggling. The middle class is disappearing. Younger generations may not do as well as their parents.

None of this is news. Yet, behind the widespread recognition that our economy remains sour well into the “recovery” is the troubling reality that 1 in 3 Americans—more than 100 million people—struggle to make ends meet, living in poverty or “near poverty,” based on income thresholds set by the Census Bureau.

While there is much talk about the dangers of our nearly $17 trillion federal debt, there is little public discussion of the even greater economic crisis that consigns 50 million people to poverty and tens of millions more to low-wage jobs that barely lift them out of poverty. That is why Oxfam America has launched Voices on US Poverty, an initiative intended to stimulate discussion about US poverty. Essays from more than two dozen writers, which are being published in news media throughout the country, consider the specific challenges facing poor families and children, immigrants, minorities, and the working poor, as well as the broader nature of economic injustice. They bring such perspectives as economics, theology, journalism and social activism, and offer ideas on how to truly fix our economy in ways that benefit all Americans.

Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr.

“There are clearly moral and economic problems when millions of Americans are desperate for work and unable to meet their families’ basic needs,” Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt and Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr., two military leaders participating in Oxfam’s initiative, write.

“A free-market system that does not provide opportunities for all of us to succeed undermines one of our most convincing arguments against totalitarian regimes and state-run economies that often oppose our interests abroad,” they say.

What does it mean to be poor? Wealth and poverty are relative terms that vary greatly over time and by country. The World Bank defines poverty as “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” This can mean that people are unable to meet basic human needs (housing, food, clothing, health care), but in the US it can also mean that they struggle to stay afloat with jobs that pay just a few dollars above the US$7.25-per-hour minimum wage, with no benefits or job security. These are not the desperately poor in developing countries who live on less than $2 a day, but they are American men and women and families who can barely afford a cheap apartment and groceries, who patronize pawn shops and payday lenders, who can’t afford to get sick, and who are likely to have more debt than savings. Government benefits and charity help them—somewhat, but not enough to enable them to lead decent lives.

The numbers are chilling:

• One in six Americans lives below the federal poverty line, with incomes less than $11,722 a year for an individual and $23,497 for a family of four.
• The number of people in poverty is the highest in the 53 years that statistics have been collected, and the poverty rate has risen every year since 2006.
• Another one-sixth of Americans lives in near poverty, with incomes between the poverty level and twice the poverty level.
• About 6.6 percent of Americans, or 20.4 million people, live in severe poverty, with incomes less than half of the poverty threshold, or about $5,800 for an individual and $11,700 for a family of four.
• Forty-four percent of children live in poverty or near poverty.
• More than half of African Americans and Hispanics have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.

The picture looks even worse using an alternative measure of poverty developed by the National Academy of Sciences and the Census Bureau. Under this new Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account regional differences, health care, housing, payroll tax and other costs, as well as government benefits. (See comparison of the measures below.) The number of Americans with incomes below twice the poverty level shoots up to about 150 million, or half the entire population.

“Poverty is about power, not scarcity,” Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president writes. “As Americans, we believe that our nation must lead. Poverty and inequality, and the social exclusion they breed, are wrongs to be righted, whether they occur in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or the United States.”

Andrew L. Yarrow is a senior research advisor at Oxfam America who studies inequality and low-wage work in the US.

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs numbers, released earlier this month, suggest an economy on the mend, with unemployment down to 7.7 percent, the lowest level since Barack Obama took office. While the President can rightfully claim that nearly five million private-sector jobs have been created on his watch, what we don’t see in the numbers is that a disturbingly high proportion of these are less than desirable jobs paying less than livable wages.

The good news is that America, unlike many European economies, is creating jobs; and the number of high-skill, higher-wage jobs is going up. However, the bad news is that the majority of new jobs in the US are low-wage, and the US has a much higher proportion of low-wage jobs than other rich countries.

Three of five jobs created between the summer of 2009 and the summer of 2012 pay less than $13.83 per hour, while only one of five jobs created during this period pay more than $21.14 per hour, according to the National Employment Law Project. Indeed, despite much rhetoric about bringing back manufacturing jobs or creating highly skilled, well-paying “jobs of the future” in science and technology fields, the stark reality is that a growing share of the workforce is being consigned to low-wage jobs.

While definitions of low-wage work vary, by most estimates, one-quarter to one-third of the nation’s 143 million workers are in occupations that barely lift them out of poverty. These are the store clerks, health aides, restaurant workers, laborers, and others who earn, on average, about $10 per hour or just $20,000 a year (usually less).

These workers are also much less likely than higher-paid workers to receive benefits or have job security. Only 34 percent of workers in the bottom quarter of the wage distribution receive employer-provided health insurance, and only 29 percent get paid sick leave—compared with 92 percent and 84 percent among those in the top quarter, according to the Labor Department.

And most of these workers need steady and significant incomes: they are neither young nor single. Eighty-eight percent are over 20 and most are over 30; 28 percent are parents of school-age children. In the 16 million families headed by parents who earn less than $11.50 an hour and may have irregular schedules, children certainly feel the effects; they may face hours without parental supervision and support.

The increase in low-wage jobs and the decrease of mid-wage jobs are contributing to the nation’s increasing division between the prosperous and the poor (and near poor). And just as America has become the world’s most economically unequal rich nation, it also has become the country with the highest proportion of low-wage jobs. Whereas one-quarter of US jobs are low-wage, just 11 percent of French jobs and 8 percent of Italian jobs were classified as low wage by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Despite the cheery talk about how the US can create millions of well-paying jobs if only we invest in education, present trends do not augur well. Without dramatic changes in our economy, many jobs of the future are likely to pay poorly. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the proportion of low-wage jobs will remain unchanged in 2020. And the Labor Department projects that the two fastest-growing occupations of the 2010s are personal care aides and home health aides, whose median annual wages stand at about $20,000.

While raising the minimum wage would not solve these problems, it could help. The federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 an hour—40 percent below what it was in 1968 in inflation-adjusted terms. If it were raised to the 1968 level, it would jump to $10.55 an hour, and would dramatically benefit nearly 30 million Americans. The Rebuild America Act, introduced this year by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), would raise the minimum wage to $9.80 and index it to inflation. While this measure stands little chance of passing, our political debate needs to go beyond mere calls for “creating jobs” to creating jobs that pay livable wages.